reevesr1

Glen, You being a top notch fly distributor and all, is "white poofy stuff" a technical term? I did a google search on "white poofy stuff" and got a lot of hits about hair, clothes, other such stuff. Nothing about fly tying. Am I missing something? Is it a trade secret?

Thanks to Dave and all the moderators. I have no way of calculating how much this site has helped me learn this exhilarating/frustrating sport. What's even better is the people I've met because of this site. Thanks to all. Hey LK, shoot me a PM and we'll knit a quilt. Now THATs touchy feely!

Replies-- In my defence, I was actually shooting pretty hard, I do have a bit of pride. But a goalie would have been a problem! I shoot pucks better than I fish it appears. The birthday boy had a signed Lanny jersey. I wish I had known and I would have gotten a big ugly mustache from a costume shop for him. And I mean big and ugly.

Hey Weedy, Next time my wife makes me go up there to visit her family, expect a PM. I'll see if I can assist in landing 4 lb trout. I even have an ugly yellow TFO 5 wt we can experiment with.

OK, I'll concede the hand warmer idea. You have to be absolutely freakin' nuts to ice fish anyway. So I'm sure they'll pay pretty much anything if they could stay warm while doing it, all 30 of them. And it's actually called Chili, but Chilli works well for your idea. Pun intended I'm sure. As to the Ham Hocks and Black-eyed peas: I took on about 10 Canadians. All pretty old cuz they were at a 40 yr old birthday party. Not exactly a hot bed of athletic skill. You would be taking on MILLIONS of highly skilled ham hock and black-eyed pea eaters at the height of their ability. They would eat you up. Again, pun intended.

Now that's what I'm talking about! Bring on the trash talk boys and girls!! Edit: Oh and Chris, I've already broken one of your rods. Wouldn't bother me a drop to break another.

Weedy, I'm sure you are a bit taller than this kid, but you get the point. You only need to watch the first 15 seconds or so....

I know who Tiger Williams is. I've met Dave Semenko and Dave Lumley. Seems I have a thing for enforcers. I once had a 15 minute conversation with Gordy Howe. We talked about golf and fishing in SE Texas from his playing days in Houston before he started telling everyone old hockey stories. One of the coolest things ever. The point of the post was highlight how an American, with no hockey experience, whupped a bunch of Canadian men in a hockey skill game. You know, rub your faces in it a bit. Get it?

Hey, great idea. If anyone is looking for a 47 year old who can't really skate forwards, can't skate backwards at all, but is deadly accurate standing still 25 feet from the net, with no goalie, I'm your man!

Since most of my stories involve some sort of pain or embarrassment to yours truly, thought I would share one with a bit of a different ending. I went to a buddy's 40th birthday party last night. The party had a hockey theme, complete with a visit by a fake Don Cherry (which was hysterical) a hockey cake, hockey on the big screens, and a hockey shootout game that his wife rented. It was a square target with 9 lighted panel s whose lights went out when you hit one with the puck. The game was to get all 9 panels out in 15 shots, bet time wins a valuable prize. After a few of the women tried, I gave it a shot. I had to ask "how do you lift the puck?" Anyway, I get 6 or so, think "not bad" and continue drinking. Much later I come downstairs again and since no one is shooting, try again. First shot, dead center. Next three shots connect and people start paying attention, the top row is gone, and I'm actually hitting what I'm aiming at. Next few shots and I'm down to one square and 5 pucks left. I'm kinda laughing to myself over the absurdity of it all, and that I sure hope I can hit the last one. I hit it on the first shot. The crowd goes nuts. So 11 shots, 9 squares in 20.75 seconds. The best time by 6 seconds. And a bunch of humiliated Canadian hockey players. For the next hour and a half, every Canadian male tries several times, and fails to get anywhere close to my record. The night ends with me being presented with a little trophy with a puck signed by Lanny MacDonald, Darryl Sittler, and Tiger Williams. Sorry if I got the names wrong, just some guys from Toronto aren't they? Anyway, the moral of the story is that if you don't have any expectations, sometimes good things happen. Just think, if that is the case, maybe some day a team from Canada will win the Stanley Cup.

Look up Paul Potts on Youtube. All the Britian's Got Talent performances I think.

Lamponius, Not to disagree with you my man, because at the end of the day the sport is about doing it how you want to do it, but... My first year as well. OK, to be technical, my second year started a month or so ago. I also have caught fish with dries, and it is a blast. When it is working, you would be crazy to fish any other way. But to me, day in and day out, if you want to increase your odds of catching, nymphing is by far more productive. I am not saying this to brag (or maybe a little!), but I went through a stretch in August/September where I didn't catch more than a couple of fish under 15", and several in the 20" range and a few a little more. As far as locations, my limited experience on the bow tells me that if you think fish should be in the run, they are. Not always cooperative, but they are there. As far as setting the hook at every little bobble, I can see how that would get tedious to many. But I look at it in the opposite way. I just love it when I think it's bottom and the bottom explodes out of the water 5 feet in front of me. Conversely, I hate it when I think it is for sure a fish, and its bottom. Keeps it fun, at least for me. Finally, again while dry fly fishing is just a kick, I find it the MOST frustrating when they are rising and I can't figure it out because of my limited knowledge set. So I just go under water and catch 'em anyway! Walker nailed it. Get out there and do it, whatever method you choose.

My wife has his CD. I sent her this link and she'll be thrilled. Not like I'm an opera fan or anything, but the look on the judges faces and the reaction of the audience was very cool. Pretty moving stuff, thanks Kevin.

Can anyone help me clean up the coffee I just spit all over my screen and keyboard? Oh and Brett, I notice that you gave BBB some flies. I am also noticing a distinct lack of newly tied flies in my flybox.....

I was with Max yesterday, and he saw below a rock we were anchored near as I retied after breaking off on bottom. Grabbed his streamer rod, hooked him after a couple of casts. It ran under the boat and got off. I never saw it, but Max said it was a big sucker.

so lets see here, he catches fish with Glenbow, catches fish with Birchy, catches fish with Toolman, catches fish with bigbadbrent, but doesn't catch fish with me. There is a constant in this, but I'm at a loss to figure it out.

I've used it for at least a year now. We have a couple of apps at work that will not run with Firefox, only IE. It irritates me to no end now when I have to use IE. SLOW!!!! Firefox is highly superior IMHO. They just added the real time spell check feature which is great.

Ladystrange, Nice job. Let me know next time you guys are heading down. I'd like to fish that side and it is still very close to my house.

Birchy, Pat leave=helping wife with baby, not fishing with MTB. By the way, he is a jinx. Do not fish with him, you won't catch anything.

Ha! Both. I thank her for the first part. Not sure about the other one.

Did a little research: Not that this is completely relevant, but there is a perception that as cities have become more crowded, murder rates have gone up. While murder rates (and I think crime rates in general) have gone up since about 1960, historically they are very low. Want to get murdered? Go back in time and live in Medieval Europe. Homicide rate in England in the 1340s was 110 per 100,000 people. The US in 1992? 9.2. I don't know what the rate is now, but it has gone down since then, not up. Read this: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...753C1A962958260 There is a perception, sometimes real, more often not, that the world is a more dangerous place now than ever before. . Why does it seem more dangerous? Because we are told of every single horrific event that happens anywhere in North America, Europe, Asia, whatever, and in many cases in real or near real time. A child gets kidnapped in California? CNN is on the case, baby, right now! One hour later, you can hear all about it with Anderson Cooper, Larry King or Nancy Grace. Pick your poison. It's all breathless and all horrible. But hearing about each individual case gives us an unrealistic vision of the danger associated with modern times. Dangerous stuff has ALWAYS happened. You just didn't hear about all of them, so you felt safer. And just for the record, until I got married and my wife made me, I never locked my doors. My mom still doesn't. Never been robbed.

Seen this before. I fit in the group, that's for sure. Here is the problem though: It ain't the lawyers or governments who regulate our lives, its us! If we as a group didn't like the regulations, we can have them changed. Beauty of democracy. Reality is, way too many of us don't want them changed. Here's why: Does anyone really think we were better off without seatbelts. Really? Then you ignore statistics. Childproof caps have saved lives. How many? Don't know, but I can guarantee the number is small. Think we should do away with them? Well no, because what if it's my kid who suffers because of it. Almost every safety example up there is the same. The risk of any one of these things impacting you are small. Which one's should we do away with? Who decides? How many of us actually want to get rid of our cell phones? One of my best friends lost an eye with a pellet gun. Two pumps. We were 12. I also have always enjoyed the nintendo and computer game issue. Did I play with them? Well no, because they didn't exist. Had they existed would I have? Absolutely yes. How do I know this? Because EVERY KID I KNOW DOES!! Is it worse for them in the long run? I think it may be. Do I know this? Absolutely not. How could I, I'm poisoned by my past experience. I didn't have them and look how good I turned out. Problem with that is, I don't yet know how the younger gen will turn out. My bet is every preceding generation in history thought the one behind it would turn out bad. Our parents sure did. Maybe they were right! I agree with the little league thing. But does any one really believe the government did that. We as parents did that. No one else. If we dealt with freedom and responsibility so well, why have we allowed it (if the above rant is correct) to be taken away from our kids? Cuz it ain't the kids who took it away, it is us. Lawyers and government is a way too easy cop out. Look, I think these lists are funny, and some of the things we have regulated are ridiculous. But how do you separate the ridiculous from the necessary. Who makes that call? Who explains to the parents of the kid who dies in the back of the pickup truck "we thought that one was ok cuz it's a special treat". I'm also willing to bet, right now, that there are plenty of risk taking innovators coming out of the younger generation. I use history as my guide on this one. There have always been innovators and video games and seat belts ain't making kids stupid! Sorry for the rant. This list always gets my blood up for some reason. It implies that my generation is somehow better because of the things that were different. I just highly, highly doubt that is true. Oh and MTB, not throwing rocks at you here bud!!

There is little chance I will take up fly tying for the next several years. Too many other things to occupy my time. From reading the above posts, it looks worth it even if you don't tie. Any one think otherwise?

Wow, big question and difficult to answer. It would take an essay for me to answer that fully. I'll condense it to this. Houston is, and always will be, home. I love it there, the people, my family, the Gulf of Mexico, the sports, just about everything. It has major problems, mostly around the increasing gap between the wealthy and the poor. We don't know how to deal with it. Calgary is my adopted home. I can't see myself ever leaving, or if I do, not coming back. I'll live here as long as you'll let me (and if you don't, I'll become an illegal). The city, it's people and the activities it offers were tailor made for me. I do, however, wish I had a helicopter to commute. So for me, Calgary is where I want to be. I will however say that of my American colleagues, I am in the minority. I don't know anyone that doesn't like it here. But most of them plan to go home some day. But really, I just compared Calgary vs. Houston. I don't know that is a fair comparison of US vs. Canada. There is a famous line that says all politics are local. I think it also applies to choices of where to live. I don't think my choice has much to do with political differences between our countries. It has to do with my love for this area vs. the area I am from. If that makes any sense.