Mark Knapp

Very nice.

Yep, it was a great time. The fish are fed well and it makes them a little harder to catch. Besides the quagga mussels, there are lots of shad and invasive, orange swamp crayfish in the lake. While I was fly casting during the first two days, the other two guys using drop shots and worms only had three bites a day between them. Tough fishing to be sure. It picked up after the water warmed up, the last day we ended up with 10 fish in the boat.

Looks like a great time. Thanks for posting.

You can also weld loops into your lines for loop-to-loop connections. The welded loop connection hinge less on the cast and they actually go through the rod guides better than the woven loops do. It's pretty easy to do. There are several tutorials on it on Youtube.

It took me six years to catch my tiger rock fish on a fly, it would be a darn shame if I have to go to Havasu for six years.😄

It was, thanks.

It does. That's about what I do, except I don't take the line off the spool. I do sometimes put the reels in a bucket of fresh water, but spaying them with fresh water is much easier. Thanks for the comment.

That's what I thought it was. I tried reading Capstick a while back, couldn't do it. His writing style just aint my thing.

What is "long pig"

The eyes really bring it home.

I'm pretty sure they are all made of tungsten now. That's what the "T" in the T series of sinking weight stands for.

Is it still available, or did it drop off the market? 😁 I heard prices for houses like that are plummeting.

She's a sweetie-pie, you're a lucky dude.

I already got that kind of mussels covered, you just can't see them. You know, cuzz I got them covered.😃

These guys, they make everything down to 3 wt., they are fast, reasonably priced and have quality stuff.

As I said in the text above, I am sorry to say none of these fish were caught on a fly. It was very windy, the windiest spring they have had in resent history. 10 to 20 MPH with gusts to 40 is what the weather report said. It made even casting a drop-shot very difficult. The redears were incredibly hard fighters. The smallies were on beds but nothing else was yet. Next year I'll be there for 20 days, later in the season, when the redears will be on the beds and we'll hopefully have less wind. After having the mussels in my hand, I'll modify the pattern a little bit. I'll also tie other patterns but I am really going to work the mussels hard.

Very nice Norm

That's quite a storm you got brewing, take cover.

My wife will sometimes tell me I need to build a lean-to so that my boat isn't always in the rain. It's a boat, it's supposed to get wet. My fresh water reels are always getting wet. And I often put them down in the grass for one purpose or another, never dirt or gravel. They are not made of sugar. I think that most of this talk is blown way out of proportion. I try not to put my stuff in salt water and I try to wash them down after salt water outings, but it isn't always done for one reason or another. None of my Tibors, Abels or Sages show any deleterious effects from rather casual reel care. I bought them all used and I'm sure they are way over a decade old. They are tools like any other tool, I don't lay awake at night worrying about any of them. If any of them had been handed down to me by my Grandfather that would be a different story. If any of them were irreplaceable, different story. I'm pretty sure I will die before any of them go bad on me, and at my funeral, no one will say, "He sure spent a lot of time taking good care of his reels" My reels will all look like they were used.... a bunch, and I like it that way.

Well I'm back, and I have to say that the trip was a great success. I didn't catch the fish of a life time on a fly but I had a great time. I have already booked a trip for next year. The first two days the water too cool for the fish to be in fishable waters. I made about 150 fly casts on each of the first two days while my partner drop-shotted with night crawlers. He and our guide got three bites each day and landed four fish a day. By the third day the water temperatures were up but it was too windy for fly casting. It had already been the windiest spring the locals could remember. It even made casting drop-shots difficult, but the fishing picked up. We kept red ears from 12 to 15 inches and smallies and large mouths from 3 to 4 pounds. Next year, twenty days

I leave in the morning. Wish me luck and I'll report back in 11 days.

I wasn't talking to you personally, it was a general statement, more to Skeet and Mike I guess. More to my point, none of us know what will happen. The easiest thing to do is prepare for the worst and hope for the best. It's just too easy to be ready for the worst, in my mind there's really no reason not to. Food can be eaten at any time. It's not like it's costing me anything to have some around. I'm a guy that's taking 7 fly rods and eight reels to Lake Havasu for an eight day fishing trip so there you go. I have 200 flies tied and I'm bringing a travel vise in case I don't have enough or I don't have the right pattern. I just like to be ready. On a serious note, being ready has saved my life on more than one occasion. I'll tell you guys about it some time.

You are assuming that Putin is not out of his mind, or won't go out of his mind. I'm not prepared to make that assumption. If Hitler had had nukes, can we assume he wouldn't have used them. Nukes do not have to be all-or-nothing, they can be specific and centralized. Remember, we used nukes in WWII. I'll be out of town for 11 days so I'll leave it to you guy to figure this all out.

I have just one question, what color is Orangie? 😁

I agree.