Terry Beeson

Wasn't doubting you, Dano. Just that I did guess the GBG and GBF as being WF and DT. My "natural" deduction then went to the 7F as the weight designation. I know the weight designation of a line is the grain weight of the first 30 feet of line (past the initial tip) with an 8 wt being 210 +/- 8 grains. But why would the old "GBG GBF" designation make it an 8 wt, Gavin? I thought these two had to do with the taper only. This may just be a good history lesson.

Why, Steve... Just what are you inferring? Actually, coming from an old "plastics" background, I was not really surprised to find out about this. Cellulose (plant cell wall material) is the basis of the plastics development in the early 20th century. It's only "natural" that we seem to be coming "full circle" to some degree. Great Scott! We"re already halfway to a flux capacitor that will develop 1.21 jigawatts with a banana peel, two ounces of beer, and a beer can!

Carrot invention to revolutionise fishing rods Published: 09 February, 2007 CARROTS are about to give fishing enthusiasts across the UK a revolutionary new range of rods that deliver advanced performance levels for strength, stiffness, weight and toughness, while being the most environmentally friendly hi-tech rods the sport has ever seen. The material at the heart of this revolution in rod design is CurranTM which is now set to revolutionise product performance in everything from fishing rods to snowboards and car parts. Invented by two fishing mad scientists and entrepreneurs, CurranTM will herald a new age of environmentally friendly products. Through a top secret process, nano fibres found in carrots are extracted and combined with high tech resins enabling tough, durable components to be moulded to whatever shape, degree of stiffness, strength or lightness required. The Just Cast range of high performance fishing rods will offer lengths of 7.5 – 10 feet and will be officially unveiled on 16 March at the Go Fishing Show 2007 in Birmingham. Lightness, outstanding power for superior distance casting and ultimate rod control for all weather fishing are among the benefits that the company claims enthusiasts will experience from the Just Cast range. As well as retailing direct to consumers, talks are taking place with some of the biggest brands in the fishing equipment market. With colourful backgrounds that have taken them from university research to being involved in advanced aerospace technologies and helping build ancient weapons of war for ITN Factual, CurranTM inventors Dr David Hepworth and Dr Eric Whale are poised to revolutionise manufacturing. CurranTM is said to be one of the first major materials innovations since the introduction of carbon fibre fishing rods over thirty years ago. David said: “The Just Cast range offers unique power and control in all environments and being the most environmentally friendly product on the market it will help fisherman safeguard the environment they take so much pleasure from.” He added: “When assessing what market offered us the best entry opportunity we opted for the sporting goods market as it is more receptive to new materials. There is a £7 billion market worldwide for fishing rods and Europe, which will be our initial target, is one of the biggest individual markets.” A client of Scottish Enterprise’s High Growth Start-Up Unit, David and Eric’s company CelluComp was launched in 2004 with funding secured from a Scottish Executive SMART Award, Scottish Enterprise Business Growth Fund, Halifax Bank of Scotland loan and founder equity. CelluComp now aims to achieve rapid growth and David and Eric are already at work on extending the range of rods and their next product venture. Campbell Murray, Head of the Scottish Enterprise High Growth Start-Up Unit, said: “The flexibility of CurranTM and the performance it can deliver opens up a wide number of market opportunities. This is continuing proof that Scottish companies are at the forefront of technological innovation on a global level.”

Ah... just like a boy scout... ALWAYS prepared... HEY Steve, those "snow snakes" are quite deadly, ya know!

Hey Steve... Be sure you get with Harry and at least cast on of his rods.... SAAAAHHHH-WEEEEEEEET!!!!!! I'm savin' my penneys so that when I grow up, I can have a Harry Boyd rod... In the immortal words of Wayne Campbell: "It will be mine... Oh, yes... It WILL be mine!!!" "I mean, there are two Darren Stevens, right? Dick York and Dick Sargeant. Yeah, right, as if we wouldn't notice. Oh hold on: Dick York, Dick Sergeant, Sergeant York... Wow, that's weird." Party on, Garth!!

Welcome aboard, troutster... Dano is right... You'll find more information than you need on here...

Ben Franklin wrote: "I wish that the bald eagle had not been chosen as the representative of our country, he is a bird of bad moral character, he does not get his living honestly, you may have seen him perched on some dead tree, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the labor of the fishing-hawk, and when that diligent bird has at length taken a fish, and is bearing it to its nest for the support of his mate and young ones, the bald eagle pursues him and takes it from him... Besides he is a rank coward; the little kingbird, not bigger than a sparrow attacks him boldly and drives him out of the district. He is therefore by no means a proper emblem for the brave and honest...of America.... For a truth, the turkey is in comparison a much more respectable bird, and withal a true original native of America... a bird of courage, and would not hesitate to attack a grenadier of the British guards, who should presume to invade his farmyard with a red coat on." The truth is, many view the Bald Eagle as nothing more than a "vulture" and blame them for killing wildlife and livestock (chickens mainly.) For this reason, many farmers do not like them and have indicated they would like to kill them to keep them off their farm. This is not limited to the eagle, but to hawks and other similar birds as well. Then you have the "redneck" types who simply view them as a "live target" and get a bit of short lived excitement out of killing them. They view them as nothing more than an animal with no regard for them above an armadillo or skunk. I certainly don't agree with this view and it IS a federal offense to kill an eagle. I've witnessed as many as 24 of these birds surrounding the watershed lake located on my farm back home. They do love an area with a lot of chicken houses in the area - especially when dead birds were just thrown in a ditch (yes, the eagle IS a scavenger.) They are beautiful to view sitting on a perch waiting for a fish to show up and it is a sight to behold when they swoop down and capture their meal from the water's surface.

Yes, but the money is earmarked to clean up the development site an not the river itself. Yes, this is good news for sure, but you should be concerned that your tax dollars are going to be spent to clean up this mess that was not caused by accident. Now the dollars we spend on license and probably the 1/8 cent sales tax dollars are going to go to that effort. The guilty party should be paying this half-million dollars PLUS the clean up of the river. I'll give Beebe the benefit of the doubt. At least he's doing SOMETHING!

I was sure the 7f made it a 7 wt rod, but hey... how should I know? Welcome to the forum, Buffaloman... Isn't Conolon starting to make fly rods again?

Exactly, Steve... By the way... My Dodge pickup was made in Mexico... Toyota pickups are made in the US... go figure...

I'm still waiting on comments about the "Big Green Egg"...

Ah, but Steve, my dear friend from Oz... You have to get your fly out there in order to FISH out there. You can either let line out and mend or you can CAST upstream 100 ft and let it drift downstream 100 ft... THUS increasing YOUR 150 ft drift by another thirty three and a thrid percent... I should add, cast upstream (however far), drift that distance, the same distance downstream, then strip it back to you. That covers the MOST water and keeps your fly in the fish's house the longest. I think if I had an 80 ft rod, I could cast 100 feet... Better yet... just use more and bigger dynamite!!!

Oh, but I LOVE my job, Tim... Dang... where did that lightning come from? But, if I'm taking off work, I'll go to Taney or BSD or the Spring...

Been there, done that, got the tee shirt... As for dubbing, "less is more" has always been the rule of thumb for most tiers. Are you going to make any of Sowbug? You could get a good dubbing lesson from SEVERAL really good tiers there...

FORD = F ix O r R epair D aily!

BLAME CANADA! RESPECT MY AUTHORITY! Ask Mike Rowe from "Dirty Jobs" what's in charcoal... As for lighting charcoal... NO LIGHTER FLUID! I use the draft lighting cans. A couple pages of newspaper and you can have nice glowing charcoal before you know it!

Please don't take these comments the wrong way, but if you ask 100 "experienced" fly fishermen on their preference for a rod, you will get about 110 different answers. I know guys that SWEAR by G Loomis. The next one will tell you Sage puts G Loomis to shame. The next guy thinks TFOs are worth TEN Sages. The next guy thinks St Croix hung the moon and the next will tell you there are no rods other than Winston. Echo, Orvis, Reddington, SA... the list goes on and on... Of course, now there is an ad in the fly fishing magazines touting "The Perfect Rod Defined." As I said before, it's akin to asking which pickup is the best. The thing is, Greg has the two rods in question. But there were two commments he made that I would wonder about - "custom built" and "pre IPC." Am I saying Greg's opinion is wrong? Certainly not! This is his opinion and "2 cents" just as he said. He even stated that both are very fine rods and his preference was due to the fact the Sage FLi is "just a little faster than I prefer." The other part of this is that I'm willing to bet that if you blindfolded 10 guys and asked them to cast each of the rods in question and tell you which one was the Sage and which one was the St Croix, half would get it wrong. And if you ask them which was the BETTER rod, half would say the Sage half the St Croix. I own St Croix, Sage, and TFOs. You want my opinion? I've cast both the above rods and I like the Sage FLi better. It fits ME. But, for the money I would buy a TFO TiCr X series over the other two any day. Does that make any of the others bad? Not in the least. And the next time I shop for a rod, I may cast a TFO, G Loomis, Sage, Winston, and St Croix and decide I like something OTHER than TFO... (I hope Rick Pope isn't reading this... ) But that's just me... and I'm a Dodge man...

OK... the zebra midges look pretty good from here, but is the bead the right size? Did you put it on "backwards" with the larger hole towards the eye? Is that why it's covering the eye? What do you mean by the "gap between the bead and hook shank?" The larger hole in the bead should be opposite the eye and I use a couple turns of lead pushed up in the bead to help hold it in place. Then I build up some thread right behind the bead to hold the lead in and give the body to head a bit of natural taper. The scud looks OK except maybe the wire ribbing is too large for the size hook you're using. Plus, what type of dubbing are you using? I like mine to look a bit "fuzzy and buggy" for some action in the water. Gives the scud a more natural live look. You can use a small rubber band for the back instead of V-rib which makes a nice looking scud.

The first time I met Zach Matthews, he was slipping into the water at Rim Shoals on the White. I was fishing just off the access when this guy comes strolling down the ramp with a stripping basket on his hip (not your everyday sight on the White) and a fly rod at least TWICE the length of my 8 1/2 ft 5 wt. I had no idea about Spey Casting, but soon learned it was a sight to see. Later, some conversations with Zach and some of my fishing buddies for the day revealed that Zach was spey casting in order to "reach out and touch" some fish at a longer distance. As I remember, Zach wanted to cover a LOT of water with one drift and would cast a much greater distance than the 20-40 feet most of us even attempt. A spey rod afforded him this option. Now looking at the width of the White at places like Rim and others, I can certainly see an advantage in being able to "reach out and touch" some areas that would hold fish. However, I'm not sure how important that is to catching fish. Maybe the "big trophies" are out there in the distance and we "short liners" just don't come to their house. But then I've watched big browns jump over my rod tip and try to pick my back pocket. I suppose it's just another play in the fly fishing playbook...

Let's see... Brand, material, model, weight, length, action... I wonder just how many combinations there really are? Steve, You probably need a Harry Boyd 9 ft bamboo 7 wt with a Dickerson taper... or would a fiberglass 10 ft medium action be more to your liking? So many rods... so little time...

And 6,000 fishermen...

I agree with Phil about the low profile. Get some "store bought" jigs that work and put them in a glass of water or fish tank. Look at the profile... very slim. The jigging action that flares the maribou is what gets the fish's attention... at least that's MY opinion. And strung maribou is a godsend...

I was wondering that, too... But hasn't Taney/TRD been roaring a lot lately Phil? Well, wherever you're headed... have a good trip Whodat!

I use to do a LOT of cooking on my deck and depending on what I was cooking and how big a hurry I was in, I rotated from charcoal and gas. I LOVE my gas grill for a steak meal, rotisserie chicken, or even burgers when I'm in a "hurry." I had a true "gas" grill (hooked to my natural gas line, not propane) and would get home from work, throw some veggies in an aluminum foil pack, fire up the grill, slap some meat on the grill with the foil packs, add a couple of slices of Texas toast towards the end, and have dinner ready in no time. In the summer, this saved a lot on the A/C bill and in the winter, was a nice change from "indoor" cooked food. As for smoking, the chip box is OK, but will never take the place of a good charcoal smoker with chips. Of course the BEST smoking is to use a true wood smoker with the firebox on one side and the smoke chamber seperate. Of course, if Hank Hill were to see this smoker set-up, his comment would be "just kill me now..." If you've never tried the veggie foil pack, you are missing out! This works on either gas or charcoal. Frozen veggies of your choice Diced potatoes Onion Garlic - minced or chopped Seasonings to taste - Lemon pepper, cajun, Greek, or whatever "melts your butter." Speaking of butter, PLENTY of butter or margarine( BLASPHEMY!) Mix all but the butter, place on foil (or in foil pack) and put butter on top. Close up the pack or fold the foil to form a pack. Try to get all the air out of the foil pack. Place on grill - if you have a "bread rack" on the lid, this is the best place to put the packs. Cook until the foil puffs and is sizzling - long enough for the veggies to all get cooked through. Depending on heat, could be 10 minutes, could be half hour or even more. Get ready to enjoy some GREAT veggies!

(Using my best Dan Akroyd voice) "JSCHEETZ, YOU IGNORANT SL...." oh... wait... that should be "MALLARD, YOU IGNORANT SL..." oh... wait... awwww.... nevermind....