asherman

The last time that I fished the Kankakee River, (about 3 weeks ago)  I noticed that the river bottom felt different to me through my wading boots.  It felt kind of soft and crunchy.  The river was pretty muddy at the time so I could not see much on the river bottom.   I didn't think much of it at the time.   When I got home after the trip, I rinsed my wading boots and waders in the yard using a garden hose like I always do.

A couple of days ago as I was getting my gear ready to fish the Root River, I noticed that there was what looked like dried mud stuck in the tread of my boots.  I took a closer look at the boots and found a bunch of tiny snail shells stuck in the tread.  I had to use a screw driver to dislodge all of the snail shells from the boots. That seems to explain why the Kankakee river bottom felt kind of crunchy.

Some Internet searches for invasive species of snails in Illinois and the Midwest indicated that the snails could be New Zealand mud snails.  The snail shells that were in my boots (see attached photo)  seem a bit larger than pictures of New Zealand mud snails that were on a link on the IDNR web site, but they look pretty similar.  I called the IDNR and left a message regarding the snails, but I have not heard back from anyone yet.   I would like to know what kind of snails that were on my boots.

I will let you know what happens when and if the IDNR gets back to me.  In the mean time, I am going to start inspecting my boots and waders for contaminants after I rinse them off and dry them.

Is this the color that you are referring to?  This one is tied with Rootbeer Estaz Metallique.  I also tie them in regular Estaz in root beer and black.  They all work.  

I received a text from Don Rego regarding  the passing of Jude Torre on July 19th.  I'm sharing the information with the ISA.

https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/name/jude-torre-obituary?pid=193435208

Jude was a nice, warm, generous person.  He provided me with good information about fishing spots without me asking several times.  I smile when I remember that on my first ISA outing on the Kish, he told me to "cast to that spot".  I did and I caught a 19 inch smallie.  I still have a Jude Bug tied by Jude that he gave me years ago.   That fly will be a keepsake.

Jude will be missed.

Regards,

Alan Sherman

Scott, 

Put me down for number 1.

Ed,  like you, I prefer beer, but Ron liked his Gin and Tonic.

I am truly saddened by this news.  Ron was a great guy and a lot fun to be around.  He made fly fishing trips and ISA outings interesting and enjoyable.  I will miss him.  We will need to down some gin and tonics in his honor at the Blowout next week.

In the past couple of years I have been using leaders that sink slowly,  like Airflo intermediate Poly Leaders or Feathercraft furled fluorocarbon leaders.  In addition to working well with weighted flies, they work great with any floating/diving fly like the Stealth Bomber. The leader is not heavy enough to sink a bouyant fly when sitting still but the leader keeps the tippit under water enough to make it easy to get the fly to dive and make the blurping sound.  You can change the behavior of the fly by switching between mono and fluorocarbon tippit.

For years I have been using Stealth Bomber flies when I want to fish with a floating diver.  I tie them on either #4 or #2 hooks for smallmouth.  These flies dive well and make a nice loud gurgle sound when stripped.  They work very well.

The pattern below is pretty much how I tie them.

Stealth Bomber

I'm going to break down an start using UV Glue products for fly tying. There are lots of UV flashlights for curing UV products with prices ranging from ten bucks to considerably more than that. Does anyone have recommendations for a light that will work well for fly tying UV glues? I don't mind spending a few dollars more for something that is going to do the job.

Thanks,

Alan

I like it. I will have tie some up.

What is great about using Angel Hair on flies is that no matter hard I try to prevent it, the Angel Hair gets distributed throughout the house and leaves sparkly stuff in the carpeting. The sparkly stuff in the carpeting drives my wife crazy. It doesn't bother me a bit.

I use both indicators and floats or whatever you want to call them. Yarn type indicators work well for trout fishing or panfishing where high buoyancy is not critical. With yarn indicators, fish do feel much resistance when they suck in a fly or nymph.

Floats like Thingamabobbers or foam indicators work well for suspending a fly. Using floats with a right angle hook works well, especially when I have enough patience to use them the right way. I really like Airflo Strike indicators. It is easy to adjust the depth with the Airflo indicators and they do not kink up the leader like the thingamabobbers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDwTz7VnqLU

Last year I spooled up a spinning reel, which I use occasionally, with 10 lb mono line. I found that I could not get good hook sets with a 7 foot medium light spinning rod. The hooking results were better using a 6 1/2 foot medium spinning rod which is much stiffer. In general, I felt that I lost more fish due to poor hook sets with the mono line than I did with braid.

I just didn't like the mono line so I went back to Power Pro braided line. I usually tie on a fluorocarbon leader, which provides some stretch in the setup. I have not had problems with losing fish, especially with the medium light rod.

According to the USGS web site, the South Branch of the Kishwaukee river rose 6 feet since yesterday. It is going to be a while before the river is fishable. I have fished the Kish once this year, and it was really too high to fish then. Yuck.

That is horrible news and it is something that could happen to any of us. I feel bad for Mike's family and friends.

Be careful out there and keep your wading belts tight. Consider using a wading staff. Don't ever take the river for granted.

I will bring fruit salad. I hope that no one gets mad at me for bringing something healthy.

Scott,

Are the two openings for August 24 to August 26th still open? I will swap the dates that have on the 13th and 14th and John Loebach and will take the 24th to the 26th.

Let me know.

Alan

Scott,

Put me down for two days as long as it can be during the week of August 13th.

It could be that the fly fisherman that you ran into had a sinking/sink tip line for his seven weight rod and not for his six weight rod.

I have a 5 foot sink tip line for my six weight rod and a 10 foot sink tip line for my seven weight rod along with an intermediate line for my seven weight. I also carry sinking leaders to use when I am on the water with a floating line and I want to get flies down in the water column quickly.

Fly fishing can get complicated if you let it.

I'll be there.

Good sunglasses are important for fishing.

Last year I purchased a pair of Cocoons Photochromic sunglasses to fit over my prescription sunglasses. I bought these glasses with amber lenses to replace an older pair of amber lens Cocoons that were scratched up after years of use. http://www.cocoonsusa.com/photochromic/

The Photochromic Cocoons with the amber lenses seem to work better in low light than the older pair that were polarized without the lenses. These are the glasses that I wear for most of my fishing. I prefer a pair of grey lens Cocoons for driving or fishing in bright, sunny weather.

The downside to Cocoons is that they are not the greatest looking glasses. At this point in my life, I would rather look like the geek that I am and spend money on more fly rods than buy expensive but better looking polarized, graduated bifocal prescription sunglasses.

I have had a Peak vise for quite a while. I like it but with the standard jaws it does slip with hooks larger than size 2 and it is not the best vise for tying deer hair bass bugs. I have used it to tie trout flies as small as size 16

I have not not bothered to replace the Peak Vise or get the jaws made for larger hooks because I don't tie that many flies larger than size 2.

I would call it a lure. It looks like a beetle spin and it would be more to fun to fish that particular beetle spin on a light spinning rod than with a fly rod. Casting that thing on a fly rod would put some serious line twist in your leader. It could also do some damage to your fly rod tip. Using a double haul with that lure on a fly rod ought to generate enough line speed to make some very interesting noises.

I saw a TV show a few years ago where Larry Dahlberg was fishing a lake in Canada for ice out pike. There were three people fishing in a small aluminum boat. All three anglers were using big bunny leech flies tied on 3/0 hooks and they were using light spinning rods to catch bunches of large pike. It was a windy day, too. You certainly couldn't have three people fishing with fly rods using those big, heavy bunny leeches in a small boat in the wind. It looked like fun to me despite that fact they they were using spinning rods to fish flies.

I've been using the RIO sinking leaders for years in a variety of lengths and sink rates. They work very well with a minimum of hinging. The five foot leaders are great for for fishing in shallow Illinois rivers.

The downside is that the mono-filament tip where you tie the can break or get messed up to the point that you can't use it. When that happens, I just tie the loop in black part of the leader.

The heavier weight leaders made for bass or steelhead will last longer than the trout weight leaders if you can find them.

I have lawn cast the Sage Smallmouth rod and seemed to cast pretty well. I own the Ross Fly Styk in an eight weight, and it casts well with larger flies and requires a minimum of back casts with the RIO Clouser line that I use with it. I like using the Fly Styk from a boat but not so much when I am wading. The Flystyk is great for repeated casts of the same length, which is what you do when you pound the banks from a drift boat.

I think that guides using drift boats like using shorter rods because they are easier to handle and less likely to get broken by clumsy clients than standard nine foot rods.

Thanks for the compliments, but I have you guys fooled.

If anyone is interested in actually getting a line class record on the books, it involves a process that involves getting the tippet that was used validated, witnesses, a certified scale and a whole bunch of other stuff that would be difficult to do when the fish is caught a twenty or thirty minute wade/walk from a car. I am not interested in having a line class record, but I am also too lazy to go through the process to get the record.

On the day after I caught the big smallie, I ran into a local fly fisherman that told me that he had caught bass larger than the one that I caught.