true that Rod doesn't post. Neither does he provide links to his videos as in the past. Nor does he clean up stuff such as the spam. The number of online users viewing the website remains high. Seems to me opportunity to increase membership & participation.

Notwithstanding what others have observed, I attribute the decline in participation on this forum to a couple of things:

First and foremost, I think Rod's absence from the forum has affected engagement; he hasn't posted in over 8 months. From my experience, engagement/participation in forums, and any other community activity for that matter, tends to thrive when there is an active sponsor. IMHO Rod has an undeniable local fishing "celebrity" status and his participation on the forum, I think, lends a certain cachet. He has his reasons for not participating, and I'm not here to comment on those reasons, but I do think his lack of participation affects overall engagement. Additionally, I recall him writing a couple years that he was going to update the forum software. That hasn't happened, and he has his reasons for that, but I think it speaks to the level of priority that is given to this website. Again, I'm not judging or critiquing. We all make decisions how to allocate our time and resources and his decision is his decision. But I do believe that his absence contributes to lack of forum participation. 

Secondly, forum participation began to lag long before 8 mos ago and I attribute that to the tone of forum participation over the COVID years. I can't empirically back that up but my opinion is that over the  COVID years some members participated in ways that were belligerent. Other members flooded the forum with their non-fishing related posts and other members were generally complainers. COVID was a stressful time for all of us...  Some of those members got banned in the end, but my opinion is that those members created an unwelcoming environment that stifled productive conversation.

All just a matter of my opinion, however!

Having said that, I've been a member of this forum for over 20 years and I'll be here until someone turns the lights out

With the small bump in water levels due to the recent rain, and the overnight high tides, my two cents is that early mornings in the lower river would be your best chance of success in the immediate future.

River has been crazy low for this time for over 2 weeks now.
Majority of the blue backs start pushing in now.
Is the water level even high enough for them to enter?

I think FWR, as everything else, is suffering from inevitable change.
It was fun for a while, then it got boring, things moved to different platforms.
First we talked in pubs, then on forums, what's next?
Internet is definitely a new thing and we are just figuring it out.
It has done some good and some bad.
I am certainly using it a lot less, using the computer a lot less these days.
Mostly for work.

I am looking for historical evidence of quality.
Price does not always translate into quality.
So looking for value gems often pays off.

Lost my Dragonfly fly rod with a Loomis reel on it. Went overboard (popped out of the holder) at Roche this last long weekend. Was in 16’ of water. Fish on the line. Full float setup with indicator. The Rod does not have much value, but it has a pretty big sentimental value to me. Any help would be appreciated!

Cutthroat22 very true that web based discussion groups have better search capability than social media such as facebook. However for what it's worth the local Facebook groups have seen a big decline in posts in the last year or so.

For many it seems little meaningful can be expressed about fishing in words alone. It has to be video.  We all need to carry Gopro cameras to be taken seriously.

Most retail pricing works pretty much the same. When I worked in retail most costing was about one quarter to one third the regular retail price.