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Freshwater

Saturday was a long day of St. Patty’s Day debauchery, capped off with boiled crawfish. Baton Rouge puts on a good parade. I like it better than the Mardi Gras parades in town.

Sunday, Kurt and I headed to a local creek to see how the spotted bass were doing. The water level and clarity was pretty good, though the sand was quite saturated making wading frustrating at times. Quicksand is no joke. I stepped in one spot and sunk up to my knee. Kurt hit a bad spot he had work his self out of. Luckily no shoes were lost. Fishing was somewhat slow, but I was catching them on top, so no complaints here. No big fish on the day either, everything was under a pound.

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I finally found a live freshwater mussel. I’ve always only seen their open shells on the shore. Found this guy in shallow water with a trail a few feet long in the sand behind him.

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After fishing I went down to the P-Mac to catch a friend in action on the court. Penn State is in town for the 1st round of the NCAA women’s tournament. Tori Waldner is a freshman at Penn State, the Waldner’s lived down the street from us back in Alpharetta. They won and play LSU in the 2nd round on Tuesday. We’ll be back for that one. Good luck Tori! BTW, check out the awesome comb-over on the guy in front of me.

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Deadly on any warmwater fish, here is Blake’s version of the original Carter Nelson fly, which you can find here – http://www.flyfishga.com/rl_dragon.htm

Materials:

Hook: 4x long streamer

Tail: Marabou and flash

Body: chenille

Legs: Sililegs

Weight: Bead chain

Dubbing: Black ice dubbing

Step 1. Start thread and tie in bead chain eyes using figure 8 wraps.

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Step 2. Bring thread to a point above the barb. Tie in marabou for the tail and tidy up the butt ends around the hook. I like to tie it down up the shank to about one eye length behind the bead chain eyes.

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Step 3. Tie in flash along either side of the marabou.

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Step 4. Tie in your choice of chenille material.

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Step 5. Bring thread to the midpoint between the eyes and tail tie in. Tie in sililegs on either side of the hook.

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Step 6. I find it easier to use a piece of lead wire to hold the legs out of the way while I wrap the body. I then use my bodkin to pull the two rear legs out of the lead wrap. Take one wrap of chenille between the legs, and continue to a spot behind the bead chain leaving enough room to make a hackle collar.

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Step 7. Tie in a feather for the collar. I use a soft webby grizzly feather. Wrap the feather to form a collar.

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Step 8. Split the thread and insert dubbing. Spin the thread to form a dubbing rope.

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Step 9. Wrap the dubbing one full turn around the shank directly in front of the collar, then finish off the dubbing rope using figure 8’s around the bead chain.

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Step 10. Whip finish the thread. Finished fly.

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Proof of concept

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I read a story last week about a guy in Arkansas catching a largemouth bass that bested the old state record of 36 years by an ounce. It was 16.5 lbs, taken on a Mann’s Jelly Worm by Paul Crowder. I thought to myself, “Good for you Paul Crowder, that’s a heck of a bass.” Now we find out that he did it illegally, he didn’t have a license. A license which costs $10.50 annually to an Arkansas resident. Now his potential record is not allowed and he is looking at paying for it, with a fine and jail time.

Paul Crowder’s story went from “feel good” to “no good”, all because he ignored to purchase a license prior to fishing, even after receiving citations in the past. I see no excuse for this. None. What a tough way to learn a lesson.

I feel bad for the fish. Instead of having it’s rightful place at the top of the record books it is nowhere to be found, and dead too.