Fallser

I actually don't use a leader, even with braid when I'm fishing for bass. I tie my line directly to the lure or jig. Most of the lakes I fish have chain pickerel, some have musky. The only time I use a leader is when I'm fly fishing, and part connected to the fly is called a tippet. I usually use a 25# fluorocarbon tippet when I'm fishing for bass, chain pickerel and pike.

If you were thinking about Wallenpaupack or going up that way, you might want to take a look Shohola Lake. It's about 20 minutes from Wallenpaupack down RT 6 East. It's an electric motor only lake. You see a lot of kayaks on some of them fishing. There are some big bass in it, but you might have to fight your way through the chain pickerel to get to them. Some big chain pickerel too. Less crowded during the week at the launch ramps. The second ramp would be your best place to launch.

Actually, you're not far off with the weights. A 24 inch walleye is usually around 4 lbs. A 26 inch one between 5 and 6 lbs, when you get up to 30 inches you're talking about a 10 lb fish. Difference is that a walleye is what I would call a narrow bodied fish, where bass are wide body. The narrower girths are going to give you a lighter weight, than a similar length bass with a wider girth.

Nice looking pond. A question. Is that open grassy/weedy area solid ground? Speaking of stupid gimmicks I wouldn't mind hitting it with my fly rod or an ultra-light spinning rig. Ultra-light top water, small spooks, jitterbugs, tiny torpedoes and poppers. Mepps style in-line spinners with a size 3 blade. Marabou jigs, bucktails, 3 inch senko, 1/20 oz ned rig. Fly rod, foam poppers, sliders and spiders. Sub-surface, streamers, marabou and bucktail jigs, a lightly weighted crayfish pattern or a "ned" fly.

Generally, I have my phone with me when I'm fishing, either from shore, wading or boat. I wear BDU/Cargo pants/shorts and it stays in one of the cargo pockets, in a small dry bag I brought for it, I think at EMS(Eastern Mountain Sports). I do not take pictures with my phone when fishing, and don't I answer it. I have a water-proof camera which has a loop attached to it that I can slip over my wrist to take pictures. My car keys and wallet go in the other cargo pocket. If I'm wading I'll slip them into a zip-lock bag and put them in my fishing vest.

Over the years I've decent luck with Mepps spinners in both rivers and lakes. They sort of faded into the background after I took up fly fishing. The guys I fish with like to use in-line spinners so last year I started making them, as close to Mepps style as I could for them to use. Gave me a break from fly tying. These are the size 3 ones I tied up. These are some of the larger ones. Plan to make up a half dozen or so of the larger ones for our Canadian trip in late August.

Being mainly a fly fisher, I always wear a vest when I'm fishing, and up until a couple of years ago in PA, you were required to wear your license so it could easily seen. My license is in a holder pinned to my vest. If I'm fishing out of state, I just fold the out of state license and stick it in the holder. I've been checked several times over the years but have never been caught without my license. One of the guys I fish with wasn't so lucky. We were fishing at a lodge in NE Ontario and an aluminum boat pulled up to us and the fish warden asked to see our licenses. I had mine with me but he had left his in the cabin. The warden politely asked him for his rod and tackle box and told him to bring his license to the "ranger cabin" the next morning and he'd get his equipment back. So the next morning we took the boat down to the cabin, which was about a mile down the lake from the lodge. He showed the ranger his license, and got his equipment back. No fine, but it took a bit of fishing time away from us.

Good video. I would imagine his fly weighs between an 1/8 to 1/4 oz something I would use with spinning gear not a fly rod. The legs he was using looked like "sili legs" aka, spinner bait skirt layers. The layers come 20 strands to each piece, but you can use as many as you like. Spinner bait skirts usually come in 40, 60 or 80 strands. They may be a bit much for that fly. I like the idea of a rattle. I think some of my early cray fish patterns had rattles. I have some small rattles, I may add them to a couple of the crayfish I'm tying now and see if they make any difference. I've fished the Susky a couple of time, but never saw any crayfish. The ones in Ontario are a mix of Olive, Brown, Tan and a touch of orange, at least in late summer. The ones in this area, are pretty much the same colors. The first batch of crayfish I tied up last year I used catalog pictures of soft plastic colors as examples, I tied, red, black, blue and purple, even white. Only the natural colors caught fish so I'll stick with them. Slow night on TV and I didn't feel like watching the Sixers get their butts kicked. So I started looking at my pictures of crayfish patterns I've tied in the past. A brief history of my crayfish patterns. 2014 2018 2020 2022 For the most part I've always used spinner bait skirt layers, chenille and wrapped saddle hackle. I did use the fake claws. The 2020 one was the first time I used zonker strips for claws and used a full spinner bait skirt. Last year I ditched the spinner bait skirts. I've thought about tying some smaller ones, even ordered some micro zonker strips. On average most of the crayfish I see are in the 3 inch range, occasionally I'll see one big enough it would look good boiled in Old Bay. I don't see small ones in the inch to inch and half range or smaller, so I don't know how they fit into the food chain. I got the materials so I'll tie a couple up.

Did the tip of the rod break or did the tip top just pop off? If you just popped the tip top off, and that was it. It's very easy to replace the tip top and it won't impact the action of the rod. It's when the rod is shortened that you run into issues. If you loose an inch off a rod the impact on the action should be minimal. You would still have a useable rod by putting on a new tip top. 4 inches is another story. Good move with keeping peace in the family by sending your brother a new rod. If you only lost the tip top, just replace it and you have a perfectly good rod.

This will be the first year that I'll be using the ned rig and drop shotting. I plan to do it with both my spinning gear and fly rod. Should be an interesting summer. Still working on the drop shot set-up for the fly rod. Also, plan to do more fly fishing with weedless frog patterns. I lot of the lakes I fish have lily pads and weed beds. I might end up catching more chain pickerel than bass but it should be fun.

I don't think I've every seen a largemouth with red eyes around here. Smallmouth, definitely. I've caught a lot of rock bass I've never noticed that they have a smell to them. They're actually pretty tasty, filleted, dredged in cornmeal and flour and fried like any other panfish. They're all members of the sunfish family.

Nice, my buddies and I are headed up to the Poconos in about 10 days for a week of fishing. We'll be mainly fishing Shohola. The backgrounds in your pictures sorta look like Shohola, but it could be any number of lakes up there. Besides we've never had a 60 bass week, let alone a 60 bass weekend on Shohola. Good job.

Nice. Any weight added? What's the underbody? Did you use spinner bait skirts or skirt layers? And what size hook? I decided to do an assembly line for my crayfish patterns. Tied in the dumbbell eyes, then the eyes, now I'm working on the claws, same pattern I've posted before. Different weight placement. Do you get much action on the black/blue ones? I tied a couple up last year in black/blue/purple. No interest from the local bass. They seemed to prefer the more "natural" combinations of orange, brown and olive.

Geez, I was once an English major in college and l use both. I will fish for bluegill, walleye, crappie and bass, shad, bluefish, stripers. If I caught a bunch of bluegill, walleye, crappie I'd add an "s". I wouldn't do that for bass, shad or bluefish. Stripers is weird. You don't fish for striper. You fish for stripers. I caught one striper while I was fishing for stripers. What am I fishing for, bluegills, walleyes, crappies, still just fishing for shad and bass. I could be fishing for bluefish or blues. I'm confused. I need another drink.

I don't know. I know I've saved a good bit of money because I build my own rods, figure that I can build a rod for half the cost of buying a good new one off the shelf. My reels are well used. The only ones that cost a lot were the Penn Internationals that I used for in-shore/off-shore trolling and I don't do that anymore. I thinking about replacing one spinning reel, but when I look at prices, I back off. Price is one reason, plus they don't come with a spare spool. All my active spinning reels have two spools. My lures are old since I fly fish most of the time. I don't think I've brought a new one in several years. What my friends and I do is wander the local fishing flea markets, looking for old/used lures that we like. They'll give them to me, I clean them up, touch up the paint where needed and replace the hooks. Fly fishing is the same. I build my own rods, my reels aren't that expensive, since all they really are are line holders. I tie my own flies. I've spent a lot of money, but it's worth it. The trip's been fun.

I use to make my own leaders, until I discovered furled leaders twenty or so ago. Fortunately I knew folks that made them, One guy made me some bass leaders out of tying thread that are heavy enough to turn over my largest bass bugs. They're 4 to 5 feet long and I usually use a 5 to 6 foot tippet of 20# or 25# fluorocarbon for tippet. The only reason I go that heavy is a lot of the lakes I fish are weedy and have chain pickerel in them. I agree with flyfisher, just a straight piece of fluorocarbon or mono would work just as well and is definitely cheaper. You don't really need the swivel. Your fly line should have a loop to attach the leader. Make a loop in the leader material and just do a loop to loop connection with the fly line, and tie your fly directly to the leader. I've never had any leader twist using streamers even in strong current. So that really shouldn't be an issue. If your streamers are lightly weighted, unless you are fishing deep water, you don't even need the split shot. If you're just starting out, you don't want to deal with the extra weight of a split shot and swivel when you're casting.

Yep. They're really not that heavy. I can easily throw them with my 6 wgt. I'll give them a try for largemouth, around here. I tied them mainly for my trip up to Lady Evelyn Lake in NE Ontario in late August. I'll probably fish them on an intermediate or sinking line, depending on how deep the smallies are. I just finished up tying up the frogs I plan to use for bass, chain pickerel and possibly pike. I may have posted this pattern before. It's a supersized version of one of my panfish bugs. I tied a large(3/0) and small pattern(1/0) The larger ones I scrapped. They were just too bulky for my 8 wgt, plus they always landed upside down. The smaller ones landed upside down maybe 70% of the time. I took out my only hollow plastic frog from my dark side box, and discovered that it was weighted in the back. So I inserted some worm weights in the back of the smaller ones, hopefully that will offset the weight of the hooks and they'll land hook up and be weedless. Hook - Gamakatsu double hook, size 1/0, attached to 40 mm Big Game shank. Body - two pieces of 6 mm foam(white, yellow, chartreuse) glued together. Hook and shank are sandwiched between the pieces. ` Thread - White, Big Fly Legs - Spinner bait skirt layers Eyes- 8.5 mm Living Eyes Colors- Permanent Markers These are another re-do. I stumbled on the "Gutless Frog" last year, on another board, and tied up a dozen. I tied them on 3/0 hooks and glued the body together. They turn out to be to large for the Ontario smallmouth and the body didn't slide down to expose the hook point. I tied these smaller, and in an oval(?) shape with plenty of space for the body to slide down. The one change I made is I didn't add front legs. None of the plastic, soft body frogs, that are fished by dark side bass anglers have front legs. Which makes sense, since when a frog is swimming the front legs are pressed against the sides. Hook - Ahrex Trout Predator Long, size 1/0 Body - 5 mm wide, strip of 6 mm craft foam(yellow, white or chartreuse) Thread - White, yellow, chartreuse, Big Fly Legs - Spinner bait skirt layers Eyes- 6 mm Living Eyes Colors- Permanent Markers Here's a larger version tied on an Ahrex PR378 GB Swimbait hook size 2/0. I only tied two up, if they work I'll tie a couple more. Same materials as the "Gutless Frog". Only change, instead of the ends pointed out, I glued them to the sides, giving it more of a frog head. The last of the frogs. These came out of one those, "Why did I buy this material" situation. When Dragon Tails first came out I brought a couple of packs, large tails and small tails. Didn't particularly care for the flies that I tied with them. So they've been gathering dust. I was sitting at my tying desk after consuming some vodka looking at them. They sort of had a frog shape to them. "Let's see what I can come up with". Here they are. Hook -Ahrex Trout Predator Light, size 1 Body/legs - Front third of a large Dragon tail or the front third of two small dragon tails Thread - White, yellow, chartreuse, Big Fly Tail/feet - pieces of a brush I brought but never used Head - 40 mm piece of 7/16 inch foam cylinder Eyes- 8.5 mm Living Eyes Colors- Permanent Markers

Nothing weird in fresh water. In salt water, I've caught and landed three seagulls, two with my fly rod on Crease flies, and one on a floating Rapala. I also caught a rod and reel fishing for flounder. It had been salt water long enough for the guides to rust off. The reel an old Penn 60, I took home, cleaned up, and it worked. I used it for a couple of years. I still have it.

I can catch them that small with a fly rod.

Just finished up some bass flies. They are hybrid of three different patterns I tie. I just tied these eight up, if they work I'll tie some more. Hook - Ahrex Trout Predator Long Size 1/0 Thread - White or Yellow Tail - Zonker Strip Body - Estaz twisted with either Saddle Hackle or Schlappen Thorax(?) - Half a spinner bait skirt Head - Stonfo Soft Heads #2 Eyes - Fish Skull Living Eyes, 7 mm

I use to get up and head out at before sunrise with my buddies. Those days are in the rear view mirror and fading rapidly. We're going up to the Poconos for a week of fishing at the end of May. Three of us will sleep in. The other guy worked as a railroad engineer for 40 years. He still gets up a 0300. We roll out of bed between 7 and 8. You gotta have breakfast, a cup of coffee, a cigarette, sit on a the john a bit before we're ready to go. We get on the water most days around 10. The bass don't wear wrist watches, digital or wind-up, so they don't mind. Hasn't hurt our bass fishing. Besides we have better luck in the evening at least three of us do. The railroad engineer goes to bed at 7.

I use a lot of mop flies... If you find the right mops you can tie flies up to three inches long and if you add a marabou tail you can stretch them to four inches. The largest largemouth I've caught on a fly rod took a floating mop fly about 2 inches long. It was post spawn. I'd like to have caught it in the fall, after it fattened up a bit You can see the fly better in this picture. These are a couple of the bigger mop flies. I've modified the floating one by switching out the piece of a foam cylinder to using dumbbell eyes made from foam cylinders.

I've been fly fishing now for about 30 years. First time I ever saw anyone fly fish was on a farm pond in NW Tennessee when I was in college back in the early 70's. I thought it was interesting but not what I wanted to do. By the late 80's, early 90's I had worked my way down to ultra-light fishing. The next step was fly fishing, so I built myself a fly rod, learned to tie flies. Like a lot of folks who take up fly fishing I thought it was only for trout, and a local club I joined, at the time, was trout oriented and reinforced that idea. I spent my first couple of years fly fishing for trout and tying trout flies. When I fished the local stocked streams, I'd use the fly rod for trout and switch to my ultra-light tackle for panfish, and discovered my "home" creek also had smallmouth...It took a few months, but eventually I just took the fly rod. Went through the same process, when I discovered you could fly fish salt water. These days I fly fish 95% of the time. There are four of us that fish together a lot. I'm the only one who fly fishes. These days I mostly fly fish from a boat or shore. Tying flies helped me keep my sanity during the lockdown.

I don't know why the state stocks rainbows in the creek. Brown trout stand a better chance of surviving through the summer, especially if they find some of the springs that feed the creek. Actually, it's not a bad place to fish. Once trout season is over and you walk away from the parking areas it's a good warm water creek. Holds four or five species of sunfish, plus smallmouth and largemouth. You're not going to get monsters, average size is 10 to 12 inches. Best I've done is a just under 17 inch smallmouth. There some big bass in there, but in the hard to reach places. It's only 10 minutes from my house and it can make you forget you're in a large urban area.

I posted a couple of these before, but I finally wrapped up my fly rod jig tying. The jigs range from 1/32 oz to 1/16 oz. Buck Tail Hair Jigs I have no idea of what type hair it is. Marabou Jigs