Morrowboarder

I have a cheap UV light I paid $10 for on eBay or Amazon, and I have a $30 or so Loon UV light. They both do the job.

I failed last weekend here in central Illinois for early smallies on the fly. They haven't quite started heading up the tributaries yet, but I had to check for the sake of my sanity. Beautiful and healthy looking smallmouth you have there.

I use 40lb clear maxima for butt end and tie on 35lb AFW nylon coated steel wire, no issues yet, but not many fish on it either.

Mouse fly

Haven't posted in months, but been getting some early spring Muskie and Smallmouth flies done. I went a little stingy on supplies this year so I basically used past year's scraps; it's getting the job done, spent enough on fly line and kayak racks this year.

Aside from my allergies acting up, I had a productive day fly fishing my hometown river. Caught 6 smallmouth ranging from 14-17 on articulated streamers. Can't wait to go back out next weekend.

I buy bead wire and shape it with pliers. Dirt cheap and effective.

Articulated leech pattern, going to throw this for smallmouth this weekend.

I should've been more specific; was wanting to see everyone's oldest book, just out of interest. I have quite the collection of books within last decade. Mike, ditto. I've put away the books for some time now and stick to online findings. One of these days I'll run back through them to spark some ideas.

I dug up some old fly tying books of mine. One is older than I am. Would like to see what everyone has.

Better looking than my first 20

Tied a similar fly I did in June, but went with 3d eyes on this one. Now waiting for flood waters to go down before I can toss it.

Really liking those poppers, what a great blend of colors.

Mike, is that a Red spotted sunfish or just spotted sunfish? The red spotted are protected by Illinois DNR, so they're a rare catch here.

Jeff, what did you use to hold the mouth together?