Rob G

WadeT, I was going thru your gallery of fly photos and I noticed that you hadn't given names to all your fly creations. Come on now, where is the fun in that. You have to give them a ridiculous name or it isn't a true fly pattern

John, I don't know about the part where the rockies taste like shrimp but I do find them tasty. We catch a ton of them fishing for walleye during the darkness of night in WI every year and so I have not yet kept any here at home to eat. I might just have to keep a few and compare them to their Wisconsin brethren.

I have to work another booth on Sunday but I'll definitely get over to the tank to catch John's presentation at 1 PM. Looking forward to it.

An issue came up at the last central Illinois meeting, one that I had never thought about and that is this; What do you do when you catch a rock bass, spotted bass, or largemouth bass while fishing for smallmouth in the river? I have always released everything that I catch on the river but am I doing a disservice to the smallmouth? Assuming the largemouth or spotted bass are large enough by law to keep, is it better that I take them out so as to reduce the competition for food in respect to the smallies and at the same time reduce the chances of cross fertilization, hybridization and production of sterile offspring. I often catch a lot of rock bass, should I be keeping the larger ones for table fare, again as to reduce the competition for a limited food supply and allow the smaller ones to remain so as they can become the smallie's table fare? I mean if we can have an impact on the smallies by removing them, would it then not be possible to have a negative impact on other species by removing them and in turn have a positive long term impact on the smallmouth population? What are your thoughts?

Rich, I agree, I might also take a long dry saddle hackle and palmer it tightly from the back to the front, taking care of the bare hook and adding a zillion legs.

Joseph, hope you don't mind if I make it easier for my older eyes

Dispense with the trout mindset, you shouldn't flyfish for smallies the same way you would for trout, a very different species. The one likes to sip smallish hors devours all day while Mr. Smallie wants some meat. Increasing my average fly size yielded not only larger but also more fish at times. I'm not sure that I can tie them too large.

I tried these the past season and really didn't have much luck with them. Has anyone else used these and did you have any success and under what conditions? I probably need to give them some more water time. I think it's a neat looking fly and maybe I should experiment with it more, like tying it in a larger size or throwing a bobber (err..... I mean float indicator) above and attempting the ever popular float and fly.

"Yours is a theory that already works for you and you seem comfortable putting your theory into practice." Joseph, I guess that's my point in that these are just theories of mine but have not been time tested enough to know as fact. I claim to be no expert on smallmouth fishing in rivers as this is something I've just pursued the last couple of years. I'm here to learn and hopefully people will share with me their theories and ideas so I can weigh them against what I have found and ultimately become more knowledgable and therefore more successful on the water. I would rather not stop reading what others have written since their opinions might one day become mine.

Craig, A good friend of mine who used to fish the big time pro bass tour always would have several different rods at the ready and if a bass would hit but miss his bait, rather than cast the same thing again, he would always pick up a different rod and throw a different lure immediately and often get it to hit again. For what it's worth he said this was common practice on the tour.

OUCH.......... But you're right, I definitely need more time practicing. I tend to let too much slack creep in the system and my stop isn't hard enough when lobbing these bricks.

One thing that I'll do and please tell me your thoughts on the matter but if I walk the river to my finishing point and if I decide to retrace my footsteps to get back to my vehicle, I'll almost always change the fly or at least the color dramatically on the way back. My thought is if I just caught fish or at least just showed them something that they may have hit and I didn't pick up on, that they may be hesitant to hit it again. I'm sure they probably don't have long term memory but... maybe they remember for at least an hour or two??

So Ronk, what do you think for this one, about a 3 weight and 6X leader for this magnum zonker Black Bunny Leech?

Joseph, That's a much better idea and would give you many more options. Thanks

Steve, go to youtube and type in Woolly bugger and I think there must be at least 5 people that have posted how to tie them. If you don't care for that format, google "how to tie a woolly bugger" and I'm sure you'll dig up plenty of tutorials. Mark, I didn't weight those two buggers with any additional wire, but I will frequently use .025 or .030 wire, and then to tell them apart in my box, I will often use a different colored bead head like copper to keep them easily identifiable.

Now it seems to me, that my olive bugger tends to perform better when the water clarity is good and the black performs better when the water is more stained. Now I don't know this to be fact but I think these tendencies seem to hold up on my home waters. Does anyone have any general rules that they tend to live by, or in other words, what condtions dictate what color or fly that you first pull out of the box when you reach the water's edge? Again thank you for your thoughts.

Now Joseph, you have to elaborate here. Is it because: A. you don't care for any plastic on a fly B. because you think it's too gimmicky C. it really doesn't do that much or provide more action for an already proven fly D. some other reason E. All of the above

Joseph, on that topic of the "Clouser" model. A while back I had a fellow who wanted me to build for him a St. Croix Clouser rod and so when I was in Park Falls, WI like I am every May, I stopped in to pick up the blank right from the manufacturing shop. The guys in there got a giggle about that model and just told me to purchase a Legend Ultra 9' 8 wt and cut three inches off the base and (in fact slowing the rod ever so slightly) I would have a Clouser special. And then they laughed and said, "But make sure you tell him about all the R & D that went on with that rod"

Joseph and others, I have to ask, Do you like to use those Petitjean heads on your minnow imitations???? I saw those used at a show one time and on a synthetic hair or craft hair minnow imitation, I thought it really had a neat action. I don't have a clue what it would be like in moving water or what it would be like to cast. I was considering tying a few of those to play with. Oh and thanks for all the info on the weed guards as I've only tried one or two of those that you mentioned.

Speaking of heavy mono, just wondering how many make use of mono weed guards ? Thanks for your input

Likewise: what a home computer was projected to look like by the year 2004 vs. the Laptop that I'm actually using. I need one of those big wheels but what the heck is Fortran?

Rich, you're right in that the Sili skin material is kind of pricey but as long as I can keep them out of the darn trees, tied with a stainless hook they will last forever. I don't agree with the fact that it is really hard to work with, once you get the hang of it you can really crank them out, I mean if I can do it then anyone can. Now if I could only say the same thing about size 24 midges.

One more and I'll quit for now. I'm trying to show a few effective flies that are not a Woolly Bugger, (which by the way I use a bunch) For those few that haven't seen this "tie". It's a Gummy Minnow and it really has a nice crippled minnow action just like its larger brethren, the Zoom or Berkley Shad. It does tend to catch some wind on the cast so I tend to use a slightly heavier leader with this one. It is weighted with non-lead wire but it doesn't get deep quickly. We won't get into the whole thing about whether this is even a fly or not because of its construction, I'll leave that for another discussion.

I should just add a note on the fly above. It's made with Puglisi' synthetic hair and has a very nice movement in the water BUT it doesn't get down very deep or at least not very fast so I reserve it for shallow water conditions or at least when they seem to be feeding up. It will at times foul on the hook when casting but then when your casting technique is as poor as mine is, you don't notice it for all the wind knots and tangles in the trees. An old tooth brush with soft bristles works great to comb it out occasionally during use. Oh, and before Craig gives me hell, yes there is some rainbow crystal flash running midline

Craig, if you look real closely you'll see that I always use 6-8 strands of crystal flash in each although the camera doesn't seem to be picking it up well. It's most easily seen in the blown up gray over white. I'm pretty sure I used rainbow crystal flash on the bottom two and root-beer crystal on the orange over brown. You do realize that if you're not semi-color coordinated that the fish will just ignore them