Mark Knapp

All very nice. Thanks guys.

It went great. Everything went off smoothly. We had a blast but. The only bad thing was, our teem lost.

Tonight I am dropping the ceremonial puck for a Fairbanks Ice Dogs game (Hockey) because I'm some kind of local wise guy and I beat cancer. At least I don't have to put one over the plate. That would be embarrassing. Or sing the national anthem, that would be worse. All I have to do is open my hand and let gravity take over. (I think)

That's a bummer. Last I went, we had 20 inches.

I'll catch few stripers, SMB and LMB and a cat or two as by-catch while I fish the red ear. I even caught a turtle last year. I hope everyone has a great season.

Nice, I like the faux primer/rust paint job.

I love to go to the fish house, that's where all my Twinkies and Hot Pockets are. It's warm in there, it'll be thirty below outside but it can still be 70 degrees inside the house. Without the house, your guides will freeze on your rod for sure. I have a ceiling fan in there so all the hot air doesn't stay at the top of the house. With the ceiling fan, your feet are as warm as your head, and your ice-hole doesn't freeze up. My motto for ice fishing is, "If you're suffering, you're doing it wrong". In fact, that's becoming my motto for just about everything these days.

It's thirty below zero today in Fairbanks and I have a nasal infection. I have a strict rule about that, I never go ice fishing when it's 30 below and I have blood in my boogers. If it warms up a little or the infection clears up I'll still go. Till then I'll just have to wait till one of them goes away. Whichever goes first.

I love Cicadas. When I was a kid we caught them and tied a thread to their legs and flew them around like a kite. When one got too tired we'd let it go, catch another one and fly it around till the brief hatch was over. At that time we didn't understand why hatches were so few and far between. They sure were noisy.

It's only a matter of time now. I bet you'll be 'gill fishing before me. My panfish trip doesn't start till April 18 and runs for 6 weeks. I had to negotiate down from 3 months to 6 weeks. My wife doesn't trust me down at Havasu for a full three months. Too many fish, I guess.

Seems like good stuff. Just the fact that it has brush makes it different. Seems like all other super glues just fuse the brush to stuff and make a block of the brush. I'll get a bottle and try it as well as see how the formulas diffrer

Wow, it's good to know theses things. Gorilla is about the only brand I haven't tried. I'll pick up a bottle next time I'm at another store. Of course, I have gallons of a different brand that we stock at our store. Now I'll have to buy some. Thanks for letting us know, looks like a great technique. Maybe Silver can tell us why they differ.

I tied up a bunch Skip Morris patterns and some others. Then I organized my fly boxes for Lake Havasu.

Yet another attempt at humor summarily ignored and neglected. It used to be so much fun to tease Mike here. Now it seems like I'm just wasting my time. 🤕

As we all know, the soft jell squirmy wormies we use in some fly patterns can be a challenge to control when tying a fly. They are so soft that they pinch easily, don't like to lie correctly and are easily cut off by the thread. Another problem is, they don't glue well. Every head cement or adhesive I have just melts through them. These are some of the things I do to alleviate these problems. Use lose wraps on the wormies so as not to cut through them. Tie down wormies with flat thread, floss or chenille to reduce the chance of the tie down cutting through the wormy. Tension of the tie down material is used to control the lay of the wormy. We make the wraps just tight enough to hold the wormy down to the desired location but not tight enough to pinch it and make it bulge away from the hook shank. Center wraps can be tighter to grip the wormy but edge wraps are looser to. I do not apply head cement or adhesive directly to the rubber wormy material. Materials; Appropriate size thin wire, curved, hook for your target fish. 3/0 flat thread or floss in a color of your choice. Tail- squirmy wormy Body- Medium chenille Hackle- Soft hackle, any color. Lay down a floss/thread base from one hook-eyes width from the eye to the start of the bend. Then, using loose wraps, tie down a section of squirmy wormy, about as long as the hook to extend past the curve of the hook half of the hooks length. Lose wraps are used to keep from cutting off the wormy. Try to keep the rubber worm on top of the hook as it will try to crawl around the hook shank. Disregard the lie of the rubber at this point. Next remove about one hook shank's length of fluff from the chenille, tie the end of the chenille in at the center of the hook..... and loosely wrap the bare thread from the chenille back to the start of the curve of the hook, all the while pulling the wormy toward you to keep it on top of the hook. The start of the chenille fluff and the wormy should meet at the start of the curve of the hook. Wrap the chenille over the wormy in tight enough wraps so that it holds the wormy down parallel to the shank but not so tight that it pinches the wormy and causes it to point upward from the shank. Wraps can be tighter as you wrap toward the eye of the hook. Tie down the chenille one hook-eye width from the eye. Do all of this while controlling the lay of the wormy with the left hand. Tie in the chosen soft hackle ahead of the chenille top end first with the fronds curved toward the fly. Wrap the hackle around the shank to form a sparse collar. Tie down the hackle, with the fly up-side-down, apply some Zap-a-gap or similar along the bottom of the fly on the chenille wraps to link them together. Apply some head cement and go fishing. The San Juan Worm is very similar. Thin wire curved hook. Body - squirmy wormy Medium Chenille. 3/0 floss or flat thread Remove some fluff from the end of the chenille and tie it in at the center of the hook shank. Lay the squirmy wormy on the top of the hook shank and tie it in with loose floss wraps. Just the weight of the bobbin is holding the wormy in place. Wrap the chenille from the curve of the hook toward the eye of the hook. Adjust the wormy and the chenille tension to get the lay you want.Tie it off by tying just the chenille down under the wormy. With the hook up-side-down, apply Zap-a-gap along the bottom of the fly to link the chenille wraps together.

Two squirmy wormy patterns. A friend of ours on this forum asked me to explain how I control squirmy wormies so they lie correctly on a fly. Here are the flies. The SBSs for them are in the SBS Sub-Forum. A chartreuse 'gill bug Squirmy San-Jaun worm.

Very nice.

Did you put it on your outboard motor analyzer? Whatever you do with it, it's cool.

Well actually, trout are generally very much harder to catch than the lowly sunfish, which, usually, eagerly just jumps onto anyone's awaiting fly of any design (even amateurish, in style and execution), really, so you see, it really wouldn't be a reasonable comparison unless you, maybe multiplied a "difficulty quotient" of maybe thirty, forty or fifty to the sunfish catch to come even close to trout numbers. 😁

No, I just want to tie flies. There will be someone with something like what you want though.

I'm going to do both Skip's sunfish and Skips dragon. Thanks.

The Judges have come to a tough decision and sent out prizes.

I have tied with those things. It hasn't worked out for me. Brightly colored 275 and 110 cord work better. Like these, maybe.

Any more now adays, my motto is, "If you're suffering, You're doing it wrong"

You know, you are right. It'll be a tough decision. Have a good winter. Going ice fishing tomorrow.