Yeah, ooops, so I forgot about my thread for awhile. Thanks for all the replies.

My standards have been clouser minnow types and woolly bugger types. I know from the lakes that bass don't take well to the tiny dry trout flies. I wasn't going to bother too much with small nymphs either. But perhaps the dragonfly nymphs would be a good bet.

FishnDave, i think you replied to one of my earlier threads since I remember the bit about Elgin. I'm going to try the Kankakee next summer and make a more dedicated effort on the others too. After moving and starting a new job this year, time was kinda limited. Plus the whole Wisconsin thing, I can certainly make it as the drive is not terribly far.

Ligonier - I have only met Joe Humphreys a few times when he was a guest instructor. Mark Belden was my teacher for the two FF classes. But they are both superb. I feel fine on trout streams and also on lakes, but moving warmwater has me stumped.

For lakes, having a boat is quite worth it. I always targeted the shorelines. Reading the shorelines is similar in principle to reading the water of streams. For fishing for bass, I always looked for cool water (which often meant farther from the shoreline and deeper near structure (tree branches, rocks, islands, rocky points, boatdocks are famous for their "dock bass" ) Slightly rocky bottoms seemed to be better in most cases than sandy bottoms. And when the water got warmer than usual, looking for stream or drainage inlets providing cool water made for good results.


When you guys fly fish on warmwater rivers, do you normally wade or go from the shoreline, assuming you have a choice?

I might look into the steelhead too, but I wonder if my 7wt rod would be useless against them?