reevesr1

And a guided hiking, fishing, and backpacking trip in K Country. Trip can be tailored based on fitness level of winner- from uberfly.

Hello Everyone, I just wanted to post on the main board to let everyone know I'll be running an MS auction series again this year. I plan to start around May 1. So far, I have the following items: 1. A Red Deer River float trip with Sanky 2. A Bow River float trip with troutlover 3. A guided bow river float trip with Trevor Hanson from Hansons Outfitters 4. A Fly Fishing Boot Camp, complete with fly rod and reel, also from Hanson's. 5. A trip into the BC backcountry with yours truly in mid August 6. Beef Jerky from Sage If anyone else has anything to contribute, please let me know. If you'd like to make a donation directly to me, have at it! Through the help of this board, I've raised well upwards of 10K for various charity rides I've done. MS is a personal one for me as my sister has it (and has been fighting it for about 10 years now). Also, Alberta has the highest incidence of MS in the world! 1/2 of the money raised stays to help local people cope with MS, the other 1/2 goes to research. And since Calgary has a large MS research program, much of that money will stay local also. Here is my donation site: http://mssoc.convio.net/site/TR/BikeTour/AlbertaandNorthwestTerritoriesDivision?px=1292843&pg=personal&fr_id=3921&s_locale=en_CA

I had no idea this had happened until reading the BH thread today. I've met a ton of people on this board, and I'm trying to remember if Jeff and I ever actually met in person. We conversed on the board a ton, and he has contributed several times to various auctions I've done. His passion for fishing, Bullshead, and Kanasaskis will be sorely missed. I can't even imagine what his family is going through. I'm planning on going to Bullshead hopefully this week, and I always assumed we would run into each other there one day. It makes me really sad to realize that won't happen. Jeff, I would say rest in peace, but I hope your heaven has some adventure in it as well. Go find a Texan named Richard up there and say hello for me. Swap some stories, you both have a few. Show him how to use a fly rod. He'd love it. He'll return the favor by putting you on some big nasty redfish. You guys will have a ball.

Add a fly fishing boot camp from Hanson's Outfitters

You know what is weird? I don't remember getting a call about this trip. I've now banned you from two cutty streams in BC. Sorry.

So far I have a guided float trip on the Bow and a Fly Fishing Boot camp (perfect for someone who wants to get into the sport) from Trevor and Wayne Hanson and Hanson's Outfitters, Jerky from Oberto (thanks Sage), and a spot in a yearly camping trip I do into some cutty heaven in BC. Will likely start this mid April when people start really thinking about fishing. Edit: And a jet boat trip from Troutlover. He can catch fish in Alberta too, not just Idaho!

Hello everyone, I'm riding in the MS 150 again this year, and will once again be doing an auction here on FFC. If anyone has anything they'd like to offer up for bid, drop me a message. Thanks everyone for the continued support. My sister directly benefits from MS research, so I truly do appreciate everything that has been done for me on this board!

Folks, I'm starting a Bicycle Club through my workplace-primarily to build a team to ride in the MS Ride this June, but also just to do fun rides (road bikes) through the summer. The club would be open to anyone. I know there are a few riders on this site, so wanted to open the invitation to any FFC members who might want to join. If interested PM me and I'll pass along more info. Also, I will be doing an auction again this year, likely in April. Thanks!

So only voices in agreement are reasonable? Quality debating technique!

Let me lead by saying I am not necessarily opposed to closing the Bow for the brown spawning season. However (knew one of those was coming) I have always struggled with the logic on this. From what I understand, the decline in the brown population has 0 to do with angling during the spawn does it? It was from a major sapro event. So is this the logic: since the brown population is down, lets protect the spawning beds so they recover? Ok, sounds good. But wait, if the decline was due to Sapro, the population is going to recover whether or not the Bow is closed. And when it does recover (and it will), who thinks the Bow will reopen in subsequent Octobers? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? So here is my prediction: If the river does close in October, whatever the boundaries, it is forever (I mean it will close every October). Many here will say good. I may even be one of them, but I am very uncomfortable with the reasoning.

Gee, I wonder why it's so damn hard to have an intelligent discussion about anything on a message board. Multiple people and the worlds smartest bull trout all have the same end goal, the protection of native cutthroat streams (though I must questions the bull trout's motive, I really think all he wants to do is eat.) But throw in a difference of opinion on any project and out come the gloves and people dividing into teams (probably mixed my metaphors there, but whatever). I'm not smart enough to know the issues as I have no idea what the "research" goals are. But I can say that I'm no better informed after reading this, though I have a much higher appreciation of the etymology of Bullshit.

My fish was caught pretty early, before anything was on surface. So I might have been fishing down deep. On a cutty stream. Whatever, sue me. Steve's was on a dry fly, late in the day. So since dry fly fish are at least 1" bigger than nymph caught fish, his is bigger. And he ate all day. So Steve caught the biggest fish of the trip. All kidding aside, that's pretty awesome. In the morning he was in deep holding water as you would expect. In the afternoon up toward the head of a shallow run near some deadfall maybe 50 yards up from where I got him. If i hadn't stopped to tie my shoes I'd of caught him twice.

Born in Galveston, Texas. Could cast an open faced Ambasseduer bait casting reel by the time I was 7 or 8, fished with my dad and brother too many times to count. We moved to Louisiana when I was 7 and I can remember sleeping in the back of my dad's Malibu while we towed the boat 2.5 hrs south to fish Timbalier Bay. This was back in the day where you kept everything and sold what you didn't need. We counted our fish in boxes (coolers). As in "we caught 3 boxes today." I cannot remember ever being bored even though some days I likely caught 100 fish. I used to think fishing was pretty easy. Your dad drove the boat to a spot, you got out and started catching fish until it was time to go home. Little did I know I was the offspring of a fishing savant. In all the years and 100s of trips I fished with him, I maybe caught more than him on one or two occasions. Seriously. And he ALWAYS caught the first fish. I used to call it the fishing gene (he says it skipped a generation to my oldest son!), and the more I think about it the more I believe it exists! Its the ability to remember every trip you've ever taken, recognize patterns without thinking about it, look at tide, wind, structure and act upon it without being able to really explain what you are acting on. You just know "they should be right there." Not as easy on flats as a river, trust me. Anyway, we did everything from pleasure fishing, to doing some commercial netting (always fished for fun first), then my dad bought a shrimp boat, bait camp, and we moved back to Texas. I joined the military and didn't fish much for a long time. Dad continued to fish for recreation (stopped commercial netting when we saw populations start to decline, which honestly we would not have thought possible in southern Louisiana) and got involved in some fishing conservation groups. Ran the shrimp boat for 30 years, the last year all cancered up. Said he'd rather feel like *hit on the boat and have a few minutes each day where he forgot about it than feel like *hit at home and never forget about it. Very long story short, ended up in Alberta in the Oilfield. Got into sales. Moved to Calgary. Had a client want to do a float trip on the Bow. Made me try a fly rod. Fished with client and Dee Chanti. Hooked rainbow on streamer very early in the trip. During the fight I said "there is no telling how much money this fish is going to cost me." And I was right. Fell in love with a fly rod and flowing water. Don't really have the fishing gene, but what I lack in skill I tend to make up for with perseverance. Im the guy at the end of the day will realize not only did he not eat, he also didn't drink any water. Also got lucky enough to meet a pretty eclectic bunch of characters, all of which can utterly out fish me, but are such joys to be around I can take it. And they know lots of spots! They provide the fishing locales, I provide the comic relief. Everybody wins. Wish I could have brought the savant up here to fish once before he died. He would have loved it. I do also get the pleasure of fishing with my kid (the one who did get a bit of the fishing gene) when he's not at university. In the life long battle between my golf clubs and my fishing rods, the golf clubs are currently winning. Did not fish nearly as much this year, but did get the handicap down to just over 5. But I'll be back at it hard eventually. It's just a matter of time.

Mine are still kicking. And still love them. And didn't fall once this year, in the water anyway.

There is a Ask the Pros sections with lots of info, and also Featured Articles. I wrote this nymphing primer back on 09. Good Luck! http://flyfishcalgary.com/nymphing_primer.php

Oh crap, I totally forgot my favorite part. In Steve's edited version, he never did see the fish he was casting to. He just layed the fly out where I said to cast and let it drift. As it neared the fish I said " should be ......now" and perfectly on cue the fis rose and ate. It was really cool.

Ah, the "tying my boots" fish. Nice. Here is how that fish worked. Rick finds several very nice fish rising near some deadfall and catches two of them. Steve arrives and Rick says "have at 'em." Steve catches nice fish and says "your turn". I decide that it's a good time to tie my boots and say, "nah, you go ahead. I have to tie my boots." The result is pictured above. Which is now quite possibly the last time I'll tie my boots when fish are rising. I did get one fish (actually the first fish of the trip) that may have been that big, Maybe that big. That fish Steve holding was a beast, and had to be drug away from deadfall. Really cool.

I had to opportunity to do something pretty special this weekend: fish a river that I am very familiar with that has been essentially untouched for two years due to no access caused by bridges still out since the floods of last year. I don't doubt that some quads have made it back, but the river showed very, very little evidence of anglers. Lots of big hoofed animal footprints though! Anyway, it was a chance to see if the behavior of the fish had changed with the absence of us. I realize the evidence is highly subjective, but here it is anyway. 1. The fish were super fat and healthy. Now, they are always pretty fat there, but seemed more so. That said, the hatches when we were there, even this late in september, were pretty amazing. So they ain't lacking for food. 2. Size was not that different than what I remembered, though the fished seemed to fight harder. That could be imagination. 3. They didn't get as stupid as I'd hoped. The first day was cloudy and the fish were as a buddy of mine likes to say "cooperative." Certainly more cooperative than I remembered in general. But the second day was sunny and the fish most certainly went back to what I remembered on that river. You better give them what they are eating, or they will ignore you. No change there. I bet I changed flies 100 times. (I tended to cycle thru the same 4 or 5 flies in every run. There were multiple hatches going on, and I think that different fish were hitting different things. Catch one or two on one fly then nothing. Change and catch another, etc. etc.). So what did that tell me? Not sure really. They certainly did not get all that 'uneducated' in the time anglers were away, which is a good thing. Same picky little suckers they were before. Makes it fun when you are not swearing at them. There was certainly evidence to suggest that lack of pressure let them get healthier both in size and energy, but that could just be coincidental to an awesome food year. Anyway, thanks to bobloblaw for the assist in the experiment!

I was pretty far up a Bull Trout spawning river in BC this weekend. We saw multiple (like many multiples) of redds, but no spawning bullies. Did see some single fish, but no evidence of pairs. At least up there it looks done. There were likely some we could have fished, but too busy chasing cutties to mess with the bullies.

Yawn.

Two years ago I was standing on the rocks directly across from your second picture. I had the bay to myself for about an hour as everyone was scouting around. One of my group came up to me and asked if they could fish above me. I said absolutely. The wind was blowing pretty strong across that little bay and he asked me "how long are you letting it drift". I answered "until one comes up and tries to eat. I have either hooked a fish or missed one every cast for the last hour or so." Most unreal place I've ever fished. Big, pretty, and plentiful. Thankfully it is a 6 hour walk in!

i'm thinking of the V6 ecodiesel, but the cherokee sure isn't on the cheap side!

How fishermen measure fish: My fish jumps and I say its 24", then it's at LEAST 24". Your fish jumps and you say its 24", then its 18". Maybe. Lighten up. Who cares?

Outstanding!

Here is all Steve needs for flies: Light SJWs that he can cast with his 2 wt. He may be a pig, but he is a pig with style! Ants and beetles. Really, anything little and black that floats. Some red in it for visibility is always a nice touch. Ice cream cone chronnies That's it really. Everything else will just gather dust. If those of you who contribute can figure out a way to infuse the flies with a creek amnesia substance so he can forget where his favorite creek is, that would be nice. His favorite creek correlates pretty much exactly to my favorite creek. Since I'm barely fishing this year, I was hoping the creek gets a year long break so I can fish the hell out of it next year. He is ruining my plans. I thought that if I stole all his flies (which is really all I wanted, I just took the spinning gear to be an ***hole) he would quit. But no, all you nice people gotta give him stuff. Stupid Canada. Sorry to hear you lost your stuff buddy. Come to Panorama next week (seriously) and I'll show you some new water to poach!!