ben bell

hifisherboy.. i like catching big fish too, but i don,t like yanking them off the spawning bed..there,s plenty of big fish not on the bed to fish for..they don,t all spawn at once..catch one, take a picture and release her..get a replica made if you need a mount.

hi willie. i don,t know whether you know it or not but fly fishing is also fishing with a hand-line...most fly fishers set the hook by yanking the fly line..they feel the bite by holding the line..they work the fly by pulling on the line..they really don,t need the rod or the reel. lol.

after a while you learn that trophys and records are silly.

hi rick..looks like if it doesn,t have a reel it must not be fly fishing although people have been fly fishing for over 1000 years before the reel was invented..how soon we forget. lol.

i,m thinking of starting a new in thing..tenkara ice fishing..(i heard that)..easy rod to build..six feet long, telescopic, line attached to tip..i can,t call it tenkara, need a new name, maybe fourkara.

i wouldn,t pay $300 for a rod either but i can afford to make one for $50 and it,s a quality blank that weighs only two ounces and 12' long..all i had to do was slide on an EVA grip and plug the back end..they even sell kits for $75 with nicer grips and hardware..it,s just for farmpond fishing and excels at that.

thanks gene..so there is hope..lol.

high fisherboy..i,m hoping the big bass will kinda drag me with him. lol.

have any of you used tenkara from a kick boat and if you hook up to a large bass, can you chase and keep up with him as he makes a run..

you got elitest snobs in just about every human activity but that doesn,t make the activity not worth doing..it,s only a pole with a string and an angle on one end and a jerker on the other..lol.

i was first exposed to it over 65 years ago with a cane pole and string and it lead to bigger things..my brother never fly fished, but he loves this tenkara..i,m sitting back and just watching to see how big the planted seed will get..lol.

vicrider, i thought about tape. lol. but the butt is only 1/2" diameter.. it would take maybe two rolls of tape to buildit up and since i make my rods i had plenty grips laying around and the eva grip just slipped on nicely.

i,ve been using a cabela,s 10' panfishpole..great fun on farm ponds..i can,t get it back from my brother, he liked it so much..so i just got a "real" tenkara rod to build from a blank..i just slipped on a contoured EVA grip and i,m in business, all for only $50 including shipping...they are fun on farm ponds.

it looks like it,s fading out. even on tenkara sites activity looks real slow. what happened..

or one of my dentist,s tools. lol.

bimini, your in good company..jack gartside admitted to not liking deer hair and created the gurgler. lol.

hi bimini..your welcome..i,m a hair-bug freak but when i see bugs tied like that i start loosing some of my religion. lol.

well done, bimini15..i just keep looking at it.

bowmike, that,s the best part about fly tying..you can ty whatever pops in your head and it catches fish...well, sometimes.

i don,t know how many times i,d be trimming(butchering?) a hair bug and come up with a completely new pattern.lol.

did you try kroschhackle.com

be like mike..flip flops and 7/32 K&S brass tube..

or you can make your own hooks. here,s a wine cork popper covered with wine colored flock and a homemade circle hook..i have not fished it yet in case you ask..

hi cream, do you saturate the hair spook with some kind of water proofing? my hair bugs double in weight after a few minutes of fishing, i have actually weighed them...after a while it,s like fishing with a sponge.lol.

gp, anytime i try to make a nice round head like that i keep cutting and end with just a nub..so i tried to make a square first then trim the edges, tht helped some but still got a lot of nubs, so now i make square heads and call it a grasshopper..they look good now. lol.