vicrider

Bumping around between 80-90 but heat spell moving in next week and triple digit temps again. Hopefully that's not the future of summer this year. Not bad last year and we'll always have some 100+ days from now until Sept. but if it cools at night and doesn't cook us too much it will be tolerable. Back in healthy days I'd be on the water at daybreak and fish until it got to hot. Now I'm lucky if I'm up to see the sun go down let alone come up. 12:30 and just shut off air and opened doors for night. Don't know how long that will work but we can hope. AC is not cheap.

It does on one side but the other side can stick out. For me it's an anal thing that I don't like to have one side fall out with the sharp edge. Kind of like all the trimming I do because of how I need every fly to look as neat as possible before I throw it out or razor it clean. Edit to add, if you look at the picture closely you'll the see the sharp edge sticking out of the bead on the silver one on lower left and far right. That edge is sharp and I've found anything sharp except the hook point can find it's way to the leader when fish twist and squirm pretending they don't like the hook.

Since the talk on bead chain eyes I use small wire cutters. When you snip the bead chain one side is cut close, other side can stick out. I use a magnet to pull long piece of wire out and snip it flush. Sometimes I put a spot of UV on the holes and dab eyes on with marker, then another dab of UV. Makes eye look like they pop out of bead. Cypert minnow is one of my favorite ties for swaps and fishing panfish.

I did. Condition was fitting in my fly box without crushing the legs anyway. They're still plenty long enough to wiggle.

Biggest trick there I've learned, and I did a LOT of it up north is not to have your spool as full as for normal casting, hog the front of the boat and cast that rod inches off the water. Aim to hit about 6" or so from the dock and let the line fly free. That's the reason to not over fill the spool. After a while you can start catching fish others miss 'cause most can't really skip way back into the corners and pockets we can, or you soon will be. Down here now I have no docks to fish and really miss the docks and the lilypads and the coon grass and the laydowns and the reeds. Here it's all clay banks and some snot weed. A few brush piles to bring in crappie.

I know it's not right to mess with anyone's flies but I did cut down someone's rubber legs (you know who you are) to get them in my fly box without sticking out edges and getting cut anyway. A can't help but think a couple of these would entice the spotted dace in some of the cold water streams also.

Sorry to hear but knew you were going through nasty stuff. Guess we all become more susceptible to body breakdowns and infections and viruses as we age. I marvel at how well some things on my body keep doing while others are falling apart. Heredity is a big factor and if I have a long line of age on my side. Just wish energy and ambition came with it. Are you still able to get out do some of your favorite UL spinning for crappie and 'gills? Nick

I'm thinking Estaz also. Makes great bodies on a lot of ties.

Looking forward to these since panfish, bass and cats are all I have to fish for here in smaller reservoirs. Edit to add...Picked up in today's mail and they are going into a box that is liable to be used this summer, something that hasn't happened for awhile for me.

Mine is Palmer Chenille and I think it is quite a bit different from the eyelash yarn used for a lot of leech ties. It's similar to 1/2 inch strands of Estaz but only on one side of the string. Adds a lot of flash to center of fly between marabout and ice dub. Also makes a flashy Bugger.

Sounds good Rich. I've had some of that around for a long time and never found a use for it. In playing with something to come up with in this swap I found a use for it. Using it as part of the body inbetween marabout and Ice dub on the hooks for the articulated streamer. Mine is called some form of one sided flash chenille but is basically eyelash material (I think).

I have a couple of streamers from swaps where they tied those "aftershaft" feathers in as the streamer body. Makes a very living, breathing, small streamer in the water.

I'm guessing if it'll catch a Mudfish it'll catch a bass. Mudfish was a name for dogfish/bowfin up north and down here that's what a lot of them call bullheads. If you're new to our swaps welcome to a great group of people and if you need any questions answered just drop me a PM. Nick

So looks like you took your aquarium life very seriously. Quite some pictures. So, how do you do the fingernails? Do you glue yours on and paint like my wife does while you're drinking a Bud Light or do you use them to fish with? I thought of drilling a hole on each end to put a small split ring and hook but don't know if they're strong enough for that. Do you epoxy a hook underneath? What's you system because if it's easy to do my wife has every color ever made in glue on nails. Nick

Good question Norm. I had no idea if there would be any interest with forum so quiet and everyone fishing (I hope)... Never mind all that I said. See note in first post. Hope you'll join in. I've seen the quality of your streamers.

SWAP IS FULL...10 FLIES TOTAL Been waiting for someone to post a swap. Maybe this is a bad time since vacations and fishing be going on out there in the real world but for me I have a clean desk and need to do something. I've been tying up the last of my #30 hooks while I'm still able to and have to laugh when I just finished an articulated fly for our shad lake. If we can get some people to do bass flies, eiteher on top or bottom, I'll host it. I know I'm looking forward to the panfish flies and can always use some bass goodies to go with them. Let's look toward mid July for date if we can get some guys to go with this. NOTE: I was not sure if there'd be any interest in this swap so for count let's figure on one tie per swapper and we'll call the swap full on June 23rd. We'll have a final count then and know the final number. We'll make them due on 7/7/2023. Glad we got some more interest than I was expecting and hope for some more. Nick Szabo PO Box 361 Cheyenne, OK 73628 Me...Articulated streamer...Finished 1. Bryon Anderson...Foam Floater...In the house and looking good 2. Woodenlegs...They just crawled in and ready to crawl out 3. Chasing_tails...In the house and looking good. 4. Squeezy...Double Barrels...Got sent back and resending 5. DarrellP...Foxy Clouser...In the house and looking good. 6. Stabgnid...Stumpbuster...In the house and looking good. 7. Mudfish 620...Unbalanced Sparkle Minnow...In the house and looking good 8. CPHubert..In the house and looking good. 9. richmc...eyelash leech..In the house and looking good. 10. flytire...In the house the usual top of line work Norm does.

With enough other problems caused by living too long I'm very fortunate my eyes are not one of them, I don't think. Coming up on 80 and not been to an eye doctor in over 30 years when I had to go for work and get bifocals. Glass safety lense on top with reader patch down low on lense. The one thing that does bug me is the occasional aura that drifts across my vision, seemingly in one eye or the other. Every thing I an find out about this is it is no in the eye but rather the brain sending a signal you're about to have a migraine in many people. I get this aura passing across my vision that looks like a lightning bolt but steady, not flashing, but fortunately I don't get the migraine with it so many people have.

Except for the cigars (no tobacco for 40+ years) I pretty much emulate the lifestyle you talk about in your last paragraph. I enjoy living but doing a real diabetes diet, excerise, and leaving my recliner for any serious length of time is so engrained I cannot change that lifestyle even knowing it's shortening my life. At 79 I've lived through a lot of good times and some not so good and now I can't shake myself of the feeling I'm just waiting around for the end. I hope you can really turn things around and I do know the older you live to with the bad habits the harder it gets to change them. Glad you took that trip to urgent care and they found what they did. Good luck on the changing of your lifestyle (and your wife's). As for tobacco I had a good fishing buddy who smoked about the same amount I did at the time. They found a malignant tumor on one lobe and had half his lungs removed. He came at me so hard I through cigarettes from two pack a day to cold turkey and stayed that way since. They shut down the plant we worked at and I didn't see him for almost a year while we changed courses in our lives. He started a business and I went back to school. We got together to fish about a year later and HE'S SMOKING. I asked him "What the hell?" and his answer was you have to look at it this way..."I'm only smoking half as much". Yes, we lost him a few years later when the second half of his lungs metastasized.

Bob, save my return envelope for future use and donate all my flies to the fund raiser. I have more than I'll ever use anyway now. Love to see other's work but his problems are more important than my looking at them and then storing them. Nick

cencal, I know you're going through some tough times but keep it together and we'll miss the quality of ties you've done for past swaps. When able to join back in a swap again and you'll be more than welcome. Nick

I never saw her live but have watched some of her concerts, and not from that long ago, and she brought the life to the stage. She was a ball of fire, fun, and song for her entire routines. She will be missed by many. That she survived the Ike Turner years of abuse and could remain so positive in her life is a wonder and testament to her positive attitude.

Seems like kind of a strange idea but to each his own. You might need to improvise a setup to clamp your vise, then remove it to fish. I'm thinking of a bar across the gunnels that would mount in the oar locks on each side, then pop out and get stored to row and fish.

There was a musky guide in WI who got tired of people circleing around him to get onshore references to his spots. He'd go to a spot almost guaranteed to wreck a prop unless you knew the area and he'd never caught a fish. He'd use his gaff to haul in this big wet towel trying to hide it from the person picking landmarks behind him. Then he'd carefully pull out and leave that spot to his lurker to bang a prop. PS...I should edit it this and mention that today people simply drive by your spots and click a waypoint on their GPS and they've got it. His old trick wouldn't work today. Add to that if you're fishing bigger lakes most guys with money have cards with the lake maps built right into their sonar units.

I'm having problems with this site and a couple of others for reasons I don't understand. I have a VPN I have to turn on and off depending on the site. One site I cannot post unless my VPN is turned on. Otherwise it rejects me and says my IPS is blacklisted. I turn on VPN and it's fine. This site I can't see pictures posted unless I turn off the VPN. I can't use "next page" or click between pages here either way, on or off. Damn computers are a giant but necessary puzzle to me.

That open mouth with the crushing power of a hydraulic press is thought of by me as a threat display. The fact he's in my range of vision is sufficient threat display to me. And sharks tearing fish from my hand while I'm releasing them is an adequate display of threat by them. I don't want to rock a fish in the water to revive and bring back a bloody stump thank you.