wschmitt3

The only rod I've broken was while climbing out onto some ledges to get into casting position to fish a pool I couldn't wade to. While climbing I needed both hands and had the rod handle clamped in my teeth and with out realizing it I pinched the tip in a crevice on the rock face while trying to extract myself from the bind I snapped the rod tip. Beyond that there are pretty much just standard losses of footing in stream, hooking trees and bridges. I did one time break off the point of a hook when I hit a retaining wall on a back cast, I fished that fly for probably a half hour and failed to set the hook on a dozen or so strikes before I realized what was happening. My favorite fishing story to tell people is something that actually happens all too often. Birds picking up my fly off the water. There is a couple short sections of riprap not to far from my house that a bunch of cedar waxwings have staked out because there is lots of insects and berries to eat. Every time I fish my way through this section they buzz me and fly right at me then quickly reverse direction. Its very very annoying but they also frequently pick my fly up off of the water. Every once and a while the dropped fly will get taken by a fish after it lands.

Not knowing what I am going to encounter is exactly why I want to put together a good but not too large selection of colors and sizes that will cover the mayflies and water types I see most often. And I am past the looking for an idea of what to start out with I am at the stage of tailoring my selections to my fishing style, river conditions and most frequently encountered insect activity. I find hatch charts all but useless. Firstly there isn't a fly shop within fifty miles of me and the fishing conditions in the rivers that I fish are very different than the rivers that those fly shops promote and guide on. Also I am pretty sure that those are really nothing more than marketing tools. What I have found over the last few years is that I pretty much only see a few variations of flies and I pretty much see them all season long. These variations are - small and light colored (light and cream cahill and yellow quill), small and smaller BWO, and larger flies (isonychia mainly) I also see the golden drake here and there and the fish crash into each other going after them. There are obviously more mayflies that hatch here but they are in such small concentrations that carrying a pattern to specifically match is pointless so instead I carry something that is a general pattern and carefully present it. The way that I fish returning to a car for flies would eat up too much time to be worth it. I often cover several river miles in a 3-4 hour outing and most of the time I walk to one of the 5 rivers that I fish I carry a pretty large hip pack (ledges 650) with a few large boxes in it so space isn't really an issue the real issue is that I hate seeing all of these patterns I don't hardly ever use and I want more room for backups of more useful patterns.

So the main reason I started up this thread is because last year I had like 150 may flies in my box and most were not producers I was trying too hard to carry the perfect fly to match everything. I had dark and light hendricksons and cahills, red, ginger and blue quill, Green and brown drake (which I never see here) march browns (which I also never see). It was really just too much crap I didn't need. Late in the season I started to experiment with a few other patterns types and decided this year I would revamp the mayfly patterns I carry and try a more general approach. I don't really think that carrying "Match the hatch flies" is the way to go for me or the places I fish. I see a only a few sizes and shades of mayflies coming off in the places that I fish. With this in mind I made up a list of may flies I wanted to carry that should pretty well cover the whole seasons mayfly emergences. This is it- Light Cahill - 16-20 Para-Cahill - 16-20 Para-Adams - 12-18 Para-BWO - 16-20 Para-Pheasant Tail - 14-16 Harrop's Hairwing BWO- 16-18 Harrop's Hairwing Adams 12-16 Harrop's Hairwing Cahill 16-18 Pheasant Tail Harrop's Hairwing -14-18 (I tie this on a scud hook with wire to sink the body and tail and z-lon tail to represent an emerger) Phesant Tail Variant 12-16 (for brook trout @ headwater) Golden Drake Dun (Variant Style)- 10 - I see golden drakes come off here and there all year on several streams near me so I try to always have one in my box Royal Wulff 12-16 In addition to these patterns for duns ill carry a few cdc rusty spinners and rusty colored parachutes as well as a couple colors and sizes of quigleys style cripples and cdc smoke jumpers in a couple sizes and colors. I think this list covers needs for sizes and shades as pretty well as well as types of waters (riffles & pools)

Steeldrifter - First off thanks for responding to the environmental/stunted growth comment I didn't really feel like getting into a long drawn out aquarium keeping discussion. My pleco has never touched any veggies I have put in there. I've tried blanched and fresh zucchini, cucumber, spinach and broccoli. I have had common plecos in larger tanks that I used to keep that would tear up a bundles of spinach that I would blanch and drop in and I cant get this one to touch veggies or algae wafers at all. It seems to strictly feed on left over flake food and it seems to be perfectly healthy.

What dry fly patterns do you stock in your fly boxes for May and June mayfly duns? Im pretty well aware of what is out there so I'm not looking for advise I already have a working list of what I'll be stocking that i don't think I'll change. I'm just curious about what patterns the folks in this forum might be picking through this year. I'd share my list now but I'm sitting in a waiting room so I'll post it when I get home.

Others will disagree but I you can get away with using 10-12lb mono for average size pike and pickerel. I have lost very few on 12lb and have brought in a number on 6lb test (lost a few also). You don't really need bite wire unless you targets are really big ones. You will have to check and/or change your leader and knots after a catch but regular (high quality) mono can work just fine. With that said you could also just use the wire leaders from your local tackle shop or specialty fly fishing wire.

What do you use for the wingcase?

Welcome to the forum!

Yea it'll catch a few im sure. Some pointers - Try to tighten up the head so there isn't so much space between the bead and hackle. If it were me I would loose the second hackle and add a counter wrapped wire rib to make it a more durable.

Welcome to the forum from Vermont. -Will

Welcome to the forum from Vermont. -Will

Ive had the fish for almost a full year and it was 8 months to a year old when I got it. It has not grown at all in the time I've had it. I was told it was selectively bred over several generations for its small size and is going to max out at about 4".

It's a very small, (3") very shy Para Pleco (L075) that I've had for quite a while that is fully grown. It hides in it's cave all day and comes out to clean up left over flake food for a few hours a night. When I get some shrimp if it messes with them I'll move it to a smaller tank I have. But I highly doubt it will. Thanks for the advise though.

For what reason would you leave the pleco out? Ive had the fish for nearly a year it is full grown at 3" and has never touched anything planted in the tank before (marimo ball and amazon sword).

Cherry reds are exactly what I was thinking about getting. Mike- My pleco is a para pleco it doesn't really eat much veg or algae. It seems to be pretty content with left over flake food since I normally feed the fish late in the evening there is plenty of fresh flakes on the bottom, it has never messed with my plants or marimo moss balls which are a big ball of algae.

I am going to put about a dozen cardinal tetras and my plecostomus back in there. I am considering shrimp also they look pretty cool and I've never kept them before. I made a few change this morning, added some river gravel and moved a few plants around.

I tore down my 29 gallon aquarium and changed it over to a planted tank today. I still have my low power lighted hood with a single t-8 bulb in it but tomorrow I will receive a two bulb t5 high output lamp and get that installed. Ill also be adding a yeast powered co2 generator tomorrow to feed the plants.

Welcome to the forum from Vt. I live right on the Connecticut river in Wells River. I have never done a complete through hike of the A.T. but I've done south bound from Baxter to Mt. Washington, North bound from Giffords Woods (I think that's where I started, the intersection of the A.T. and long trail) to Mt. Washington and the entire Long trail a few times. Welcome Again! -Will

Welcome to the forum.

I purchased the whiting intro pack from cabellas and wasn't very happy with it. Most of my feathers were too webby for really good dry fly hackle. It's best to buy what you need for the flies you want to tie. Who ever needs a whole half cape of Black rooster hackle? I have purchased 1/2 capes and full capes as well as bugger packs and 100 packs from feather emporium and have been very very happy with the quality and service I received. Also he has winger packs (hen feathers for mayfly wings) that are well worth the $15. I would recommend picking just one or two flies in a few sizes (I suggest adams sz 12-16 and light cahill 14-16) order a mixed size hundred pack of hackle for each. For the adams you'll need brown and ginger(I just use dark barred ginger, I love dark barred ginger). For the light cahill you'll need light ginger. A winger pack for the adams and a small bunch of mallard flank for the cahill and the dubbing for each and your all set to tie lots and lots of each. More than you'll ever need for fishing.

I never really considered it until now. So I took a look at my fly box. I only had 2 patterns that are tied with 100% synthetic material, zebra midge and san juan worm. Almost all of my flies are tied with mostly non-synthetic materials. I don't think that this fact has anything to do with bias towards non-synthetics it think that it just happens to be the patterns I like happen to be tied with non-synthetic materials.

In some other forums it is used when an individual violates the terms of use. Certain violations earn a certain number of points and when a certain number of points is reached the users posting rights are suspended or revoked.

Brown or Olivwe with a gold bead head.

Welcome to the forum!

Got Mine. Great flies everyone, Thanks!