YESSS!!!

[Hairstacker]

Thank you Bill and Eugene!!! I HAVE A HOME!!! uh, I mean a place to talk about warmwater fly fishing. YES!!!

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Hairstacker,

Buy no means am I a real hardcore bass fly fisher, but I have had contact with about a have dozen freinds/customers over the past 40 years in the fishing tackle business who are.

I have asked them to show me their special bass patterns and I have listened to them for many hours about their individual techneques for bass. I have even fished with some of them.

I will name some of these "bass commandos" and then post about them individually later.

Leo Gutterres - "Lucky Leo" from Stockton, CA - famous for making very nice hard bodied poppers and promoting top water Black Bass fishing.

Pete Peterson - very active in Granite Bay Fly Fishing Club. Fishes 99% for Black Bass, fly fishes 100% and has a real Bass Boat. He wore out his first one. Is a professional photographer(semi-retired) as well.

Capt. Kevin Doran - Guide who specializes in fly fishing for the "big" Delta Black Bass.

Joe Patterson - Cortland Line Rep and long time Black Bass guy. Took us to special private ponds that where unreal.

Darl Doke - lives at Rancho Murieta.....black bass commando plus.

George Kammerer - has his own family ranch near San Jose with 11 ponds. I fished there twice.........unreal. Hair Bugs only.

Wally Westlake - worked for Teichert Construction and played pro baseball after WWII. Look at his baseball history online:

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/play...hp?p=westlwa01

Lots of us like myself, Tom Moore, Ray Utzman, Fred Gordon, Adam Grace, Joe Shirshac and many others have fished our share for Black Bass and love it, but we are not it the league with those "black bass commandos" listed above.

I know I missed somebody?

[David Lee]

Mike - go tye a dozen Lime Trudes and call me in the morning . D.J.L. :P

[Rickey Noel Mitchell]

Hey Guys, A bluegill the size of my hand, was the first fish I ever caught on a fly rod when I was in about third grade. The next was about a four pound largemouth bass. For me Fresh water fishing for me is warmwater fishing.
Several years ago I bought A sage three weight blank. The shop owner said "You going to build yourself the best trout rod money can buy"
I got a very dirty look after I told him I was building it for bluegill.

[Hairstacker]

Hi Rickey!

Here's a picture I posted on the NCFFB last fall of a redear sunfish (I thought it was a bluegill 'till David Lee kindly corrected me) that I "accidentally" caught on a #2 topwater bass bug last summer in the Delta while fly fishing for bass. On a 5/6 wt. rod, I thought it WAS a bass. On your 3 wt., it would have been epic! After I caught that one, I tied up a batch of bluegill bugs and started carrying two rods on my kayak, ha.

[Darian]

Hey guys,.... Great pictures. I gotta get a digital camera and take some myself.... I'm gettin' the bug to go somewhere and put the hurt on some fish..... Gotta restore my confidence after last Saturday.

[Hairstacker]

Yeah, digital cameras are fun but see if they'll thrown in a personal assistant too. The one thing about taking pictures yourself of the fish you catch is that you have to hold the fish out away from you as far as possible, which I noticed always makes the fish look smaller than it really is, especially with your hand in the foreground. Just the opposite effect of someone holding a fish way out in front of themselves.... Here's a picture of the same fish next to my fly rod -- notice the difference in apparent size? Ah well.