Swamp Fly

Total guess, but perhaps peacock body? If it weren't for the white I might also suspect Purple Gallinule. Isn't there also a tropical pheasant that has those colors? Swamp

I agree with Cphubert that a biologist will have a real answer. That said I remember reading an article/paper 20+ years ago about theories explaining how salmon find their way back to the river they were born in. One of the things that apparently stuck in my head was that there is a percentage of fish that "get it wrong" and go up the wrong river. So I'd say yes they will come back on their own but I have no idea how long it would take for a viable population to build up on it's own. It could be years if not decades, no clue. I expect that the state or a private group (if allowed) will stock some fish sooner than nature would do it on it's own. I can easily see the local chapter of TU or sportsman's club coordinating with the state, mabey be they already are. Swamp

I'm really liking that you are going back to tie some of these again, not that I think the earlier versions are "bad". It's cool to see the changes. Great work. Swamp

Yup, not normal behavior for a gator. As much as I like fishing Tamiami Trail (US 41) a few of the gators there can be a problem, they have a "forward personality". People catch fish and then throw them to the gators. I've moved on to the next bridge many times down there, your instincts are correct. The more time I spend way back in the woods the more I wish people would stop acting like animals. Of course that's an insult to animals... The trash can be an issue especially in some of the more urban or urban adjacent areas. Luckily in most places it's limited to some beer/soda cans and chip bags etc. As much as I'd like to blame it on whomever, a lot of the trash I see is fishing related. It's the same around most of the rest of the country that I've been to. Swamp

Gators: Honestly there is no reason to fear gators. Respect them? Yes, yes please, always. Even a 4' gator is a powerful animal. I'd be willing to bet that there are 10s of thousands of gator interactions a DAY in the south (not just FL), yet only a hand full of incidents happen a year. Almost all of them are clumped together around mating/nesting season. The vast majority of gator "attacks" involve people walking their small dog along the waters edge, or as I call it "trolling for gators". I figure I have an exponentially greater chance of being harmed in my truck while driving to the water than I do standing on the bank. That said if I see a gator that is "acting odd" I get away from it, discretion is the better part of valor after all. That happened to me a few weeks ago as a matter of fact. I was wading in a creek and there was a 4-5 foot gator a couple of hundred feet up stream. It was slowly swimming down stream in my direction. That was not normal, gators generally don't come towards you (unless people have been feeding them). I got out of the water. I'd be willing to bet it's gator hole was in my direction or past me. While that was a small gator I still did not want to get into it with that animal. A tea cup chihuahua can't really kill me but I still don't want to go get stitched up. On the other hand, last Friday it was "cool" and the gators were moving in slow motion. I poked a 2 footer with my toe to get it out of the way so I didn't accidentally step on it later. This was in a foot of water. Granted even with the lower temperatures if it had been any bigger I'd not have used my foot to shoo it along. I just about ran over a half a dozen with the canoe, that just doesn't happen when it's warmer. A gator is not any different than any other predator, be it four legged or two legged. Pay attention and don't walk down proverbial dark alleys where you can get mugged and then you will be fine. If there is a natural funnel to the waters edge where every racoon and possum go to drink, don't stand at the edge of the water right there. An animal as powerful as a gator can hurt or even kill a person so care should be taken. I'm still more concerned about being hurt or killed by a someones pet dog and I'm a dog person. I hope you make it down here, it's a great place. Grab some fried gator bites while you are here it might be preemptive and they are tasty! 😁

Welcome to the site! You might consider starting a new topic, more people are likely to chime in. What he said. That being said, you may want to narrow your question(s) down a bit. It's kind of like asking how to be a surgeon, best to break it up some. I mean the obvious answer on becoming a surgeon is to go to medical school, while true it's not really helpful. To complicate things fly fishing is different things to different people all of whom are correct and all of whom are incorrect.😃 Are you trying to catch Blue marlin, panfish, or native brook trout? If your screen name is also your location then all of those options are a reasonable drive away. Do you want to focus on dry flies, streamers, or nymphs? The list of options/techniques is just about infinite. In my opinion probably the most effective way to learn is from someone in person. The internet, a book, or DVD can't look at your cast and make a recommendation. Taking a class is also an option but unless you like that sort of thing try and find someone helpful and spend your money on gear and fuel instead. I mean if you can find an into to fly fishing class for $20-$50 then great, that sort of thing might help you to figure out what to focus on first. A lot of fly shops offer free or inexpensive intro classes, it gets people in the door who tend to buy things later. I've also seen multi day classes for over $1000 or even much more if lodging and exotic(ish) locations/fish are involved. Want to learn to fly fish on a famous steelhead stream or top tier lodge an ocean away, I'm sure someone will take your money. But like Mark said, especially if you already have gear, go find some easy fish and learn in the best kind of classroom there is: The Outdoors Swamp

I wanted to add that I'm not dumping on lake Okeechobee, it's just a distribution point for all the crap that is allowed to flow into it. I love fishing the lake and it's creeks/canals. Swamp

Oh boy: Can of worms opened! 😈 I'll need to be careful not to get into environmental Politics/Corporate Influence (same thing). This is a family show after all. I'd say all of the above are correct, yet life goes on and the fish continue to eat. On the freshwater side, yes algal blooms are a real thing especially in the rivers and canals. Blue green algae does produce neurotoxins, it's to be determined how much exposure is detrimental and what long term effects of repeated smaller "dosses" will be. When it gets bad the water can look like it should glow in the dark. The state puts up don't swim in the water signs at access points. While Agricultural runoff is claimed to be the main culprit, I don't necessarily disagree, the warmer temperatures probably don't help. There is a lot of noise about "fixing" the problem by building more Stormwater Treatment Area(s) (STAs) in an effort to filter water and also provide a buffer for massive freshwater releases. So what happens when those areas "fill" up with nutrients? If we get 3-4 major tropical systems in short order I have no doubt it would flush them out into the places that we want to keep clean. Add to the fact that the only place to build those STAs is habitat that still exists. The root of the problem is that the nutrients are getting into the system to begin with. Agriculture is likely to provide the bulk of nutrients but residential systems are also a problem. While lawns continue to be fertilized the problem will persist even in areas that essentially don't have agri runoff. I can use Cape Coral as an example or "Cape Horrible" as I call it just to poke my parents who live there. There have been algal blooms there in the freshwater canals for the last few years. IMO the liquid spray services are the worst problem since the nutrients are not retained at all. Many municipalities have now banned fertilization withing x number of feet away from water during the summer months. I think that is a step in the right direction but the rest of the years is still open season and it should be period not just a given distance from the water. Having said that I also think the problem will persist until there is a cultural/social change away from a need to to have a perfect lawn (or any lawn at all). As far as as the water releases are concerned there seems to have been enough pressure applied to the US Army Corp of Engineers (read PR nightmare) to try and mitigate some of the massive releases. That said, The Corps are in a no win situation. Lake O is no longer a "natural" lake, for those that are unaware The Herbert Hoover Dike which surrounds the lake began construction in the '30s. It now holds much more water. The premise was to protect people from flooding. Water is retained during the drier part of the year, and it sure provides a lot of irrigation water.... Really I'm trying to not drift into the politics/influence of it all. If we have a "wet" dry season then a tropical system later in the year can put the dike at risk. So the Corp has to guess how much water to release in order to not risk 10's of thousands of lives with a potential breach in the dike. Out the Caloosahatchee and St Lucie rivers it goes. Both of those rivers have been channelized so there are no flood plains, the water gets flushes straight into the estuaries. Once the salt content in those estuaries drops below a certain point anything that can't swim away starts dieing, it take years if not decades to recover. Most of the bivalves don't make it and large swaths of sea grass die off. Not only does this release a massive amount of nutrients all at once from the decay but the basis of the natural filtering system that removes those nutrients to begin with is now compromised. The Corp has now adopted a preventative release schedule that will hopefully reduce the number of massive releases and keep water flow closer to historical pre-development levels. To add to the problem Lake O, the St Lucie river, and The Caloosahatchee, are part of the Inter-coastal Waterway. Water levels must be kept high enough to facilitate travel for boats up to a certain size. The glades are a mess too. While there are efforts to restore water flow, unfortunately most of those efforts don't truly restore the Glades themselves. The thousands of square miles of habitat lost aren't being restored. In fact more STA's are being built in areas that are now habitat. Most of the hoopla is about sending water south of Lake O rather than to the east and west via the Caloosahatchee and St Lucie Rivers. One of the issues with sending water south is that a lot of nutrients will go with it. Those nutrients foster the growth of cattails rather than sawgrass. Cattails are "land building" whereas saw grass is not, so more water flow will be restricted. Yet if water is not sent south (which does happen some years) then salinity levels at the top of Florida Bay get so high that they become toxic. Capt Bob can probably speak to that much better than I can. To make matters worse there seems to be very little communication between the controlling entities and even less cooperation between them. A good example is that there have been times that Everglades National Park has not allowed water in the park that the Corps needed to send south because some species was nesting and the nests would be flooded. Never mind the fact that those nests were built so low because the water levels had been controlled for years. Chicken or egg time. I'm not saying that endangered species should not be managed but management should not encourage risky behavior such as building nests lower in the bushes. Kind of like when a power plant goes down in January and then the manatees that over winter there rather than further south start to die. Maybe the manatees should be excluded and encouraged toe follow history migration behavior that doesn't rely on mechanical equipment which can fail. Red tide is another problem down here and it's a bad one. When it hits literally tons of fish wash up on shore. Tourist beaches are cleaned up with front end loaders and dump trucks. Septic systems are often blamed, and I agree that they are part of the problem, yet we always have a major bloom of the algae responsible after hurricanes that flush a ton of water and nutrients out of lake O. I'm not saying septic system aren't an issue, it's like throwing around gasoline when the world is already on fire. How to get rid of the septic systems is a big question. Cape Coral has been doing so but at what cost? When sewer and water are brought in the home owners are forced to hook up at tremendous costs ($10's of thousands). People have lost their homes over it. Other folks like me live in a areas where I doubt sewer and water will ever be brought in and if it were it would cost millions to run to maybe 100 homes. I could see our cost being 6 figures. I don't mean to sound like like a doomsayer, but we keep buying cough drops instead of treating the pneumonia. I'm not going to discus this much more because that definitely runs into politics (not necessarily one side of the isle vs the other though). The fact of the matter is that Florida has been for sale in one form or another since it's inception. Much of what "Florida" is supposed to be has been lost a long time ago. You can't pave over half the state and still call it a pristine wilderness. Even today the Florida is sold as if it were a "young pure virgin" but it is really just the way it has been treated, a vintage lady of the night. I'll leave it at that. Now just because Florida or any place else in the world is not what it was or even what it could be doesn't mean it's not worth it anymore. It is still a wonderful place to be, especially out on the water or in the woods. It's just getting tougher to find places where you won't get run over by the unwashed masses. The low hanging fruit is gone now and you have to put some effort into getting there. I'll keep doing just that until I can't walk or paddle farther than most other people are willing to, then we shall se what I do. It's not all bad. Progress has been made to restore certain areas and it's worth it to stay for those lucky enough to live here and also for guests to experience what we have to offer. It's still paradise, there is just noticeably less of it is all. In fact there is some lemonade to be had amongst the lemons if you look for it. The fishery for exotics is rather spectacular in my opinion. If you are curious, come on down. While the fishing may not be what it was (but where is it?) but it's still amazing. Lots of places to go and plenty of Guides to get you on fish if you want some pointers. I live here by choice not necessity after all, it's more than worth it to me. I'll get off of my orange crate now... Swamp P.S. A typo or auto-correct I'm sure but It's the Caloosahatchee not the Chattahoochee (that's way up north in G'awgia)🙂

OMG, I live in a log house! Never say the T-word! 😅 Blaming the cats is a lot more fun than blaming that jerk that lives in my bathroom mirror. He says nothing but mean things to me as I'm brushing my teeth. If I ever get my hands on him... But you have given my foul wretched creatures a new nickname: Beer Cats! 🤣

Well maybe Squatch had too much coffee? 😁 I'm thinking it might be time to pack a lunch and wander up stream. If you are anything like me it would be best to leave the fishing gear at home otherwise you might not make it any further than usual. The less interesting way might be to look at aerial photos to see if there is something up there that can release water. Any USGS stream gauges on the stream? These are the fun kind of mysteries I like to explore unlike the kind where you could have sworn you just bought beer two days ago (it's just got to be my cats that are responsible...). Swamp

Good for catching the odd fish here and there... I have a few odd numbered packs laying around as well. With the lack of industry standardization, the actual hook size number is somewhat irrelevant. I look at the gap, length, and wire diameter to suit what I am tying. The "size" of the hook is somewhat of an afterthought (within reason). Swamp

Yes, I have some. Get "top coat", it cures harder and less tacky. The resins I have are also pretty thick, I would say the viscosity is similar to hardware store 5 min epoxy. I mostly use it when I want a colored resin, like when I want a fl orange head but don't want to switch thread colors just for the head. Works in the opposite way as well like when I want a black finish but the thread is another color. All of the fingernail resin I have used takes longer to cure and is even smellier than "normal" resin if that makes a difference to you. All of the normal sticky resin cures work on it like top coating with SH or putting the flies out in the sun for a final cure. The y actually make table top UV cure lights that are designed to put your fingers into and let sit for an extended period of time, I seem to remember them being around $20. One of these days I'm going to follow through and make a UV cure box to put flys in. At some point I plan on getting a resin 3D printer, I'm looking forward to playing around with all of the different types and colors of resins. Good luck Swamp

Nice! When I read Fisheating Creek I missed the "bay" part and thought that the water was still a little high, about a foot too high for me (I've been watching it). Those are some nice specks and snook! Some days are just awesome. Despite the higher than normal winds the weather has been great this "fall", I think the fish like it too. Swamp

Unfortunately a bad red tide always seems to follow a storm here and it will probably get worse before it gets better again. I was talking to my neighbor about it and he is pretty grouchy since he likes to smoke mullet. Right about now is when the best mullet of the year for smoking can be had (nice and fatty). By the time things bounce back, the mullet will have spent all of those resources growing roe and milt and bee too skinny to be worth it. This too shall pass but it sucks in the mean time. I do hope that the storm(s) have flushed the harbor and the sound some. There isn't an oyster to be found, all of the usual places have been devoid of life for a while. I have no idea if it's true but I suspect that while water quality is a big factor the silt associated with boat traffic is a bigger problem. It's conjecture to be certain but I've seen really nasty water with very healthy oyster beds. The James River in Virginia when I was growing up was a nightmare with the most publicized issue being ketone poisoning (there was plenty else). According to friends and family The James seems to have recovered well so I still have hope. Years ago a friend once said to me after I complained about all of the boat traffic that I should enjoy it, it was only going to get worse. I try to keep that in mind when I look around but it's tough not to complain.

Well crap. Learned a lot from his work. Thanks for the heads up. He will be remembered.