FishnChips

A splendid documentary, this was my second viewing.

Lornce, I wish you a speedy recovery from your knee surgery. Like all the posters so far, (who is going to post non-compliance anyway?), international travel postponed, skiing gone for *hit, we are hunkered down prudently abiding healthy practices. We forage some grocery stores for necessities and make our monthly trip to Costco for a big shop. We are reading, chatting, eating and drinking well, watching the idiot-box, having video calls with offspring in far away places, ordering a few things online for a summer we hope to be able to make the most of and we watch for signs that the curve will flatten, fervent with hope.

UCP cancels all vacations for the year 2020 until morale improves...

Fishtek, Another informative link, thank you. I mostly fish the Upper Bow, and The Highwood, they are close to home. Retiring has allowed me to explore my home waters to a degree I never could before. I haven’t seen a stonefly during the summers of 2018 or 2019 on my home waters. Not one. I normally see them this area in early June to mid-July over the past 15 years. I do not have a huge interest in entomology, and identifying mayflies is challenging because I can’t always catch one. (I use my hat, sometimes I get lucky and one just lands on me, that is best). The fine details are hard to catalogue. The dark ones look just like the picture above, especially those random dark patches on otherwise clear wings. The late summer and fall Green Drake hatch was invisible to me during summer/fall 2019. I did not see any. Very few dark Mayflies all season. Lots of small pale and yellow sometimes with a greenish tinge. (Yellow Sallies I believe). I did not see any caddies. Dry fly action was slow and I was working on improving nymphing skills so the two dovetailed nicely and I noticed my catch rate from my diary stayed constant by going deeper with nymphing. Banff and Canmore both have state of the art sewage treatment plants. Since the last major upgrade a couple of decades ago, the fishing dropped off noticeably in my direct experience in this area and this is supported anecdotally by fishing acquaintances, guides and a locally raised conservation person who now lives and works in BC. This has left me with the perplexing conclusion that some kinds of effluent from sewage plants were good for the bugs and the fish. Is that the same as being good for the water itself? Or humans? Since the “clean up”, bugs and fish have declined. Is the water better? I am still mulling over which changes I am going to make for this coming season (20/21). We have a problem and I will be part of the solution. One thing I am considering is only fishing stocked waters period. I will give the wild fish (the naturals, the wilds and exotics) a break.

Wow. Nice to have data but it is too bad the trial itself killed fish.

My first Steelhead river as a wee lad. A very fine water. Tight lines!

Introduction of political orientation obscures a more important point. The issue is not who is right, it is about what is right.

Closing the gate after the horses have disappeared...

In the UK guides are licensed and they must hold certificates of competency and first aid training. Here in AB we are a bit stuck in the good ‘ol boy system. A bit retrograde.

I am in the Upper Bow area and concur. Lousy season. I caught a juvenile Mountain Whitefish in Quarry Pond which is in Canmore and a favourite spot. This has historically been an Arctic Grayling Lake. Clearly some sneaky stuff has been going on. It has also become a playground for everyone including: kayakers, paddle boarders, swimmers, pot smoking, booze drinking selfie taking twitterers, off leash dog walkers, swimming racers, local school running classes, cyclists, people who change from street clothes into swimming attire in public, (I don’t mind the women frankly, the show is good LOL), SCUBA divers (!), litter droppers and I am just gutted. To quote Mr Bird in the recent issue of Fly Fusion Magazine...fishing sucks. I however am not being satirical.

I was up to Lake Louise on Saturday last, and the river is higher there as well. The river is tinted blue-green over its entire course which is a bit unusual for this time of year. In my meandering sampling of reading disparate sources I came across a statement that rain can increase ice melt by up up to seven (7) times. I wonder if our wetter summer has played a part there? Your phrase about organic pollutants makes sense to me in this context as well. More rain would mean more organic material in suspension, some of which is natural fertilizer for algae and river grasses and so forth. Thank you toolman

Hello Folks I am puzzled as to the above normal water level in the Bow this summer. Early on, late melt and rain may have been factors. As summer progressed, it is noted that daytime temperatures in the Bow Valley have been slightly below normal. The colour of the Bow, is tinted with slightly more green than usual. It is the colour of spring melt, not mid-summer, and certainly not autumn. I notice more green grasses and more green algae as well. My thought is that as the Bow glacier melts and retreats, the ice that creates the meltwater is from older ice. It may consist of ice with different particulate matter, which is then suspended in the water. It may also have a different chemical constituents, perhaps more beneficial to algae and such. I would be most interested to hear other's thoughts on this.

I was down on the West Castle near the resort during the last week of Aug, the area is just so splendid. We had more success catching in the Crowsnest. I love the whole region. I was so pleased when steps were taken to protect, and I am disheartened by the suspension of progress. I’ll email my letter later this afternoon.

There is some interested concepts here. A better mousetrap perhaps.

I snagged a beaver once. We’ve been married for 35 years...

Love it. Reminds me of my late teenage years. My younger brother came out of the closet around the same time I told my parents I had become a conservation oriented fly fisherman... my Dad was so ashamed of me, he couldn't speak. My gay brother got the boat and the cabin! Your young man has an eye for beauty methinks... at least Rainbow Trout are native to Canada and Alberta, those Bow River Loch Leven Brown Trout are exotics from the old world, or in some cases from Germany... who would want to catch a lazy, louche, decadent euro-trutta that is the colour of diarrhea? Coarse fish vs Game fish is an old country term. Vestiges of the British Class system. Game fish were trout and salmonids, while everything else like Chub and Dace and Eel and Pike and Walleye were, well of course, coarse. A bit out of fashion here in Canada, but still used to identify seasonal fisheries and the fishermen and fisherwomen in Bonnie Ol' England, Scotland and Wales. The rainbow trout species and myriad variants have proven themselves to be the most amazingly adaptive little fish. From Chromers, through to the California Golden Trout they are an incredible and complex example of tenacity and beauty. Like most fathers, do you not hope that your children grow up to transcend their own parentage? Do we not hope they will go beyond our meagre ability, and fly forth from the nest to achieve their true potential? I believe your young lad is well on his way! Bravo!

Well done

Brilliant

I have a Hardy JET 9WT that I collected a few years ago. The glass blanks are identical in colour to fibreglass Hardy Mooching Rods which were popular in the '70s on the BC coast. The mooching rods were best paired with Hardy Longstone Reels which I loved to listen to when a strike occurred. The Longstone Serenade was a delight back in the day. When I fly fish, rather like Monger, the noise of some Hardy reels is a tad intrusive. I have a Marquis, but it's just gathering dust. I use a St. George on a lovely 4 WT bamboo rod my wife gifted me years ago. It's growly and I like it very much. It's a work of art and I love the leather box. For me, Hardy has always been the Rolls-Royce of fishing equipment. There is flashier stuff, even better stuff, but Hardy set the standard imho. I believe Islander in some ways is the heir apparent to Hardy on the BC coast. I fish my Hardy JET 9 WT with a Ross reel. Gets the job done. I bought the JET off the 'web, it was in near-new condition, though the tube was a bit rough. The original owner's business card was still taped to the tube and the original receipt from Harkley & Heywood in Vancouver was included. I sourced the rod from Oregon, but the business card was from a downtown office tower in Vancouver, on Hastings Street, just a long cast from where my Dad's office was... it was a funny coincidence all those decades later. For nostalgia buffs there is a nice movie entitled The Lost World of Mr Hardy which is most worthwhile.

Those BC hybrids can be a bitch sometimes I was browsing the AB Regs for 2019 and came across reference to a bait-fish called: trout-perch... that confused me for a while, until I looked it up on Wikipedia... I saw some interesting humanoids on a lake in BC last weekend, they seemed like a new species. Stogey-sucking-beer-swillers They smelled like 2-stroke exhaust, and exuded a film of oil which remained on the surface. They must have been a bit nervous at the boat launch, their scat was all over the ramp. It looked exactly like cheese puffs...

Fishteck and Sparkplug, Thank you both for your contribution to improving understanding of the complexity of these issues. There is good news in your first post Sparkplug, which is somewhat mitigated by your second post. It seems a bit of a tail-chasing exercise. The diurnal fluctuations in consumption will hopefully be supplanted by gas generated electricity. 2020 will be interesting. Personally, I'd love to see the dams re-purposed to water flow control, (dump the hydro generation), and restore some fishery to the Kananaskis River. I'll gladly pay a bit more for electricity for the fish. I'd love to see Cutthroat populations return, but that would likely mean significant culling of the Brown and Brook populations in the Upper Bow. Man, what a mess. We can do it with enough education and determination I think.

fishteck Thank you for posting another informative link. I wrote a reply earlier, but when I pressed submit, a red warning appeared advising that moderator approval was required before my post might appear. Sigh...

You are quite correct.

I fished in BC last year for Rainbows in a lake that had been illegally stocked with Largemouth Bass. For 2018, on that waterbody, the catch and retain limit for Bass was 8 per person. Those bloody Bass do not belong in that lake, and this year, 2019, for that same lake, there is no limit on Bass. The province is going to allow natural human predation clear that lake (in theory anyway). At least there is tacit recognition by the province of BC that those fish do not belong. I am purely a catch and release type in fresh waters. However, I did kill a Bass and fed it to a beautiful bald eagle perched nearby.

Music to my ears: With less than 5% of TransAlta total Alberta power generation capacity derived from the Bow River hydro plants, an alternate peak demand power generation source should be considered. Decommissioning the Bow River Basin’s hydropeaking facilities or modifying their operation protocols would not only enhance the rivers ecosystem and add to the sustainability of threatened and endangered species of fish but contribute to the recreational fishery and Alberta’s economy. Leadership is needed to make a change – now is the time to do so if society is to continue to enjoy the Bow River’s beauty and the fish that depend on a sustainable environment. My (admittedly uneducated) guess is that the dams in place would still be used to buffer stream and river flows to prevent flooding, and some electrical power could still be produced, but this peak demand scenario would be mitigated by an alternative source for power? Or would all the hydro-electric machinery be removed? Would some of the dams be removed too, and if so, what might be proposed? As a slight thread drift, my electrical power shunts on/off so frequently that I am very displeased with the Transalta system. I am re-setting clocks, under-floor heating thermostat clocks, microwave, oven and desktop computers regularly as a result of disruptions to service. As a paying consumer and water conscious sportsman I am disappointed entirely with this state of affairs. Thanks for the link fishteck. While heartened by the report and the sincere effort of the foundation, I am dismayed that Federal and Provincial authorities are ineffective at data gathering, analysis, and regulation of these matters. The alliance between business and supposedly responsible government is simply an affront to common sense and responsibility. Mind, if common sense were common everyone would have it.