asherman

I've never seen a water moccasin in Northern Illinois. If one swam that close to me, I would probably get my waders wet from the inside.

Steve,

I'm sorry to hear of your loss. Please accept my condolences.

Alan

In my opinion, a full sinking line fished with a heavily weighted fly fished in three feet of water would be hard to handle and would give me the same results that the guy that you saw was getting, which is lots of hangups. With that setup, you have the opportunity to snag both the fly line and/or the fly. One of the advantages to using a sinking line, a sink tip line, or a sinking leader is that you can fish either an unweighted fly or a lightly weighted fly, which I think is more fun to cast than a heavily weighted fly on any type of fly line. If I felt the need to fish with 1/8 ounces of weight on the end my fishing line, I would use a spinning rod.

If I wanted to bang the bottom with a fly rod in three feet of water, I would either use a weighted fly (certainly less than 1/8 ounce)with a long leader and floating fly line or a lightly weighted fly fished with a five to seven foot sink tip leader (or sink tip fly line). I would save the full sink fly lines for deeper water.

Unfortunately, my plans have changed and I will not be able to make it on Saturday. I will have to get my Kish fishing done on Sunday.

Count me in.

Alan

I have a Cortland stripping basket that I bought to use for fishing from small boats in Canada. The basket works well for that application, where it helps a lot in preventing the fly line from getting tangled in various parts of the boat. I have not used the basket as much as I should in other still water situations, such as bank fishing. When I have used it for pond fishing, it has worked well to keep the line from getting tangled in rocks and weeds. When I'm fishing in public waters such as parks or forest preserves, it makes me look more nerdy than I look already.

I do possess the skill of coiling retrieved line in my left hand and I do that when I don't have a stripping basket, but it does not work as well as a stripping basket.

Don,

My suggestion would be to go to one of the LL Bean stores and buy a pair of LL Bean brand wading boots. After you wear out your new boots in one or two trips like you seem to do, just take them back to the store and they will replace them. LL Bean has replaced my boots twice.

Mike,

There are some good trout streams within 90 minutes of the Dells in Marquette and Waushara counties, which are to the northwest of the Dells. The Sand Country streams in that area are pretty unique, with slow moving, crystal clear water and sand stream bottoms. If you decide to fish there, take a short fly rod or practice your roll casting, because these streams have overgrown banks. PM me if you want more information.

The South branch of the Kish has risen over six feet in the last day and is still rising. It will be a while before anyone is going to be able to fish there.

I'm going to check into the rental rates for an ark. I might need it.

Due to the rain and high water, the Cast and Compare outing has been canceled. According to John, the rising water on the Fox at the Glenwood forest preserve is creeping well up into the park. We will let you know when this event is re-scheduled.

Alan

Buying a standard depth finder and making your own mounting setup with a board (I use a piece of aluminum bar stock) and a C clamp works great if you are fishing from a vessel with a transom. The suction cups that come with portable often do not stick well to the transoms of boats that have anything but perfect surfaces.

If you are fishing from a canoe, using the bar and c clamp mount may or may not work, depending upon the canoe. I have found that the suction cup mount, though not perfect, works well on a canoe. A canoe is not moving fast enough to have the force of the water dislodge the suction cup like it does on a boat with a motor. I like the suction cup mount for canoeing because it is quick and easy to remove the transducer when you have to paddle or drag a canoe through rocks or anything that could damage the transducer.

If you make your own mounting system, make sure that you include some type of small rope or cable to secure your transducer mount to the boat just in case the mounting bracket or transducer gets disconnected from the boat.

I'm not sure if there are any smallmouth bass in the Des Plaines, but I have seen northern pike stranded in puddles after the river has flooded around Wheeling and Mount Prospect. I have seen people catch carp and bluegill out of the river, too.

Last summer, I sent my well used Simms Guide weight waders to Simms because the seam between the neoprene booties and the Gore Tex legs was leaking. The waders were pretty old, but Simms waders are supposed to have a lifetime guarantee on the workmanship. I sent the waders to Simms and their response was to charge me forty four dollars for replacing the neoprene feet. My waders were pretty old, but I figured that it was worth it to have the waders repaired so I could use them as spares.

I didn’t wear the repaired waders last year (I used my spare pair), but wore them twice this year to make sure that the repair was OK. Both times, I noticed that the repaired neoprene boot seam area was stiff and had some spots where the material was bunched up. The bunched up areas caused the waders to dig uncomfortably into my shin due the pressure from my gravel guards. The second time that I wore the waters this year, I noticed that the neoprene foot seam was leaking in pretty much the same spot where it was leaking the first time that I sent them in.

I called Simms repair department to find out how they were going to handle this, because I didn’t want to send the waders in a second time. The response from the person in the repair department was that I should use Simms web site to get another return authorization number and I should send the waders in again to have the feet repaired again.

I was not .pleased with that response. First of all, I did not want to pay to ship my waders to Simms a second time because this time it was Simms fault that the repair did not work. I also did not have a warm and fuzzy feeling that my waders would be any better the second time around. I figured that I might have wasted fifty dollars or so on getting my old waders repaired. I started thinking about buying a different brand of waders.

Before I pulled the trigger on buying some different waders, I decided that it might be worth sending Simms customer service an email that detailed what had happened. I sent the email to Simms in the morning, and during my lunch break the same day, I received a call from the head of customer service at Simms. He told me that he was not happy with the response of the repair person that I had spoken to and he apologized for what had happened. I was given the opportunity to buy a new pair of wader at a significant discount. I jumped at the offer and ordered a pair of G3 waders. I was pleased that Simms had made this offer and I told the customer service manager that I was happy that they had done what they needed to do to keep a satisfied customer.

I guess the moral of this story is that if you have a bad customer service experience with one person at a company, don’t make the assumption that the whole company is like that.. It is worth your time to contact someone else that might have a different approach on what it takes to properly take care of a customer’s problem.

I've been fishing some sections of the south branch of the Kishwaukee river going on twenty years. From my viewpoint, smallmouth bass populations have fluctuated quite a bit over that time. When I first started fishing there, the river was recovering from a big fish kill. Initially, I started catching just a few small fish but after a few years, the size of fish increased and so did the numbers. There were a few years of poor fishing, but for quite a few years, the fishing was very good with numerous 40 fish days.

Around five or six years ago, the Kish seemed to full of smaller bass, but I wasn't catching many big fish, except in the fall. Three or four years ago, the average size of bass that I caught went from up from around 8 inches to 12 inches with some nice big ones in the mix. The numbers were pretty good, but there were no forty fish days.

The past two years have not been great. I have caught a some decent fish, but the numbers have been down,especially with smaller fish. When I fish spots that have always held good numbers of smaller smallmouth bass in addition to rock bass and I only catch a few, I know that something is up with the fishery. I think that the floods have had a lot to do with the decline in the fishery. There is hope, though, because the high water has cleaned the silt out of some rocky areas, which should be good for the fishery.

My daughter is going to be spending the summer at the University of Illinois in Champaign. I'm thinking about driving in from Chicago and arranging a father/daughter fishing trip. Can anybody that has fished the Middle Fork give me an idea of whether the river can be fished by wading or if a canoe or some other type of water craft is necessary to fish that river? It looks like there are canoe rentals available for some sections of the river.

Any information would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Alan Sherman

I've been buying the 413 Eagle Claw hooks from Cabelas for several years. A pack of 100 lasts me a while. The Gamakatsu 29160 sixty degree hooks are sharper out of the box and are not quite as heavy as the Eagle Claw 413 hooks. I like the Gamakatsu's better for flies tied in smaller sizes like number 2, but they cost more than the Eagle Claw 413's. Here's a link for the Gammy hooks if anyone is interested.

Gammy 60 Degree Hooks

In addition to checking out the fly shops around Madison, you should check out the fly fishing around Madison. Black Earth Creek is not far from Madison, and there are other trout streams within two hours of Madison. The Sand Country streams in Waushara and Marquette counties which are north of Madison are challenging, but beautiful small streams that hold plenty of nice trout.

A similar site that sells outdoor stuff is Steep and Cheap.

I tie my floatn' flies with craft fur, which has great action even when the jig is sitting still. That subtle action when the fly is motionless is what makes the technique work. Bucktail is way too stiff. I don't use jigs for mine. I use #2 to 1/0 jig hooks tied with whatever weight lead eyes that I want to use. Lighter weights are better if the current and depths allow you to do so.

Some of you might recall that my Fuzzy Bug appeared in the Bronzeback Bulletin several months ago. The Fuzzy Bug was directly inspired by Craig's Hairy Fodder. Craig's version has super action but in larger sizes the rabbit strip bound fly gets pretty heavy. Craig has no problems casting big, heavy flies, but being a mere mortal caster like myself, I came up with the Fuzzy Bug because I liked the bulk and the action without the water absorbing weight. Jonn's version has more flash than either Craig's or my version.

Craig deserves all the credit for coming up with a fly design that not only works great on it's own but is flexible enough to work well in different incarnations. The 60 degree jig hooks, by the way, are great and make any version of the fly fish with fewer snags.

LL Bean just replaced my West Branch Aquastealth soled wading boots with a new pair after mine wore out after four years of use. The Aquastealth soles have worked fine for me in midwest rivers including slick boulder rivers like the Menominee and upper Wisconsin rivers in northern Wisconsin. The new pair has siped soles so they might even be a bit better. For ninety dollars these boots provide excellent value and good ankle support. The new Simms Vibram soled boots probably provide better traction, but they cost twice as much money and are not necessary if you are fishing in Illinois.

My link

My approach depends upon the water that I am fishing, the current conditions, and how much time I have available for the day. If I have the time, I have no problems with getting some exercise. The "exercise" that I get fishing is more of an endurance thing than an aerobic sprint.

If I am wade fishing new water, my approach is to cover water and fish for active fish. If I happen upon a good spot for the conditions (such as a deep eddy or pool in October), I will slow down and fish the spot thoroughly if I have time. I might also walk through such a spot after I fish it if that is possible to determine the depth and bottom structure so I will really know how good the spot's potential might be the time that I fish it.

If I am wade fishing a section of river that I am familiar with, my approach is usually different. In familiar water, I tend to concentrate on spots where I think that the larger fish hang out. In warmer conditions where the fish could be anywhere, I will search cast but my objective is to target certain spots. In pools and eddies that I know could hold multiple fish, I sometimes use less aggressive lures or flies because sometimes a loud popper might catch one active fish, but it could also put the other fish in the pool down. In rivers where the fish holding spots can be far apart (like the Kish in the spring or the fall), I want to avoid spooking the fish in the good spots. Of course, sometimes a more aggressive approach is what it takes to get the fish to hit so a popper or a spinner is the ticket.

The guys in this article have a great approach for problem solving.

Fishing small streams or small isolated ponds with light tackle is one of my favorite things to do. It seems that whenever I fish a small creek with a light fly rod, that is when I catch an "accidental" carp. Any sized carp on a four weight fly rod is a blast.

It is cool seeing birds of prey in a residential neighborhood. I have seen both red tailed hawks and great horned owls in my yard at different times. The local rabbit and squirrel population has gone down quite a bit since the raptors have been hanging around the hood. The owl looks like it is big enough to kill the neighbor's incessantly yapping miniature pinscher. I reluctantly warned my neighbor to not leave his dog outside at night alone.