Guys like yourselves two Bob and pa are an exemption from the majority for sure. Nice job on the steelies.

I wasn't taking offense dime and meant none in return.
I was pointing out that if people fished they would catch fish.
If everyone is respectful of others fishing quite a few people can fish in a pretty small area.
One Ahead throwing up across drifts screws it up for everyone.
Guys not getting into the timing of the drift mess up everyone.
There is  no need to go below 6 or 8 pound test.
Players will take a boat tow rope.
You may get a bite or two from less aggressive fish but  it isn't needed to catch fish.
 
 
All my king hook ups were on size two extra long shanked streamer hooks.
No stealth needed.
 
Also about closing the zones.
It wouldn't hurt me other than to add to the crush downriver.
BUT those fish are no different than the ones downstream from rt 52 bridge.
The only thing that changes is they are never killed above so yes they may be snagged more often.but they can move up or downriver just like the fish coming up the river to replace them.
 

I'm in the majority for once? Cool, pretending ain't that bad. The dam thing is, I ain't constantly hooking up, with the exception of rare and far apart days. Guess I really suck.
The recent seminar at the hatchery featured a guy who likes to fish sz. 16 stones for big steel, so I was told. I rarely  go smaller than 8, but then again, I'm a pretender, though in the majority.  Can someone point me towards the forum with the majority, like me? Thanks!
  
 

From what I've seen of you fichy and based on discussions we've had I'd say you would stick out like a sore thumb fishing above the rt. 52 bridge.... That is because you know how to flycast and fly fish :)

Fichy you recall I got to watch you fish.
When a guy can tuck in with trees up against both sides and behind overhead and make the cast drift he's bringing the goods.
The 90% I'm talking about are the stealth snaggers that PA pegged to a tee in his post.
Casting out too much weight, dredging to bottom as the current starts ripping their hook downriver and then that sneaky pretend to to be casting while the hook is still fishing maneuver .
 
I just about always say there's one before I set the hook.
These guy are always faster on the hook set than me for some reason.

Thanks for not throwing me in with the rippers, guys. I feel at home here, with some really good friends to hang with, in truth. Having made the effort to  learn many different types of  fly casting methods, it allows me the pleasure of fishing places with no competition. Well at least sometimes. Last Th. morning I went up the North bank of the LFZ right to the wire. The only seam is a cast right under a tree 4' off the water and 10' out from the south bank. You have to roll a very tight loop to get under and hit it right. I was doing it, when a guy came up, hesitated, looking guilty, then decided he was going to go in  anyway. He waded right out to    5' in FRONT of where I had been  drifting and completely removed any chance at  a cast, let alone a fish. I watched him depth charge into  the shallow bottom almost every cast. 
I shook my head, decided to stay quiet and left the LFZ entirely. Surprisingly, I  later  found some unmolested ones willing to play. It was one of those amazing silver lining deals.  I guess I've hung out with Tuna and Jack  too much and just take it for granted you actually fish for fish and at the same time be a decent person. That goes for everyone I've met here. I've been spoiled by fishing with some of the good ones.

On the size 16 stone, yes the guy fishes small flies sometimes with a very short tippet of a foot. To get the fly in front of the fish quick. The seminar was on fishing to steel in hard reach places. Reasoning behind the small flies was this. Most of the large 4 year old fish have seen all kinds of lead (he puts all his lead in slinkie sacs, even one or two bb's) and flies flung at them and they are wary of each so they opt for the easiest meal that looks the most natural and that did not bite them in the past. Small natural stones fit that bill. Not many folks fish with size 14. He (which most here know) also said that most steel can hit and spit a fly in a miniscule amount of time so folks like me miss more than half their hits not even knowing they got them. He likes to sight fish steel and he has seen more than one time a hit so fast it did not even twitch a line that was not tight or drop a indicator.
As far as the stealth snaggers it usually better in steel season, many of the guys across from the rocks are just there to hook up no matter what,  not to fish.   I can attest to jacks small prince nymph hook UPS that were inside the mouth needing pliers so I did not get bit again.

So who was this expert that has spoken with the fish and knows why they do something?  I carry a lot of small stuff, but the vast majority of the steel I have caught over the years have been on size 6 west coast wet flies, or size 6 short shank glo bugs.  Sight fish, Oh, another Jim Teeny, I spot em I got em, I seriously question whether this just amounts to force feeding.  If you are not keeping connected to your fly during the sink period, or you have slack between the bobber and the fly if you fish an indicator, yes, you could get spit.  But if you are swinging a fly under tension, you will feel any and everything that contacts your line, why you set so often during the leaf hatch.  If it is just quick drop pockets, yes short leader and enough shot to drop right to the bottom, but I want something bright that is going to grab attention before it is sucked downstream.  And other than the tiny winter blacks, which show in February and March, what kind of size 14 natural stonefiles do you see in the river?
 
L13

Smallest hooks I've gone with in quite some time are 12 and that is usually in winter months. And its not often. I am not opposed to a steelbow taking a 14 nymph at all though. And yes fish can get lined with any method out there. I do believe less foul hooking went on in the zones even in the chuck and duck hay - day... It just seems too many folks who fish the zone during peek times don't know a thing about actual fly fishing. And of course theres ones who know exactly what they're doing. Yet they try to make it seem like they are the $h!+.... Two weekends ago I watched a guy tail and belly hook a few fish within ten minutes. A guy across the way commented by sayin "what is it youre using...wish I had some of those".... The guy hooking up answered back with a heroic grin saying it takes 35 years experience to hook em like this... My father and I were laughing pretty hard at that one.

Lucky, I'd say size 14 and 16 caddis more so than stones in the winter months under the rocks