Brian Greer
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There’s a guy on a lot of the fishing and tying boards that sells UV Resin. He goes by the name SilverCreek.
He has two resins. One dries hard, the other dries flexible. But when cured, the resin is tack free.
No need to wipe the cured resin with alcohol or go over it with Sally Hansen’s.You can reach him at: picaboo(at)charter(dot)net
You can find more info on the stuff by using a search engine: “silvercreek UV resin”
Usual disclaimer; I have no personal or financial interest, I don’t know the guy, etc.
It’s just a good product.Wild turkey is pretty abundant in Missouri. More so in the southern part of the state (the Ozarks), compared to the northern area.
That’s due to the habitat. Northern Missouri is much flatter and less wooded than the southern part of the state.Missouri has a spring and a fall turkey hunting season. The spring season doesnt kick off until April 20 and then ends May 10th.
It sounds like our hunting regulations are quite different. In Missouri you can hunt turkey from 1/2 hour before sunrise until 1pm. That being said, you had better be planted in your spot well before any daylight shows. We are allowed to use bow or shotgun (no rifles). Plus, there are several other small rules.Zach, it sounds like hunters in your neck of the woods are a little more tolerant than what I’ve generally seen. Most are usually pissed if you walk in on them when they’re already set up. That may be due to only hunting early hours.
It looks like you’re all set for turkey feathers for flies.
Wading can be a little iffy, depending on water level.
There’s not a *lot* of wading access because of private ownership along the river.
But there are enough places to wade near the accesses to keep you busy for a couple days.I’ve even done well enough right in front of Sunburst. That was during the week with no floaters in the water.
Upstream from Patrick can be good, as well as fishing around Blair.
I just did an internet search for fishing lights.
Wow, they get pretty expensive for what they actually are. I would definitely do this as a DIY project.
Is there a certain wavelength or color that is best for this type of thing?
Cool video.
I make it to the Smokys once a year to do some small stream fishing for brookies.
I’ll fish the larger waters for a day or two, but I really like the small streams at higher elevations where you can find the little natives.Getting shocked from lightning through a rock is pretty scary. Granite is really a pretty good insulator compared to most things. Water will improve the conductivity of most things. If you only felt it, you were pretty darn lucky, it easily could have been much, much worse. Lightning is a huge power source. Tons of voltage with tons of current.
It takes a lot of voltage to drive through granite. I have quite a bit of experience with voltage testing. I test insulation values on electric utility equipment all of the time. There’s not much defense against lightning, basically all you can do is improve your chances by being in a lower risk spot.
But enough of that, are the brook trout you were catching the same species or sub-species of those found in the Smokys? Or does each isolated region have their own sub-species?
Brian
There’s a lot of good information already written.
The only thing that I would maybe add is to maybe bulk up the ‘body’ portion of the fly.
I’ve had better luck using two different lengths of rope. I’d use a lot of shorter rope fibers closer to the head.
Then I’d tied on more fibers that cover the outside of the previous fibers and extend beyond them.
That gives it a bit more of a bait fish profile. I think it sometimes helps when the gar are being a little shy or picky.Mark,
Check out Matt Tucker’s OzarkChronicles.com
There is a lot of information about trout waters in Missouri.
Just about all of the trout holding water is in the southern half o the state. Most of it around I-44 or south of there.
The closest trout waters to Mizzou is going to be Bennett Springs State Park and the Niangua River. (Bennett Springs flows into the NIangua.)Like a lot of Missouri streams, the Niangua sees a lot of traffic from floaters/rafters/tubers. Fishing early or late helps. Fishing during the week will also help.
If you questions about other waters or more specific questions, I’d be happy to help.
Hey Mark,
Look into the Husky floor mats. I think that the Wetokole seat covers are good for seat covers.
Cool.
I’m looking forward to this one. My old cooler is on its last leg.
When I work out of town, I drag a cooler around with me.
It gets rode pretty hard. It sits in the bed of the work truck.
It gets exposed to a lot of sun, rain, and mineral oil. It sometimes gets used as a step or a seat too.It would be nice to find a cooler that could stand up to all of this and not cost an arm and a leg.
Zach has laid down some good info.
Some things that I might add or solidify:
Wrapping guides, if you’ve never done it, takes some practice.
Practice using a wooden dowel, old rod section, or arrow shaft.
Start by using thicker thread. Then work your way down to the finer silk that you would use on the bamboo rod.
Practice will help you get consistent looking wraps.If you are going to do any re-varnishing, make sure that your rod is smooth and *clean*.
Zach said to sand and wipe down with acetone.
You could always strip all the varnish off of the rod, it’s easy enough to do. Citri-Strip works wonders.
Tape off the ferrules and grip.
If you decide not to strip the whole rod, sanding over the whole rod will help new varnish adhere to the old.
Make sure that you wipe to rod down well. You don’t want any sort of oils on the rod, that might mess with the varnish.If you decide to dip the rod in a tube, Zach mentioned drawing it out slowly. Draw it out *very* slowly.
Rod makers usually use a withdraw rate of about 2 to 4 inches per minute. The surface tension of the varnish will help draw the varnish off of the surface of the rod, leaving a thin, smooth layer. Many rod makers will thin the varnish.
There are may ways to varnish a rod. Some people wipe it on. Some people brush it on. Some people use a dip tube or a drain tube. Some people use the “turkey baster” method. Some people spray it on.While varnishing the wraps, you want to use several thin coats like Zach said. Most makers thin the varnish for their wraps. Many use a 50/50 mix of varnish/thinner for the first couple coats to make sure that the varnish fully impregnates the thread.
Varnish comes in a lot of different forms. (Polyurethane varnish, marine spar varnish, etc.) Most are decent to use. They will also have different viscosities right out of the can. Epifanes varnish, for example, is very thick out of the can.
You can use several products to thin varnish. Naptha, mineral spirits, and turpentine are each used successfully.
Some people varnish the rod, then wrap the guides and varnish them. Some people wrap the guides, varnish the wraps, and then varnish over the rod. Either way works. There are a lot of books out there on the subject and there are a lot of videos on youtube, etc.
Go slow and be neat and careful. The outcome will be rewarding.
Brian
Bruce,
You also might want to look into the “Bamboo Rod Restoration Handbook” by Michael Sinclair.
He does excellent work. His website: http://www.caneclinic.com/
Restoring the rod will take quite a bit of time. You are going to have to decide what you want to replace on the rod.
You’ll have to decide if you want to change the grip or if you just want to clean it up.The wraps look Ok, but not great. You will have to decide what to do about those. If you just want to replace the worst of the wraps then you will have to match the thread colors. That can be a very difficult thing to do. It depends on how close of a color match is acceptable to you.
You could always replace all of the wraps and then everything would match.
You also have to decide what to do about the varnish finish. It’s a little difficult to see detail in your pics, but the finish doesn’t look too bad. You might be able to clean up the finish and varnish over it.
If you decide to replace all of the wraps, that would make it much easier to strip the varnish, wrap the rod, and then varnish the rod.
There is also the label on the rod to consider. Those can be very tricky to clean up. A Q-tip dipped in mineral spirits works well.
ROLL the Q-tip over the label, don’t rub across it. That can dislodge parts of the label. Work slowly with great attention to detail.So it all depends on how far you want to get into it.
I’ve done a bit of bamboo work and the best advice is to make a plan and work slowly and carefully. If one part of a plan isn’t working out, stop and figure out a different way instead of trying to make something work that obviously isn’t.
Brian
There’s no problem keeping a keg tapped for a month or two.
That is, as long as you keep the CO2 on it.Just keep good pressure on it. The kit I got came with a little CO2 tank.
I never used it. A friend of mine “acquired” a CO2 tank that was used for a soda fountain machine.
It will take a while to use on of those.Another thing. Clean the lines. That’s where you will get a nasty taste from….old beer sitting in the line.
Keep the lines as short as is convenient.What I did was to use spare lines. Pull the old one off, put the clean one on. Soak and clean the old one for the next rotation. Shorter lines are easier to clean.
Bars/taverns have long lines. Some are so long in fact, that they even have line raceways that are refrigerated. That’s to keep the beer from getting warm on its way to the tap.
So it’s a major pain to remove these lines. There are line cleaning setups that hook on the keg end of the line and run cleaner through the lines and out the tap.
If you’ve ever had a funny tasting draft beer in a bar, this could be why.
Maybe the bar doesn’t clean their lines. The first few beers will be nasty until the sitting crapola is flushed out. A lot of times, the beer vendors will come in with a kit and clean their beer lines for the bar. Good business practice. Once the cleaning is done, the lines need to be flushed. If they aren’t completely flushed, the first few beers are going to taste at least a little funny.So use short lines and clean them well and clean them often enough.
Brian
I made a kegerator back in the 90s when I drank a *lot* of beer.
I made it out of a small fridge I bought on the cheap and a kit that had all the fittings and lines.
It came with the keg tap connection, the CO2 regulator, and the tap.I put my tap on the side of the fridge, rather than the door.
that made changing the keg easier, and there was no chance of popping the door while drawing a beer.It took longer to go pick up the keg than it did to outfit the fridge.
One word of caution: make sure that you dont drill through any lines while drilling through the fridge.
A buddy told me a story about hitting a line while drilling through the side of a fridge.
Just drill a small hole through the shell and then prod around with a pencil.Brian
Very cool.
I was there for the opener last year. And several years past. Last weekend, the Ozarks had a good cold snap and the shad kill was on.
Of course the C&R section blow Bull Shoals is still closed, but the fish will still eat farther down, but less concentrated. Two or three days after shad were coming through Bull Shoals Dam, they started coming through the Norfork Dam.
It is pretty much unpredictable and it is difficult to set yourself up for the shad kill. Four years ago, several of us went down to fish “the opener” at BSD. We hired JimmyT and drifted the C&R area below BSD. I nabbed a 22 in brown on the first drift using a white wooly bugger. I used up all my luck early on that trip.
Even if you are there and get a big drop in temps, you still can only hope that shad come through the dam. There’s no guarantee. Look for the gulls diving the water.
I’ve worn glasses and contacts since I was a young kid.
Now that I’m in my 40’s, my eyes are becoming more farsighted.
What I do is use 2 pairs of glasses on the stream.
I wear my polarized sunglasses to fish with.
When I need to tie on a fly or mess with a tangle, I slip off the sunglasses and put on some readers.
I have both of them secured with one of those glasses keeper around my neck.
It can sometimes be a little bit of a pain, but it works well enough.
Kind of surprising though, the glasses and their loops around my neck never get tangled.
On my sunglasses I use one of those Costa wire loops and a cloth on the readers.
I use some pretty heavy readers which allows me to tie the smallest of tippets to the smallest flies.Brian
Randy, one more thing about the shad kill.
Once a good shad kill happens, the fish will likely be keyed in one them for some time.
Just because they are not coming out of the dam at that time, they still may bite shad patterns.
Once they start coming through, the fish will likely gorge themselves on shad. After that, they will be keyed on them for days.During a big shad kill, it may be a little tough to catch them on shad patterns. Your fly has to be noticed (and chosen) over all the other real shad. And once the fish are gorged with shad, they might lay low for a while.
