sparkleminnow

I've tied of the Renzetti Traveler for 10 years, now, and I have no complaints. Of course I added a few things along the way. I added a Dyna King Extension arm (w/D.K. clamp), and a Dyna King Wastrol. Both of which I would recommed no matter what vise you get. The D.K. exension arm allow you to position the vise closer to you, and out away from the table. It allows you a very wide range of height adjust to suit your personal tastes, and is constructed of stainless steel. Very good quality. The wastrol allows you to catch the trimmings, so you don't have to wear them. Also, if you drop something like a bead, or a hook, it should fall into the Wastrol without having to get on all fours, crawling around on the floor looking for either of them. I would definitly go with a clamp base, instead of the pedestal. The bigger flies will give you headaches when trying to keep the vise from moving around. Not a problem with trout flies, though. The pedestal might allow you to move the vise from place to place without worry of marring your wifes good coffee table, but I tie in a set location at home, and when I travel, I can tie at a hotel room table with no clamp clearance problems. The Master Vise is a great vise, but the advantage is the extra strength in the larger diameter frame, and the head adjusts from angled to straight to allow you to tie a clouser minnow without buying the clouser head attachment for the Traveler, or the Presentation series.

Call Chris Helm at Whitetail Fly tying Supplies. (800) 579-5549. He ties these, and can give you experienced instruction, material, and tools to tie them yourself. He can make them for you, but he charges for his time. Expect a hefyt pricetag if he makes them for you. It might be worth the price to buy one for an example to tie from.

I listen to talk radio on my computer, and have a few beers. I haven't done that for a while. I may need to do that again to come up with a few new patterns.

You might want to use 3M's C77 spray adhesive to glue the sheets together. It is easier to ditribute evenly, holds like iron, and is waterproof. It's also what they recomend for glueing foam sheets together for making the Chernoble Ant.

I havn't tried this one, yet. There are places where smallies just destroy poppers, but they don't work very well on my waters.

This will work when the water has risen into the upper 60's, and above.

Uhh, guys, carp don't have a strip on the "lateral line". The lateral line is a sensory organ that most all fish have, but juvenile carp are a various tones of gold/yellow as a single, "fishscale" coloration. They have no strip down the side. I don't understand the recommendation you are suggesting.

Sorry, Graham. I didn't mean BoUnCInG them of of the rocks underwater. I meant BEATING them on the rocks from an errant cast. As good as I am at casting, I don't always hit the mark. If you are near rocks you will invariably hit stone. When you do, as it has with me, you will break the glass beads. I had done it before without trying. It's bound to happen again.

I've used them. There's no denying they work, but...don't fish them near the roks/rip-rap. The first time you bounce one off of the rocks you will be replacing the fly! Those glass beads don't hold up against a pounding on the rocks. I know, I know, there's gonna be someone who chimes in with, "Well, don't fish them next to the rocks then." Sorry, I fish very few places that there are no rocks, or concrete at least within view. Just something to keep in mind.

The upper reaches of the St. Joe are good smallie water. You can go the other way, and fish the Lake, too. Some of the largest smallies live in L. Michigan. You are going to have the best shot at them from the Indiana bay areas. Fish deep near the rocks, with flies resembling a Goby. For stream fishing, Wildcat creek is excellent. Also, the Tippicanoe, and the creek that Smalliehunter will be fishing at the end of April.

The through wire, with metal prop, metal bead, and double hook, accounts for roughly 85% of the metal weight. The mono weed guard is negligable for weight, and the belly hook is what the larger fish get hooked with 50% of the time. If I get rid of that hook it's likely I will miss a good deal more fish. The other reason for the belly hook is to give it enought weight, in that specific location, to ride on an even keel. I don't want the body to corkscrew on retrieve. I need to find someone with a grain scale, so I can measure each item to see what they add for weight. Some archery guys have them, but I can't justify the cost right now. If I could get the tail prop made from plastic, instead of metal, it might lighten up substantially. I went from a counterdrilled metal bead to a hollow metal bead, and this helped a little. The double hook at the tail is, of course, somewhat lighter than a treble.

OOooK, now we're going 'round the mulberry bush. The popper picture posted was to illustrate what can be had. It was purchased over the counter, and is available already colored. The popper was not the item I was looking to color. I'm including the photo of the item that I want to apply color to. (see attached photo.) This item is already very heavy. It will just cast well with an 8wt rod. Add a coat of EPOXY and it will be both more difficult to cast, and sit lower in the water.(possibly harming the action.) Also, epoxy doesn't flex. The body of this pattern does. When the body flexes epoxy will crack, and chip off. This is flexible foam(sort of like an ear plug), not the hard foam. (similar to wood) Moving along to Easy Body(or, Flexibody)...it will shred. Much like when you have a good day on bass, and you get "bass thumb", the easy body will shred. Not after three or four fish, mind you, but it will after a dozen or so. Currently, the foam body will last for, quite literally a hundred or more fish without looking like it sustained much damage. Not to mention the Easy Body will also add weight. Now, if I were to make this thing out of balsa wood...the epoxy and paint might work fine. Balsa is less dense than the same size flexible foam body. You would get the look you wanted, but the durability is not quite as good as the foam. The weight of this pattern will be mutiplied by a factor of, at least, three times over the popper body. The popper body uses 1/3 less body material than the pattern in the photo, and 1/4 of the metal. It's not unweildy, but more weight isn't going to help. Markers are ideal, if I can just get the color to stay.

Sorry, can't use Soft Body. It adds too much weight. What I'm tying already weighs close to too much. Adding more weight just makes it worse. Markers impart color without weight, but they don't want to stay. I'm going to try something to seal it after the color is on. I'm including an example of what I want to acomplish. Notice there is no "layer" of color. The color is infused into the material... Zero weight gain. Yet, the color stays put?!?

It's been my experience that there are regional differences in what bluegill like. In some places the bluegill love anything black, and small. However, I have a favorite place for bluegill that I can no longer access. I used to fish it a lot, but I would have offered anyone $100 bill if they could get just one bluegill to take something in black. They just would not touch it! Natural Hare's Ear, however, was dynamite. Size 12 caddis anything did well. Caddis Larva in the early spring, soft hackles a little later, and tan caddis adults in the late spring/early summer were deadly. Tan, or orange scuds were good, and for some stange reason, a yellow sz 6 wooley worm was deadly in the late sprng. The caveat, is that every place is different. The forage base is key. Water color comes into play, as well. Time of year, time of day, light levels, etc...Dirty water favors poppers, but again, I would have offereda $100 bill to anyone who could have taken a bluegill on a popper on my favorite water. (Hint)- The visibilty, at my favorite water, is down to 15 ft on average. The average 'gill is 3/4 of a pound up to 1 1/2lb. The average Redear is 1 1/4 lb, up to 3 lbs!!!

Use a pencil eraser to strip the fibers off of the quill. You want the wider quills. It makes the bodies easier to form.

Not to worry, Steeldrifter. I'm going to try both kinds of paints. The test will be how many fish it takes to destroy a paint job. I won't find that out for a few months.

Thanks, guys. I noticed that I see a lot of the confusion between types of foam, too. When the subject of foam comes up, I don't think that everyone realizes that there are two kinds of foam. Styro-foam, and Etha-foam. Actually, there are more than that, but these are the two most common to tying. The Styrofoam is the hard foam bodies that can be painted, and sealed. The bodies may dent, but they are not the flexible type of foam. Ethafoam is flexible, and although I need to experiment with it first, I think most paints would chip off. Nightfish, I think your source being Rainy's, it has to be what I'm looking for. The type of foam I'm coloring is the Rainy's type foam. They sell some pre-painted foam popper heads, so I'm sure that the paint they sell is the same stuff that they use to paint their own stuff. Thanks, again, to all. I might have some new stuff to share with you in a few months.

Does anyone know of a source for water-proof, air brush paint? I was wanting to paint a foam body topwater pattern, but markers wear off....yes, even the "water-proof or laundry markers. So far, nothing stays on for more than a few hours.

Guess if you're trying to imitate the same thing, they're bound to look pretty similar....

I covered this, a bit, on another thread about carp flies. I had some luck getting them to strike at poppers. You don't pop them, however. You just cast them well ahead of a pod of cruising Amur, and let it rest for a very long time. If they cruise under it without taking, as the last fish passes under it, give it one pop. I had one do an about face, and knock it tree feet into the air! I also had a few that would peel of from the school to come investigate. They would hover under it for some time, but would nip at the appendages as if to taste it. I think if you make a popper with lots of rubber legs hanging off the rear of the popper, you might try to hide a small stinger hook in the tail. They like to nibble before they take. I don't have enough experience with them to say what colors they like, for sure. They did like my purple popper, and my black & white popper. As an experiment, you might try tying something with green deer hair, that floats, that might resemble a floating piece of vegetation. If it appears that they are out of food they might be interested enough to take a bite. I have had no luck on them with anything subsurface, either.

I'm with flydog34. I just got tired of reading the same articles all the time.

Shoe, if in fact, you are fishing the shad kill on the White the shad get chopped up in the turbines. Not all of them will be whole, and intact. Generally, something that resembles a shad rather than an exact replica will work. You have probably seen this one before, but it has proven successful on the White for the shad kill.

Being that they are stockers, you should be able to take them with mostly attractor patterns. Glow bugs(egg patterns), pellet flies, buggers, girdle bugs, etc.

Hook:Tiemco 200R sz 6 Tail: fluff pulled from the base of a pheasant rump feather Back: strip of laquered turkey feather Ribbing: copper wire Abdomen: dirty yellow dubbing OR, light natural hare's ear dubbing(Hare's Ear Plus) Regional variances will dictate which to use. Thorax: same as abdomen Gills: pheasant aftershaft (tie in aftershaft at tail; bring forward. Pull turkey foward, tie down. Rib with copper wire.) Wing case: remainder of turkey used for the back of abdomen. Eyes: melted mono Legs: pheasant rump feather Weight: .025 lead-free wire Thread: Rusty Dun Uni-thread

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