mikechell

I was told, in California, that the game wardens check for "barbless" by dragging a piece of cotton across the hook, from bend to point. If the barb grabs any cotton, it's not barbless. I used a pair of pliers and successfully crimped the barbs on several lures without snapping off a single point. If you have a dremel with a very small diameter grinding stone, you could dress the barb off. Or, you could dap a small amount of UV resin on there and just cover the barb. As long as it doesn't grab the cotton, it's barbless.

You do realize that you've lost the equivalent of another person? How's it feel, not carrying that 150 pound gorilla around? Great to see, and I'll bet working on those tanks seems a lot easier, huh? Huh? HUH??? Like, maybe you could put some fish in that first one? I am dying over here, in anticipation !!! Truly though ... congrats on the weight loss. Keep going, I hear they are going to do a remake of "The Wizard of Oz" and they don't have a scarecrow, yet.

If they are straightening the hook, you don't need more hook gap, you need lighter drag. Small flies, small tippets, lighter drag, longer fight ... more fun?

I'd love to look at those pictures, but they are way too big.

Look up the pattern for the "Back Stabber". It looks lie a killer pattern to me. Although, this is not the back stabber, this is the one I tie for bream ... but it was listed as a carp fly pattern.

Now that's some funny, but true, information!!!

Capt. Bob ... don't weeds get caught between the hook eye and the mono? With it facing forward like that, it seems you'd get hung at the mono. I know I pick up weeds just on the leader to fly knot.

Remember that weight loss often plateaus for a while. But on the current track you will be under 300 before Christmas ... that's great !!! It's a fight ... and you are battling heroically ... Congrats !!

I love candy corn ... have since I was a kid. Remind me never to eat any if I visit your house.

I've never used the hopper/dropper set up before. Is there already a tutorial, or can someone please show how the mono loops allow placement of the hopper and keep it from sliding?

I am with CoachBob ... there are lots of great things about catching any type of fish on a fly rod. But if you just want the fun of catching fish, you can't beat sunfish/panfish/bream. Elitist want the challenge of fooling a finicky trout into biting. I am not so inclined, the hit and fight of abundant bream make my day. Trophy hunters look for that big fish that will wear you out before you get it to your side. Too much like work, I'll take a two minute fight over a 30 minute fight any day. I am just not into an arm hurting experience ... I can tick off the wife and get her to punch me in the arm for that. I'll spend a day on the water and catch 50 to 100 bream every time I am on the water and go to my grave a happy man.

Thank you for the SBS on that. I am going to try this with fly line instead of wire and without the bead, for a slower sink rate. I am fishing the edges of weeds in 2 feet of water or less, and I need a suspending look, I think this will work.

That's an awesome fly/minnow !!!

Even though I am not looking at this one until I see fish in the first one ... LOVE the rocks.

Sorry, carpflynut ... after watching a few videos of the PNG Black Bass, I've concluded that they are not the hardest fighting fish. They fight fairly hard, but like a lot of tropical fish, they have little stamina and give up rather quickly. I'll take a LMB or SMB over those any day. A carp will out pull one of those, hands down, and the carp can reach MUCH larger sizes.

If I am seeing this correctly, nice matching of biots for wings.

That's a nice Sheepshead. I haven't fished for Sheepshead since leaving North Carolina. But up there, we would take fiddler crabs, put a hook through the back, then tap the water with them. Just dip them in and out of the water right by the piling. After a few seconds of this, you let it sink about a foot. Normally, this is when you'd see the flash as the sheepshead rose up and turned on the take. Catch 4 or 5 in an hour this way. I think, if you were trying to fly fish for them, a crab imitation with a very slow sink rate would work well. False cast it to the piling about 5 to 10 times, letting it hit the water each time, then let it sink for a second or two before repeating.

Please, please, please ... people, resize your pictures before you put them in a post. When you click on a thumbnail and the picture is so large it requires a navigation tool to go over the whole thing, it's TOO BIG !!! I really like all the pictures, and would love to look at them all ... but I've started placing the cursor over the picture, waiting until it says the size. If it's over 1 Mb ... I won't open it, I can't see enough of it at a time to appreciate it. If it's over 100 Kbs ... I'll only open it if I can't see enough detail in the thumbnail. Microsoft Office has a photo program that allows resizing ... if you've got a program that came with a camera, it probably has a resizing feature. Even AOL has resizing on it's photo-finder feature. I have a separate folder that I save a copy of each picture I might post resized to less than 100 Kbs. Please !!!

Feathers ... don't worry about me. I appreciate the sentiment, truly, but there is the whole St. Johns River and associated lakes and tributaries that are doing just fine. I've got plenty of places to chase fish ... just wanted to show the fate of about 30 percent of the lakes in Central Florida. We actually had a pretty good summer of rains in parts of the State ... just not the whole State. So, I have to drive a little father to get to good water. Yes, Agn ... the drying out is a natural thing, but it's lasted a little longer than usual this time. It's good, when it happens because it allows the sediment to settle and harden into a proper bottom. Not the 3 or 4 foot thick foam of rotting vegetation that steals oxygen. But it's not so good when it goes on for so long that the fish can't survive.

I'd love to look at your pictures, but they come through so large I can't see the whole thing. Please reduce the size of your pictures before posting to less than 700x400.

This is the result of a decade long drought. We had them all filled up in 2004 when four hurricanes blew through here, but there'd been four years of drought before that. Since then, it's been year after year of less than normal rainfalls and we are now about 12 feet below normal in the aquafer.

Here's a couple of comparisons to show what is happening to my favorite lakes here in Central Florida.

Wow! You've got more stuff than I'll ever have, mostly because my cats would never leave some of those materials alone.

Wow! Those would make killer 1000 piece jig-saw puzzles ... especially the second one (Ripples on reflections).

I am going to do my best not to offend anyone, but this thread has moved into an area I have to comment on. I don't really "take care" of my equipment. I do take precautions like washing them if I use them in salt water ... maybe lubing them once every few years ... whatever. I don't think paying 200+ dollars for a reel makes it a better purchase just because it comes with a warranty. I've fished with bargain brand, used and medium brand rods and reels all my life. I have never lost a fish because I was using "inferior" equipment. The only time I've ever broken anything was when I made stupid mistakes. When that happened, I bought a new rod (reel, line, float tube) to replace the broken one. If you by something at $50 and replace it every year with a BRAND NEW one at another $50 ... then you get to fish with new stuff every year for four years. If you buy the same type piece for $200 dollars, then you need to take really good care of it for the same four years to get the same value. I am all about saving money ... and IMHO, the value is in bargain stuff. Having said that ... one day, I will buy one of those sweet rods Steve builds ... but that's art !!!