7wt

The exact thing happened to me. Add to that several moves that took me away from decent fishing and a divorce, left me with little taste for fishing and tying. Now I am starting to get the bug again but there is a lot to relearn. I tried to tie some flies for the Hendrickson hatch and they completely sucked compared to my stuff of five years ago. My style is slowly coming back thanks in part to this forum and all the excellent tiers here, some true artist for sure. Now I have to slowly start to learn a new fishery. CT is a whole lot different from my native Texas.

Cool. I would like to see that and now that I am in CT I can!

I like it!

waiting by the mailbox.....

Sounds like you got a great set up. I like the lighter weights for smaller trout streams and a 4wt is perfect. On pocket water, shorten your leader and throw big flies, on smooth water lengthen your leader and throw small flies. Perfect! As far as the length, you won't find much shorter than an 8' rid. You made a great decision, now the price....wow! When I go creeking, I use a 7ft 3wt fiberglass rod because that is what I have. A 4wt would be a better choice because the 3wt is a bit of a pain on windy days. I bought it for bluegill though, had I bought it for trout it would have been a 4wt. I like 7'6" amd 8' rods, they are on the shorter side for really long cast but that will come with enough practice. Some people like longer rods for nothing more than mending line, it is easier with a longer rod. I like the shorter rods because of the tight places I like to fish. Good luck!

Man Gill, your improvement from the first to the third is incredible. That last fly looks fantastic!

Super nice tie. Your body work looks fantastic.

I would love to be able to tell you but the truth of the matter is I went fishing only once this summer and all I caught was a shark. Big streamer. Since I have moved to San Diego I haven't found the gind of bass fishing I prefer. It's all boats around here, the only running water comes out of the faucet. Until I can turn on the water and fill the sink and have there be a bass in it....there will be no fishing for me.

Nice, I really like the classic 1950's style flies. Grab an old fiberglass rod and hit a small stream, my style of fishing!

Thanks for all the kind words guys. It was fun to tie. I will fish it one of these days!

Nice job, I love tube flies. They are so versital. I made a tube craw out of some rug yarn. It looked horrible, like a carpet threw up on it but it did catch a nice bass hanging out at the bottom of a riffle.

I will buy hooks and other stuff online but hackles and deer hair I have to see! The only exception is buying deer hair from Chris Helm, that is a guy you can trust. He will habd pick out something that fits your needs. I don't even like buying hackle I know pretty well such as Hoffman or Miner. It is a matter of color, texture and other things that is hard to explain.

I don't even consider the cost. Since I live in an area that doesn't allow me to fish how I want to fish, I end up chucking most of what I do anyway. I know it sounds weird but I just like tying. I always wanted a fully loaded nicely organized box with everything I need in it. Trouble is I don't need anything right now. This will change when I move but as it stands now I only tie for the practice.

Wow, those look great. I really like the bee.

Dan, That fly looks very nice. The long wings make it look very elegant. I know the floss isn't the best choice of body but it gives it a certain look that is very pretty. Your hackle work is great. My only criticism is the wings should be parted a little more. Hard for me to say that because a real mayfly sits on the water with it's wings married. Keep up the good work.

The bolt was about a foot long and an inch in diameter. It was snapped into by who knows what. I took that pic with my D40 on the macro setting. I know you have a D40 and a super high zoot macro lens but is there a macro lens in the $200 class that is worth the money? I want to take some better pictures of my flies. Or is there something you can reccomend with the stock lens for that purpose?

I have fished Golf Shores alot as well as Galveston and while they are completely different as a fishery, the fish are pretty much the same. In Gulf Shores they like a lot of goldish and brownish patterns due to the river being a tea stained color. I always used slow sinking patterns like Sea Ducers and unweighted Decievers. Don't forget a few poppers in a gold. Just make sure you patterns have goldish flash in them. If you have the time, run over to Perdido and fish the state park over there. It fishes a lot like Galveston but it is a lot deeper and it's more a blind casting sort of thing. All in all the fishing is good but I like Galveston a little better. I used to park by that tackle shop, Fatties was the name I think, and hoof it up the railroad tracks to the mud flats. I would cast light decievers and beadchain eyed clousers at the grass lines and would score big. The fishing was so much fun I used to drive down from Waco after class and fish well into the evening, sleep in the bed of my truck the get up early to make the drive back for class. One big difference is the reds in Al are for the most part bigger. They pretty much just hang out in the river and get big where as the big guys in Galveston eventually go out in Gulf. In Gulf Shores you pretty much want an intermediate line or a mid rate sinker as the river has some depth to it. Man I wish I could go along! One more thing, if you have time, I'd run over to Pensacola Beach as well. There are some good grass flats out on the backside that has some great fishing. My favorite spot over there was Navarre. There is a boatramp in Navarre that has some access to some great wade fishing. The water is clear, so it's sight fishing for specks mostly but reds will go in there as well as Spanish and Jacks. Man I caught some fish there! Clousers and decievers as well as Seaducers.

Fantastic fly doc, but I'd come up with a new name!

I have always loved to watch trains so when I moved to California last year it wasn't long before I went to see the 8th wonder of the world, Cajon Pass. Here are some shots of yesterday's visit. And my attempt at "art" I was there for close to four hours and on average saw a train about every 20 minutes or so. What a blast.

A new addition to the fly pattern database has been submitted by 7wt: Flat Face

I for one am glad I was wrong!

I haven't used head cement on my trout or blue gill flies in over five years with out a problem. I do however use epoxy on all of my salt stuff but that's a whole different story.

I tried the scissor in the hand thing for a while but gave it up for ergonomic reasons. Besides, I tie for relaxation and I am in no hurry at all. If I have to pick up a pair of scissors from time to time then that is just the cost of doing business. I use both modles of Dr. Slicks hair scissors and both of the razor scissors and couldn't be happier.

Kenneth, I don't know where you are, but gar are becoming fewer and fewer everywhere. You should work on getting all of your friends into fishing for them and do catch and release. That way they'll be here in the future. In the South, gar have been over fished, bowhunted and killed, seined and killed, caught and thrown on the bank to die. Just about every way to kill a gar has been done, and now in many places where there used to be many, many big gar, 100, 200, 300 or more pound gar, there are no or very few small gar now. In many places, the alligator gar are totally gone, and all because people just kept killing them. Gar should be sport fish because that may be the only way they have to survive. Ray Ray, You are so right about gar on the Brazos but I know a place where they use to thrive about 7 years ago. I fished a place on the lower Bosque just outside Mcgreggor. I'd park by a bridge and hoof it up stream a good ways and I found a tea colored limestone pond that was a lot deeper than the trickle of a stream the Bosque turned into at that point. This place was loaded with huge goggle eye and some of the biggest gar I have ever seen. I tied into one with a 5wt and it went down deep, shot straight up out of the water doing the classic tail walk shaking his head like mad. Broke me off for sure but it was one of my best fishing memories in Waco. Man I miss that stream!

How do you keep things from slidding off it?