Fly or Not ?

[fishinwrench]

25 minutes ago, Flysmallie said:

Purist fly fishermen in Missouri are the fakest people alive. 

Hardly.   😏 

The fakest people I've ever known to be alive, were either politicians, preachers, cops, or single mothers on dating sites.  None of which even owned a flyrod.  

[FishnDave]

You could also always swap out the rubber legs for hackle or other feather / fur fibers.

 

[tjm]

For a long time my favorite hopper was a Hornberg Special, but recently I just throw Elk Hair caddis up against the bank or use a foam beetle.

On tippets, I experimented  quite a bit in a nice clear spring pond back east, and using night crawlers, over a several week time frame, determined that given two baits on different size leaders the trout would  always take the smallest leader down as fine as 8X over 7X , but given two baits on the same size leaders they took one or the other randomly up to 20# gold Stren, so there is an argument for finer leaders, but trout aren't smart enough to know that and will take on pretty heavy stuff. I like sizing the tippet to the fly so that I get the degree of motion that I want.

[fishinwrench]

1 minute ago, FishnDave said:

You could also always swap out the rubber legs for hackle or other feather / fur fibers.

 

Neat!  👍

[tjm]

2 minutes ago, FishnDave said:

You could also always swap out the rubber legs for hackle or other feather / fur fibers.

If we are going to that effort why not just use all fur, feathers and hair? The rubber is legal.

[FishnDave]

1 minute ago, tjm said:

If we are going to that effort why not just use all fur, feathers and hair? The rubber is legal.

Just another option.  

[tjm]

I like natural materials and rarely use synthetics, except for  gurglers and beetles. I like changing and adapting things too.

 

I don't like calling casting gear and lures flies for use on "fly only" waters.  Either better define fly and fly fishing or drop the pretense of "special regulations".

[fishinwrench]

3 hours ago, tjm said:

I like natural materials and rarely use synthetics

The second you start your thread on the hook shank, you've broken THAT rule.   😏 😅

[Flysmallie]

4 hours ago, fishinwrench said:

Hardly.   😏 

The fakest people I've ever known to be alive, were either politicians, preachers, cops, or single mothers on dating sites.  None of which even owned a flyrod.  

I stand corrected. 

[Flysmallie]

4 hours ago, FishnDave said:

You could also always swap out the rubber legs for hackle or other feather / fur fibers.

 

Those are cool. I like hackle on flies like that better than rubber legs. All my best gurglers only get hackle for legs.