ness

Sounds like a great day. Congrats. That one in the center is a 'trophy'. Farther up you go, the skinnier it gets. You eventually hit some really thick stuff and it gets marshy and hard to walk. I've never ventured above there. I think you hit the good stuff though.

I spend some time on another forum. There was a mean-spirited dude that got a lot of leeway because he excelled at a couple things, and was pretty good about sharing info at times. But, man he could be downright nasty! Others had been banned from there for stuff that was nowhere near his level of nonsense. He finally got banned last week, and dropped dead of an aneurysm a couple days later at 39 years old. No joke. I wonder if he'd do it all the same if he knew what was in store.

Cool. I got my name in a thread! No BBQ for Flysmallie or Cricket. BTW -- Phil: can we get some more manly emoticons? Those little kitten things just don't cut it. I mean, really, what the heck would this be for:

The only real entertainment here has been watching Cricket laughterbate. You're just so cute when you do that Cricket Goodun, Eric. Which makes me think of this:

I must enter a post.

Too darn cold. Just sayin'.

Maybe we should all get together and discuss this around a campfire. A real hot, smoky one.

So, we've narrowed it down to Simms, Patagonia, Orvis, LL Bean and Cabela's, Bass Pro and Albright. Hope this helps

When this question has come up in the past, I've recommended LL Bean waders. But I don't recall anyone ever agreeing or adding a recommendation. Maybe I'm the only guy that wears them. I'm on my second pair. First ones were pretty good, but the second ones are really tough and have features I really like: built-in cuffs, double-thick knees/shins and butt, sturdy support straps and buckles. Just good quality stuff at a reasonable price with a lifetime, no-questions-asked guarantee. Like all their stuff.

Huh?? The first article (a mail-in opinion poll of climate scientists, not a scientific study and a conclusion) says 97% agree temps are up; 84% say humans have something to do with it; 54% say it's outside normal fluctuations. 54% is a push! That article kinda confirms my suspicion that this hasn't really all been figured out. And, to take an extreme -- on either side -- really ignores the accumulated science available at this point. I bought a car ago that I really don't like that gets 50% better gas mileage than my beloved, go-anywhere, 4x4 Explorer. So, I'm suffering for the cause. We all should.

Welcome to the forum, Tim You know, when I hear statistics like '95 percent of climate scientists', the skeptic in me says 'who did THAT poll, where'd they get the list of climate scientists from?' That smells a little like the hyperbole I mentioned earlier, but I don't really doubt there are a lot of scientists who think we have A role. We're just trying to get to how much. I think Coldwaterfshr's point is that you don't wait until after the event to take out the insurance. So, why wait until we have an environmental catastrophe before we worry about it? Why wait until you've got cancer before you start shopping for life insurance? (BTW: Insurance carriers are typically nationwide or global so their risk is diversified, and they further spread the risk around with reinsurance. There is not a substantial 'Louisiana insurance industry' to even bankrupt. And, it's nothing new to not be able to insure, or pay more, for a high risk. Call your homeowner's insurance agent and tell them you got a pit bull and a trampoline and see what happens ).

You've got a valid point -- that the earth is self-cleansing. But, a century to clean it all up? I think that's probably optimistic. Lots of the stuff we've created is gonna last a heck of a lot longer than that. Anybody drink their coffee this morning out of a styrofoam cup or use a plastic fork on your Big Breakfast ™? And that's just stuff I can get my head around. Who knows what the local ABC or XYZ plant is burping up? I don't mind the self-cleansing argument -- unless it's used as an excuse to pollute. That's the mentality that leads people to just dump stuff in the river. As for snowfall and such -- a decade or two is just too short a span to really reach a conclusion. Sure, I remember more snow when I was a kid, but I always figured that's because we had a ball when it snowed. Much more memorable than just another day at Three Trails Elementary. We had an ice age up to about 10,000 years ago. The 'Little Ice Age' up to about 150 years ago; Dust Bowl in the 1930s; midwest drought of the 1990s. It's all over the board, all over the world. But why spend all our effort debating the statistics, when we know that what we're doing is having a negative impact? We've made big messes, and we've also cleaned a lot of them up. Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, EPA etc. have had a major impact. Are they perfect? Hell no. Are there still problems? Hell yes. Are we too slow in reacting most times? Yep. Does that mean we shouldn't try?

Welcome to fly fishing and this forum Jerry. Don't sweat the lingo -- not too many folks here are too worried about the Latin names for insects, or all the other technical BS that you encounter out there. It always boils down to stuff you probably know -- put a bait/lure/fly where it's supposed to be, and learn to make it look like something the fish wants to eat. Then they'll eat it more often than not, and you're in the club. Fly-fishing has all the other elements too: fly-tying, rod-building, being more in-touch with the stream and its natural forage. It's something that you can study and learn for a lifetime. It's more about the subtleties than the raw power of you or your equipment. PS: Don't tell anyone how easy it is -- that'll spoil the mystique.

Dano -- I tend to lean that way too. We really need to look long-term, but that's not a popular stance on this thing -- or anything these days. Temperatures have been rising for thousands of years. How much is 'natural' and how much is man-made? How much can we change, and how much is beyond our power? How much is a threat, and how much is just the way it's gotta be? Podum -- thanks, I'll take a look. There's a 'truth' here somewhere that shouldn't tick anybody off. At least anybody with an open mind (who are the ones whose opinions matter most to me).

Yep those kind of forums would definitely slant it, but I've got a little more faith in the OA community. We're outdoorsy folks by definition, with a better-than-average understanding of the world around us, I'd guess. Polls always have issues. This one, for example, would likely lean more heavily toward the "yes" side if the word "MAJOR" wasn't in there. That implies we know the extent of our impact, when most of us simply don't. The problem for most of us (I know me personally, for sure) is most everything we hear on this topic has been so heavily filtered through someone with an agenda, that none of it passes the smell test in the end. Personally, I don't really care to hear what Al Gore or Rush Limbaugh have to say on the topic. I just don't consider them authorities on the matter. Somebody show me a distilled version of some real-live science dudes who've looked at this pretty hard and have made a determination that doesn't make me wanna say 'Oh, bull****!' and I'll happily read it. But, I'm withholding my vote for now.

I'm in. Put me down for ness' X-tra Terrestrial. Hopefully I can beat the deadline.

Hard to know. It's such a contentious issue that everybody seems to scurry over to their favorite political/ideological side and hide behind a wall of hyperbole. No doubt 9 billion people burning stuff makes it a little warmer.

Out here in the 'burbs there are a whole lot of parents out there pushing their kids, and many seem to take pride in talking about their brutal schedules -- this practice, that tournament, whatever. I've always been of the mind that kids with too much to do, especially sports, are missing out on the 'kid' stuff, so we've always limited that to one sport at a time. Where we live there's a lot of undeveloped land around, and we've always taken time to get out and knock around on it. My babies have been fishing since they were very young, and the boys hunting since they were about 12. Problem for me now is that they're teenagers, and hanging out with dad ranks below almost everything. But I know that's just part of the deal, and they'll come back around someday. Every once in a while I'll get a surprise though: in October we did our annual family get-together at Roaring River, and my 100% girl daughter told me she wanted to fly fish -- which we haven;t done together in several years. Well, the trout gods were smiling on us because she hooked and/or landed about a half-dozen fish in an hour, all on a leetle, tiny white Cahill. Probably another half-dozen looked real hard or took it and spit it. It is always a thrill for me when that happens, but watching her getting thrilled was the best part. Just gotta plant the seed, take them with you when you can, don't make them go if they don't want to, give them something else to do when they're done, and don't make it about yourself. It's gonna be harder and harder to keep the outdoor traditions alive the way things are going though. Rural-area economics have changed so dramatically that they support fewer and fewer people. Small/medium-sized farms just don't support a family on their own. The incredibly cheap foreign labor tempts business to send it overseas, rather than to the small towns. It's sad.

Good stuff, Brian. Amazing watching your little man cast out there and then toss in a perfect mend! And, he's got some good moves too I'm curious how you're doing the time-lapse stuff. In-camera, or with software?

It's human nature to want to cast as long as possible. But in real fishing situations, the distances are typically pretty short (30 to 50 feet). First thing will be to get the timing down right so you're not "cracking the whip". If you're doing that, you're starting your forward cast too early and casting too fast. The idea is to lay the line out behind you parallel to the ground, load the rod, and reverse direction so the line flows out parallel to the ground in front so that the fly lands lightly on the water. Put a fly on the end of the leader but snap off the hook point so you don't hurt anybody. Then practice laying the fly on/in a target. It's great you'll be getting some casting instruction. Hopefully you can get on some moving water with him and learn how to deal with the current, mend line, etc. Good luck.

I'd tie.

That was fun. Lots of good shots, angles, interesting fish. What's the story on the fox? I've never seen one sit still when people are around.

ahhh.... J. Edson Leonard. Leave out the "i" when you hunt.

I'd head over to Amazon.com. They have a huge network of used book dealers. I've bought several old /out-of-print books that way.

I'm a current or former reader of several forums where selling something on post #1 would get you lit up pretty good. Just sayin'.