reevesr1

You can tell it's old. 3 pages and nobody got pissed off.

No problem with the opinion FHD. And if you want to point out mistakes, that is perfectly fine. My point was that I don't think it should be done while involved in an argument/discussion with someone. Almost invariably, when it is done during an argument, it is being done to belittle the person-not to educate them. Also, we have a vast range of education/experience levels here. What I would expect from a CEO, or any professional correspondence for that matter, is certainly not the same I would expect from a frequenter of a fly fishing website. All that said, looking forward to the temp cooling down, like say September? How is the knee holding up?

BBT wins most timely/sarcastic avatar of all time.

I LOVE to argue. I catch myself arguing points I don't really even agree with just to continue to argue. It's fun and stretches your mind. However, truly arguing on this website has become mostly impossible as it too often degenerates into personal attacks. That could be a function of websites in general, or maybe even society in general now, I don't know. I do however believe anonymity has something to do with it. But I don't think there is any chance of forcing users to give their real names if they do not want to. I think that horse is already out of the barn. Self policing is a good idea. But reality is that ignoring is damn near impossible. Someone always gives in (and too often that someone is me. Don Anderson called me a cuttie once cuz I always rise to the bait, though I'm betting better at refusing. But I always come up and look.) The best idea I've heard so far is the permanent ban. The problem with banning has been that they always come back as someone else. Don't know that there is any way to stop that. IP addresses? Really, if someone exhibits behavior that we would not put up with in the real world, why do we have to put up with it here? If you can't play nice, see ya. And by play nice, I most certainly do not mean you have to agree with anyone else on this board. If you have different views, there is no reason why you cannot present and argue those viewpoints rationally. If you are good at it, you might even change a few minds. And while I'm rambling, can we call a freakin moratorium on commenting on peoples spelling, grammar, etc.? If you ask me, if you are in an argument with someone and you resort to attacking their argument style, spelling, grammar, etc., you make yourself appear small.

Probably worse.

Brad, I think your proposed course of action is perfectly acceptable. I wouldnt have the balls quite frankly. I still think someone should film it!

Hmmm, Smitty with a camera, bbt with a wolf (i hear when a wolf growls people soil themselves. Im just sayin), uber, all 150 lbs of him, with moral support, or bhurt(the ex football coach) with a bad attitude? Im going to have to go with bhurt. I thought of bbt and wolf, but id be afraid of saying somethin mean to bbt and the wolf growling at me. And we all know what would happen then. Actually, im with bbt on this one. Though i find what they are doing underhanded (though they may believe that they do have stream rights), life is WAY too short to confront over this. B and B people need a place to fish too!

Pete, While I think that is a great idea, I dont think that affiliations is really that big of an issue. I may be too much of a capitalist, but in something this size I kinda expect to be marketed to on some level. But I dont think the folks here with ties to companies or guide services are really the ones stirring the pot, so to speak. It would be bad for business.

You have a chance to get together with Dave's mom? Edit: Damn it Smitty. Stop that!!

I'm hijacking the hijack!! When I was an instructor in the Navy's Nuclear power program, we had a hierarchy of trainees: Loser Geek Gaper Drone Loser was the top of the food chain. A geek was well, a geek. A Gaper was someone who walked around in wonderment of the nuclear engineroom with his mouth wide open. A drone followed the gaper around cuz he thought the gaper knew something he didn't.

Taco is a prick, I can attest. He's really big too, so I would be afraid to say that to his face. So my handle is my name, and I don't think my last name is all that big a secret. Many members have either fished with me or been to my house. I've met many others through PMs, and my phone number is on the board somewhere. The degeneration of the board into many petty little arguments (and I've certainly participated in them) is what happens to these forums as they get too large. This one may be too large. I know of one in Texas that had the same growing pains with far too many personal attacks. Many of these attacks took place on the reports page. Mudslinging over methodologies, fish pictures, sharing locations, crowding because of the board, C&R vs C&Eat, etc. etc. Sound familiar? In the beginning of the board it was a fun and friendly place because everyone knew each other either personally or they "knew" each others online persona. The arguments stayed friendly for the most part. But as the membership grew, that changed. It is easy to be an ass to someone you don't know, and someone you probably will never know. It is even easier to be an ass when you are anonymous and so is the person you are blasting. I agree with Ryan that anonymity contributes to that. But shear size contributes as well. Their solution was to be pretty militant on the general chat pages and completely disallow replies on the reports pages. It works to a degree, but the amount of information available and shared had suffered greatly. Would changing to some form of the users name help? Wouldn't hurt. Privacy might be a concern for the administrators. I don't know if you can only allow users who will share their names? I'm all for it, but then my handle and name are already the same. I do believe, along with many others I think, that this board is on a slippery slope right now. I also think that some of the people contributing to the amount of slope (or maybe the amount of slipperiness) know full well what they are doing. There are certainly some fishermen who would be very happy if this place ceased to exists under some mistaken belief that the number of fishermen would decrease because of it.

That was simultaneously amusing and caustic!

Orbitz mostly, though expedia a few times as well. Never an issue.

Yeah, and he's kinda crazy!!

So my question is now what? Seems that many down south "knew" the Sara's had rights, but if I'm reading correctly, not so much. So who gets to be the sacrificial lamb to test this theory out? Please post on youtube, as it should be exciting!! Oh, and Chris, pretty busy at work right now??

The last few posts have made me think about this quite a bit. I shook my head knowingly when I read Rusty's post. I happily pay my $20, and now my oldest son's, to fish in BC. Beautiful country, no problem finding your own stretch of heaven (though I must say again that I haven't really had a problem in Alberta either). But just because I can afford it doesn't necessarily make it right. Hydro really has a point as well. I completely agree that we have to be careful about thinking of these rivers as our own private domain and assume that we, as fishermen, have their best interest at heart. We may think we do, but I can guarantee that there are those out there that think we only want them for our own selfish reasons. And they are probably correct in too many cases.

Yeah. Hadn't seen that in a long time. None of the piers are there anymore. The old Flagship Hotel (the hotel over the water) got wiped out in Ike, along with the piers. And I usually change the picture resolution, but imageshack has a batch upload mode and I always forget to change the resolution when I use it.

Ive been able to fish a couple of days on my trip so far. Once with my son and an old friend for a full day in Matagorda Bay, and once for a couple of hours with my son on Galveston Bay. Fishing was a bit slow, but still a lot of fun. Pretty tough with the fly rod. High winds, no sight fishing opportunities, so I gave up. Fish were caught on topwater and subsurface lures, and a couple on bait. Here are some shots of the trip. My son caught some bass last night in the Guadalupe River fishing with his cousin, so we are going to do that a bit tonite. Fly rod should rock at night! Early morning thunderstorms. Put on quite a light show! Early morning hookup on a big redfish. Lost him at my feet. Sunrise Tried to get a rainbow pic, didn't work the best. That's my buddy Rick in the shot. He ended up catching 4 or 5 fish. I landed 1 big trout and lost 2 reds and a flounder. Ben got the ladyfish and a fish called a gafftop (saltwater catfish). Ben with a ladyfish (poor man's tarpon) Sunrise day 2: Me with a little trout: Possibly my favorite fishing pic of all time. Fish ran between myself and Ben, and jumped just as I snapped the photo. Perfect! And look at the smile. This fish was caught using bait. Looks fun to me! The brown variety of Pelican (sorry, forgot to take a flower pic)

I got checked last week in BC (hope that isnt too location specific). First time ever!

Now lorney, dont start trying to bring any new possible cause to this discussion. It has been decided on this here intenets that the internets is the cause of overcrowding, not any silly economic reasons. Seriously, Im sure there are multiuple causes. Another this year will certainly be people having less disposable income and vacationing closer to home. Causality can be tough to pin down. It is rarely A causes B, much more often A when combined with B in the presence of C contibutes to D. But its much more fun and entertaining to come up with one answer and blame all the ills on it. Particularly when blaming an online forum on the online forum. Ive never fished the area I think you guys are speaking of (and in so doing bringing even more attention), but just how many times has it/them been discussed on here? Because once or twice wouldnt do it. It would have to be discussed often before it would have an appreciable impact (or at least I would think), assuming it was fairly well unknown before. Anyway, sorry Birchy for being unable to resist taking my swings at the dead horse. I like the satisfying thump sound it makes.

I here 60 is the new 55! Happy Birthday!

You guys suck at this. Nobody picked Dan's younger brother Steve? And how can 6 time open champ Tom Watson not get picked. And no Calcavecchia (sp?). Give you collective heads a shake. BBT-Loving the Ross Fisher pull! Nice.

50 bucks on Lynn!

This made me laugh. The Katie Couric part in the middle is priceless. And a best of Click here if the movie does not play. And this. Can't imagine United is a fan......

Al, My recommendation is anything that holds 6'2", 195, bad casting habits.