Mark Knapp

They are all 16's, heavy wire. Should work well.

Me too.

Just bought 20,000 hooks on eBay for this project so I should be set for hooks for a little while. Now, back to the forge.

No, the reason the price is so high is because the vise is not available. If he makes the vise available again, the price will go back down to a more competitive price. Now that more people are making vises with similar jaws, you would expect that his vise would have to be more competitively priced than it was when his was the only one. IMHO I once sold a Viet Nam era Randall knife for $8,000.00 (at auction) when the original knife sold for $300.00 only because it was unobtainable.

When did the latest version come out, and how would one know if he had one. Is there a distinctive element that would tell you?

6,981.72 USD. Amazing. That's collectors for you.

Those look really good, thanks. I'm thinking of adding more tail like yours. I've stayed away from deer hair because of it's buoyancy, I have to get these down 20 feet. Yeah, my snail pattern works really good when the trout are keyed on them, other times they work as good as anything but sometimes, they really gettum.

Thanks Bruce

These are intended for the big sun fish in Havasu but I bet they would work for almost anything. We don't have crayfish up here in Alaska but I think they'd work here. I could adapt the pattern into a dragon fly nymph.

I think a mop body would work for a shell if the flies were a little bigger. On these flies it might be a little too bulky.

No, I didn't follow a recipe. They needed to be an inch long for sun fish and I need to fish them in 20 feet of water. Many of the recipes on the internet used materials that wouldn't adapt well too my needs, way too big. Here's my list of ingredients, I'm leaving on a fishing trip today, when I get back next week I'll do an SBS (time permitting) Hook, size 8 or 10 jig hook. I bent these from hooks I had. Thread, 6/0 grey Weight, 2 wraps of .020 lead wire the length of the shank Dubbing, orange rabbit Claws, heart shaped pheasant breast feathers died olive green. Eyes, 30 pound yellow monofilament. Body and head hackle, one orange, one olive grizzly hackle palmered together from tail to head. Shell, a back feather from ring necked pheasant died olive green. Coat shell with Sally Hanson.

Still refining the small crayfish for sunfish. These are a little over an inch long. Thanks for looking, let me know what you think.

Next, raise the hard top, then new curtains, a polish job and pin stripes. I'm trying to trick pretty girls into going fishing with me. If the boat is nice enough, maybe even my wife would go.

Oops. 😁

Yep, right now my Money to hours of fun-time in the boat ratio is $10,000.00 to 1. I'm going to need to work on that.

PS, when I last talked to them, they had a day open in April. You can contact them here if you want. https://rvers.life/havasu-net-em/#what-i-offer

Just heard back from the guide and his wife. They said, there's like zero chance they'll shut the lake down for low water. They are projecting the lake to drop only 3-5 feet at the most in late summer and I'm going in the spring. The only thing it could effect is fish movement. If the water is low, the fish will have to adapt and we will have to adapt too.

Looking forward to it.

Wow, a Talon and a TRV, that's nice. You don't also have a LAW do you? It would be great to hear your thoughts on the three compared.

Hmmm, the plot thickens. After the last new world record redear was posted I did a google search to find a guide down there. One guy answered me back. None of the others did. He had only eight days in March open. I booked them all. He's in charge of everything except the water level in the reservoir, the flies and my lodging. He said he'd take me and one buddy. Said he wasn't mixing "Pods" due to the virus. Here's hoping for some good rains for this winter. I'll have to write him and see about water levels and stuff.

So the idea is, there's a bunch of redears down there all trying to pick these things lose. The when one comes free, it's a race to get to it. Kind of like when predator fish attack a bait ball, when wounded bait fish sink from the ball everybody swoops in to get it. The trip isn't till next March, March and April being the peek months. Thanks guys.

Thanks Bud, maybe you would be able to come up and fish in it some time.

Been having a lot of fun refining this pattern. Here's the mussels. and here's the new and improved fly. Lots of fun. I'm going to switch back to crayfish for a little while, just for fun.

Damn

After years of working on the old jet boat I finally decided to put a new engine in there. I went with a new Kodiak 6.2 liter inboard. I also put in a new jet pump, wiring harness, cables and dash. Can't think of a better way to break in the new motor than to take it fishing. We wanted to put hours on the boat so we trolled and caught some of these. Fun was had by all, we caught some sun and fish and we worked out the boat a little. Next weekend should be able to get the rest of the 30-hour break-in period out of the way dip netting for sockeyes in the Chitina river, fun.