Mark K

I can believe that with a fly rod. not only is there more stretch but you have an additional 2-3 feet of (more) flexible rod. We fish pretty frequently, usually ponds. Yes the braids are definitely easier to set a hook.

So I switched back to mono after about oh...15 or 20 years of nothing but braids and fused lines. This was for my recent trip to Sylvania, reasons being I feel that braid is too unforgiving stretch wise and it makes it easier for the fish to throw the hook. I always felt it was easier to "slingshot" a stuck jig out of the rocks with braid than mono if that illustrates it. So the jury is still out. I think by the end of the trip after I had finally got my hooks down the mono was significantly better and pretty much lost none. We fished wacky rigged Senko type baits on the wacky jig heads with fine wire weed gaurds. Get this, I almost positive that the weedgaurd helps hold the fish on. i should have photoed this but it keeps the hook from flopping around by acting like sort of a spring. But back on to the line- the adjustment to go from braid to mono hookset wise was very significant. I only got used to it after loosing a lot of fish. By comparison, you REALLY have to drill the fish to pin 'em. The kids never really got the hang of it. I also may have made the mistake of setting them up with too light of line 6lb vs 8lb. I figured it would cast better and it did. My rod had 8lb Suffix Elite-clear. They had Trilene XL- clear green. Theirs felt much more supple- don't know if it was the gauge or the brand but I would not buy that one again for a spinning reel. Actually I thought the 6lb stuff casted and behaved really, really well. It's a pleasure to use. I also fished the first day on Helen Lake which is not so clear as some of the other Lakes, its eutrophic and that first day I used my lefty bait caster with 12lb XT and a St Croix Legend Tournament 6'8 rod- a really nice stick. I'll probably get nicer reel for that one scale it down to 10lb (maybe fluorocarbon?) mono and that would be the one go-to rod I take up there. It would be kind of nice to get the barbless thing down. I would switch to it 100%, fish get way tore up less and hell of a lot less worry about getting yourself;f hooked. Any opinions would be appreciated.

LOL. It's Illinois, you might get have to buy a sticker for your waders too.

I get that, but they would not have the opportunity to purchase one since float tubes probably don't have serial numbers and such. You can't really ban the activity of float tubing, because some people litter and make a mess. That would be a dangerous road to go down. By that logic fishing should be banned, because fishermen leave behind their garbage all the time.

not sure exactly what you are talking about- pool toys. But right now you need a serial #, make and model and color.

That is true. I didn't see the number, but like I said further upon this thread, a landowner offered to let me park on his property. And it would be a really nice gesture to leave a 20 dollar bill or a gift card. But like Joe and the IDNR officer I spoke to mention, if you venture anywhere off that person's property, you are potentially trespassing. so my question is, how does a cop know when he gets called who owns what property? Seems to me there must be some kind of map somewhere to designate where the property lines are. Where questions like JoeR's could be answered. The county building? Does the landowner with the complaint come out with a survey when you get busted?

How much does it weigh? Seems like a lot of the boats these days weight goes out the window.

Flickr is free but you have to sign up for a yahoo email account. It is pretty handy for sharing images too- it will automatically shrink them for you igf you want.

No prob, I was curious myself. You know every-time I went there I was pretty much on edge. Am I going to come back to a flat tire or a ticket on the windshield. I would like to know, exactly who owns what on there. I not sure how one would go about doing that. Just so you know, fishing wise, fishing wise you'll hear a lot about the Mazon, from what I fished it's pretty good for numbers but most of the fish are not real big. Yeah, every now and agin someone pulls a hog out but for the most part it's a lot of 10-12" fish. Also of that stretch I described which is a major chunk of the whole river, the LONG last stretch is a lot of slow moving mud bottom carp water. I used to float it with my buddy which a square stern canoe and we used to just blow there with a trolling motor to get to Pine bluff and take out. Prior to that there is some fun riffle/pool riffle/pool stuff and like Bart said it's really scenic, but a hog factory it's not. beyond Pine bluff I have never explored and the IDNR owns that. It's legal to go in there but there is a lot of down trees so paddling might not work. I am also pretty sure it's closed part of the year due to nesting birds.

Flickr gives you a TB of storage for free.

The conservation officer got back to me and confirmed pretty much what I thought. It's a non-navigable, non public waterway and there are landowners that own the stream bed. It's pretty much all private property and you can be arrested for... quote... criminal trespassing. He was on his way to check on someone who was parked roadside. A land owner called. You would need to get permission from landowners and "there might be 10 of them in a 1 mile stretch". After our conversation, I would not go back.

Send me a pm when you want to go. It would help to have some around when I clock myself in the back of the head with one of those flies.

In the grand scheme of things Gordon, you are correct and unfortunately I think they have won this battle. It's already pretty much game over, maybe for a generation or two,. Money pretty much controls everything. Did you ever read "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayne Rand? she talks about the the dollar sign " $" being basically the letters "U.S" laid on top of each other. When I read it I thought it was whacky, but the older I get, when it comes to pretty much any issue in politics all you have to do is "follow the money".

I knew Craig a long time ago from some of the early days of the ISA and I sat next to him at a few shows. Honestly I don't know if he would even remember me. Super nice guy in person. I never got the chance to fish with him but I had multiple people tell me that they have and he is really a fishing machine. So when it comes to it he is really up for the task. He gave me a bunch of flies, that I still have and hand illustrated drawings of how to tie them. Really nice stuff, so nice that I did not want to fish with them. His fly tying and fishing is way over my head. My skill set ends prettty much at poppers and bugs and dumb fish will respond to random flailing. One of the flies Craig did was one he called "Receding Hare". I had a lot of luck with that one, a black one. It's also pretty simple to tie.

I changed my mind. I would rather just argue.

The tricky part is in political discussion is not preaching to the choir with people who agree with you and not bickering with people who don't. Real discussion. Don't happen much these days.

TU is 501 C3, not sure why i thought ISA was. That makes sense. Nothing good is going to come out of political debates on a fishing site and I totally get what you are saying. "bashing" is defined as "severe criticism". In the next few years as these issues come up and articles like the the TU one on the Clean Water Rule, a "certain person's" name is likely to be attached to it in some way. I don't really see that as constituting "bashing". Do you?

Just curious. It dawned on me the other the day, the ISA has non profit status right? and as I understand it, non-profits (like churches) can't back political candidates and maintain that status. i won't pretend that I understand all that, is that correct? So is that the reasoning for that policy? Or am I totally off base and it is it just to avoid endless bickering over politics completely unrelated to conservation of Illinois smallmouth and their habitats. I get that for sure. Who needs that headache? Or is it a combination of the two or another reason. How do you exactly define a "political discussion"? Who decides this, and how?

Understood. Whenever the word "grassroots" came up, your face always popped up in my head. You are a darn good person Mike, and that is the best compliment I can pay to anyone. If you want to hook up sometime, I'll show you some dandy ponds.

According to this EPA blog it does. https://blog.epa.gov/blog/2015/06/clean-water-rule-and-agriculture/

That farmer's argument to me was pretty weak.

Here is a descent video explaining both sides. Yeah, I am with TU on this one.

Can you elaborate?

I emailed the conservation officer from Grundy county just to ask out of curiosity.

One of the reasons the land owners are so uppity is that the Mazon is known for fossils. If you go to a museum anywhere in the world, they are likely to have a section of "Mazon Creek fossils". Collectors used to go in there with shovels and such and tear up the banks. There is a book called "Paddling Illinois" by Mike Svob. You will find detailed maps in there.