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Mark Knapp

I have booked an eight day trip to Lake Havasu for redears

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22 minutes ago, Steeldrifter said:

I'll be be ready, what time will you be swinging by to get me? it's only an extra couple thousand miles out of your way so no biggie 😁

😊

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On 5/12/2021 at 2:07 PM, mikechell said:

Next Red Ear record holder ... good luck, Mark.

I don't know. They don't seem to have a line-class or fly fishing category for them. I may set a new record for my OPB for fly fishing fun. The guide I'm going with has been guiding fly-fishers there for forty years but not for shell-crackers. No one wants to fish them that way. (Me do)

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Since the huge growth of the redears in Havasu is attributed to their feeding on Zebra mussels I don't know how fly rodding will go with that. Mussel fly on a sinking line? Would be great if they come up to take something on top but I don't think they're acclimated to that and that kind of growth doesn't come from an occasional surface bug. I'm excited to hear how you do on this trip since it is one for a fish most wouldn't put high on their bucket list but seeing pictures of those garbage can lid size monsters does stir the blood.

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1 hour ago, vicrider said:

Since the huge growth of the redears in Havasu is attributed to their feeding on Zebra mussels I don't know how fly rodding will go with that. Mussel fly on a sinking line? Would be great if they come up to take something on top but I don't think they're acclimated to that and that kind of growth doesn't come from an occasional surface bug. I'm excited to hear how you do on this trip since it is one for a fish most wouldn't put high on their bucket list but seeing pictures of those garbage can lid size monsters does stir the blood.

You may know that I am very enthusiastic about mimicking the main pray species of a particular fish and fishing deep. So, I imagined that this kind of fishing would be right up my alley. I am going to tie up some Quagga mussels (a close cousin to the Zebra mussel, quaggas are the one's in Havasu.) and fish them deep, about 20 feet according to my guide. In talking to my guide, he said there was no need to tie quaggas as anything that looks like a crayfish is killer on the shell crushers. I'm going to tie up a bunch of crayfish and a bunch of quaggas.

He said that almost nobody wants to go after redears with a fly. He's almost excited as I am to spend that much time concentrating on them with just fly gear.

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there was a site that had a guy that did very well using what he called the auto jig.  its a small 1/64 and nothing but tapered thread body and some silicone legs.  he fished them deep 25-25ft

could hav e been big bluegill .com. 

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1 hour ago, richmce said:

there was a site that had a guy that did very well using what he called the auto jig.  its a small 1/64 and nothing but tapered thread body and some silicone legs.  he fished them deep 25-25ft

could hav e been big bluegill .com. 

AH, I'll check it out. Thanks

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Got'ya Mark. Quagga mussels and not Zebra. Knew they had one in there and everything you hear is Zebra so figured it was those. Good luck and you have a lot of people waiting on these reports. Only time I've fished that deep with a fly rod was drifting with lead and mono.

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thanks for posting that umik1953.  i did search for it and there is more info on crappie.com    go to forums then  down to state forum of california   post was back on 5/15/19.

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Thanks for the Magazine link Skeet. Jumped on that one. Like the little "autojig" though don't understand how it got that name it looks good and simple.

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