JSzymczyk

Did you miss the first 30 seconds, or are you being more sarcastic than I usually am? I get a laugh from most of his videos, seems like someone even I, the guy who doesn't like anyone, could go fishing with. the beer thing is just his gimmick. The "beach" thing- I'm 100% with him. A moment of consideration goes a LONG way. Had this happen to me again just two weekends ago. I had waded up (not floating, but the same concept) a long way on a local creek, just trying to enjoy some peace and quiet and got to a nice small gravel bar, not 10 seconds later, around the bend comes 3 overloaded canoes full of dogs, yelling kids, two radios loudly tuned to DIFFERENT stations, and alleged adults. Guess what happenend. Literally at my feet, they pull up and unass the boats, one teenage girl immediately takes a filthy diaper off a three year old while trying not to burn the kid with her cigarette, and chucks it into the woods and washes the kid off in the creek, empty beer bottles are thrown into the woods, dogs running all over... I was honestly stunned, it was as if I was invisible. (I'm not. In fact I'm very visible.) All this in the space smaller than an average living room. Even a living room in a trailer. It's that kind of F-ing attitude that ruins things for everyone. You'd think that in the outdoors it might be a little different than it is at walmart, but it's not.

my kayak fishing partner has one, used to be on the Jackson pro staff until he gave up the pro staff stuff a couple years ago, and he loves it. (he did not get it through any Jackson relationship- he paid his own $$$) I have been on it and pedaled it and it is nice. As a wanna-be cyclist, the pedaling dynamics are different than a bike- seat adjustability might take some very fine tuning. I know he had a seat adjustment rod chincadera break but Jackson covered it very quickly under warranty. seems like a high quality boat- but at $3000 to start and the need for a truck or trailer, you gotta be prepared. Don't know how it would handle any sort of waves. It ain't a kayak, that's for sure.

opinions are only opininons. For every opinion you get about "what is the best vise" there will be two other opinions extolling the virtues of a different vise. I am completely satisfied with the Peak rotary I have been tying on for well over 12 years. I don't even know when I bought it. There will be others who agree. There will be many others who say their preferred brand is better. There is no answer to your question. For streamers and bucktails, which are my favorite flies to tie and fish, the angle of a rotary does not always provide the best experience. years ago I bought an HMH Spartan vise that I could adjust the jaw angle to flat--- making bucktail and streamer tying more enjoyable. Vises all do essentially the same thing. For rotary style tying, which I think is so much more enjoyable to wrap bodies and hackle, and get 360 degree view of what you are doing, nearly all of them will put the hook shank almost in line with the axis of rotation, which is the fundamental requirement. Decide how much money you want to spend, if at all possible visit a shop or tying club and try different vises, pick one with a reputable name, and carry on.

every year that goes by, I say my goals are to fish more and bike more. Every year that goes by, I work more. We seem to have it all wrong. I'm 51, and have been working nonstop full-time-plus for well over 30 years. Never been unemployed. There are days when I feel like when I am finally able, IF I am finally able to not work, I'll be too old and broke down to enjoy not having to work. Obviously I'm not very intelligent or I would have figured this sh*t out by now. There were circumstances which caused me to largely stop fly fishing local streams over the last 8-9 years. This year one of my kayak fishing buddies caught the fly fishing sickness so thankfully I've been doing more this summer, and tying more to keep him from buying child-slave-labor crap flies tied in Jerkistan. I don't have the miles on my bike that I had last year, but not too far off of it. WORK always seems to get in the way. I've been fishing one morning or so every weekend and trying to get in a couple hours one night a week, and getting 25-35 mile ride at least 3 times a week, with covid and a new job it hasn't been easy.

I just use an "empty" peanut butter jar. Dump a bunch of flies in, shake it, and they all stick to the sides. Nice and neat. One layer deep.

good God almighty, BRILLIANT!!! If I could get my wife of 30 years to chew 30 pieces of gum she might not talk long enough for me to get some peace and quiet!!

Please don't kill strippers. You'll end up on the evening news. They're just trying to make a living.

I certainly don't photograph every fish... but the memories get lost and twisted and changed. I would give almost anything for some photographs of certain fish and times that my Dad and I shared so long ago. We didn't have the convenience of digitally preserving the moments like we do now. I don't know, but I would wager you will feel the same as you grow older.

I agree with everything said.... but PLEASE if you come off plane you need to know if you are creating an even bigger wake than if you just kept going. Having basically grown up in canoes and being an avid kayak angler, I deal with it all the time. Folks who think they're being nice actually cause a bigger wake and make the experience last longer. I'll say from experience it beats the hell out of getting run over by an a$$hole who shouldn't be on the water in the first place, but, you get what I'm saying. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ respect for the fish, absolutely 100%, but there are people who take it too far. even the holy trout get dumped from airplanes and shot through pipes after being trucked hundreds of miles. If someone truly had total respect for the fish, they wouldn't fish... Yes care and respect are vitally important, but correctly holding a fish out of water for a few seconds for a photo before release is not cause for banishment.

LOVE to eat some trout- and agree 100% with Sandan, filleting trout makes it a pain to deal with the bones. Even steelhead, lake trout, any salmonid. On the very rare occasions I get to catch some steelhead, I cut them into steaks and grill them. Pan frying, Mom taught us the best way, and you can remove the entire skeleton in one piece and have all the meat with no bones. You need to catch more and give it a try.

When I lived in Tok, one of the guys I knew caught a tagged grayling in the Little Tok river. He gave the info to the ADFG but I don't remember that he ever knew anything else about it. I didn't get to fish (or hunt) nearly enough but I do have great memories and feel thankful that I was able to catch Arctic Grayling. Nothing huge, but I did get a male in beautiful colors that was 18". Spectacular fish. Someday I'd like to get a replica mount.

I've counted. That's as high as I got before became bored. And I did say "about" that many....

The largest one for sure I thought I had a decent bass at first, from the way it hit and the initial several seconds. There is no question, at all, that a smallmouth fights many times harder than any fallfish, but in this creek, in this time of year, the smallmouths don't come out to play very much. They are there, but not as prevalent. I get to do just about the opposite on this creek from tenkara- It is wide enough and generally shallow and clear enough that I can go to my limits with casting which is fun- finding deep spots, rocks, riffles, trees, far away and trying to make long shots at them.

The age-old tip is to not make the wing so long it can easily wrap through the hook bend. Essentially that was A reason for using long shank streamer hooks. Then, after about eleventy-billion fish were caught on them, Very Smart people started to say that too many fish were lost on long shank hooks because they provided more leverage to twist out of a fish... it does make sense on paper or in a static test scenario. (But fishing in the real world, there are eleventy-point-five billion (maybe more) variables affecting each presentation, take, and fight.) So they told the fly fishing community that only short shank hooks are any good. In that case, tie your streamers "pre-fouled" with the wing already in the bend of the hook as in the Clouser Deep Minnow. For poppers, tie your tail materials in right where the bend of the hook starts to leave the shank.

Fallfish get no love. If this was the UK, there would be clubs of fishermen devoted to them. They hit flies of all kinds aggressively, and the truth is they fight as well as trout of equal size. They do it in 75-80 degree water too, and in the middle of the day. There are a few creeks near me that are good smallmouth streams and trout streams in the spring, and sometimes fall, but this time of the year it's nice to wet wade a mile of stream and catch fish the whole way. When they get big they fight surprisingly well on a 5 wt. I fished from about 7:30 to 12:30 this morning and lost count. Also caught loads of small smallmouths to about 10 inches, one LMB, and several redbreast sunfish and green sunfish. Biggest fallfish was 15 inches. Saw deer, turkeys, a bald eagle, an osprey, egrets, herons, ducks of many kinds, and was off the creek before the sunday aluminum and plastic hatch started. There's something to be said for taking one fly box and not having an hour's worth of work putting gear away when I get home.

all the math and equations and theoretical physics and laws are wonderful, but just go out and do it. Of course there will be a limit somewhere as to how massive (heavy) and / or air resistive a fly you can enjoyably cast, on any given rod and line system- But the best way to learn YOUR system is to go out and do it. Unless your rod has a manufacturing defect or is damaged, you won't break anything. I've been fishing a number 10 nymph/streamer/crayfish pattern with 1/8" lead eyes which add (allegedly) 1/80 ounce with my 3wt this summer and it is no problem. Yes it is noticeably different than casting an unweighted pattern, but it is no problem.

Mechanicsburg here, haven't seen one yet. Was in Philly last year and got a couple on the windshield, they make a hell of a mess.

I've had lyme infection twice since moving back to Pennsylvania in 09. It is a hotspot. Neither time did I have a bullseye rash, and neither time was within 4 months of knowing I had a tick bite. I have to ASSume the nymph stage ticks got me and I just didn't find them. Even before that, I was always nearly paranoid about wearing actual chemical repellent and taking precautions. Thankfully my doc is well aware and willing to get the correct tests done when he sees the symptoms and not try to treat for everything but lyme like so many others want to do- both times I had some of the other classic symptoms but not the bullseye rash. The first time I think I had it for a while based on some joint swelling and pain for no good reason, before the bad stuff hit. I always have joint pain from old injuries but there were "odd" things that happened, and I'm a dumbass who doesn't like to run to the doc everytime something hurts. I actually thought I might die one night, sweats, chills, headache, pain, vision problems, the night before I was started on 30 days of doxycylene. 30 days of doxycyclene F's you up all by itself too. It is, and can be a life-changing thing- I basically gave up stream fishing for years. Super paranoid still. Just this summer I got back to fishing a few streams, but I get directly to the water, wade in, and don't get out, and don't creep around in the weeds and brush, and constantly check myself. Beyond a doubt it has had permanent effects on me, which won't go into here. I'll just say there are still a lot of people who refuse to think it is a serious issue. I hope they never have to experience it. Dammit now I feel those little f'ers crawling on me here at my desk..... !

don't know then, the link works for me

I went through a phase many years ago of being so good at fly fishing I just HAD to tie my own leaders all the time.... oh they were so awesome and I was so good---- until I realized that every knot picked up algae and weeds and they were more expensive than good commercial tapered leaders. Nothing wrong with making your own if it gives you satisfaction and the performance is what you want. I haven't run into a situation in the last 20 years or more where I felt I could have done better if I was fishing one of my own tied leaders. I usually cut back the "tippet" section of a tapered mono leader and tie on a mini tippet ring, and just replace tippet sections as needed.

it's interesting to hear all the different experiences and it makes me remember that we all got here on our own roads. Diversity. I fished from the time I could stand and hold a rod. My Dad fished. And we hunted. It wasn't a "hobby", it was part of who we are--- it's like saying we ate, or slept, or breathed. Dad had fly fished as a young man through the 50s and 60s, and less in the 70s, all through NW Pennsylvania. He was a truck driver supporting a family. No fly fishing elitism or snobbery, it was another way to fish and have a good time. He worked part time at a local sporting goods store- a REAL sporting goods store from a bygone era with racks of rifles and shotguns and clothing and rubber hip waders and old guys smoking pipes. It smelled like Hoppe's #9, pipe smoke, and old canvas. They sold flies tied by local guys, and you could buy fly hooks individually from the small cardboard Mustad boxes if you wanted. As said, he didn't fly fish exclusively by any stretch, and he never tied flies. He loved to walleye fish the Allegheny River, and the go-to method was bucktail jigs in the fall (all the recent talk about "hair jigs" is bullshit- these guys were catching truckloads of fish with them in the 60s....) and some time in the late 70s they could no longer get the jigs that everyone wanted locally- I don't know the story behind that. I told him (I was maybe 10 years old) that I could make them- the jig heads were there, the bucktails were there, I just needed to learn how to do it. He used some of his part time work pay to buy a Thompson Model A vise and a bobbin, some thread, jig heads, and a few bucktails. I checked out a couple books from the public library about fly tying, the closest I could get to jigs, and just did it. No youtube, nobody telling me I had to have expensive and fancy this and that, no nothing but a desire to do it. Before long I got some basic techniques down and was making decent bucktails. The books I learned from were about flies, so naturally I fooled around tying some flies too, even though I had never cast his fly rod. As in singular, his fly rod. It was (is) a Philipson 7-1/2 foot "HGH" rated if I remember right, the old rating before line weights. It correlates pretty well with a modern 5 weight. Our house was in walking distance from a couple trout streams and a warmwater creek with had smallmouths and rock bass and carp, and the Allegheny river was a 20 minute bike ride away. I asked, and he put a new leader on the old level fly line on the Martin reel, and I spent a spring learning how to cast on my own, reading books about it, and catching creek chubs and the occasional rock bass and little smallmouth- I had tied a "red ibis" wet fly on a gold aberdeen hook I found in an old tackle box- and one afternoon I was practicing how to cast - and clear as day a rainbow trout swirled up from behind a rock after that fly- I didn't expect it- a second cast caused another look but no take. I remembered reading about this in one book or another... rest a fish for a while that didn't take. With pretty shaky hands I bit off the attractor fly and tied on a #8 black and grizzly woolly worm I had tied because the old guys said to tie it and fish it-- I waited a couple minutes and made another cast above the rock and the trout ate it without any hesitation. Probably the best tasting trout I have ever eaten in my entire life. So if anything "got me started" in fly tying, I guess that's it. It wasn't something I sought out, it just WAS.

I think there are some decent youtube videos out there with Bob Clouser demonstrating how casting a weighted fly changes everything... but so does casting a big aero-resistant deer bug or popper, only different. I cast weighted flies more often than not. I think I subconsciously slow down the stop on both the backcast and forward cast to open up the loop a bit and HOPEFULLY ease up on the tailing loop. I'm far from perfect but I surprise myself all the time with my distance and accuracy. In short, YES, casting a fly with some mass but not air resistance changes everything about the physics and calculus of the cast. So does adding split shot to the leader. It will never be as "good" as casting a well-balanced combination of rod, line, leader, and fly.

if these currently accepted "squirmy worms" and "mop flies" are not out of bounds, then how can a chunk of balsa wood that actually requires some craftsmanship be out of bounds?

https://tyingvise.com/

I was just on their site last week, noticed it had been completely redesigned- ordered a c-clamp vise stem for my Spartan vise.... and it was shipped same day and in my mailbox in two days. Are you sure you are looking at the correct site?