reevesr1

So to date, most of my stories have been from my youth, or my family's youth down in Texas. This story is all Alberta..... My eyes popped open at 5 am this morning. My first thought was "ok, so am I hung over?" after drinking 3 bottles of wine with my wife. Thankfully, I seemed ok. There was some gentle snoring from my wife (she drank a lot of wine too!), but that wasn't enough to wake me up,or keep me up . So I tried to go back to sleep. But it seems as I've aged, once I'm up, I'm up. 5 Freakin' AM. Getting old sucks. I fought the obvious for about 15 minutes, but at 5:15 decided I was up for the duration, so might as well make the most of it. Said to the wife "Honey, I'm going to hit the river. I'll be back in time for Church." Her reply was HHHRRMMPHHHH. Now almost 20 yrs of married experience has taught me that HHHRRMMPHHHH could mean: A. HHHRRMMPHHHH B. Ok, honey have fun. I'll see you in a couple of hours. Can you bring me a coffee when you come back? or C. I am sick and tired of your fishing. Get your @## outside and do some $#$^& yardwork. I picked B. Dressed and went downstairs. Spent 15 minutes looking for my wallet, keys, phone, jacket, and camera. The ole memory ain't what it used to be. Slid out of the house at 5:30 or so and went to McDs to pickup my Sausage and Egg McMuffin and a large coffee. Yum. The simple pleasures. I am a creature of habit and that is my morning breakfast. Me and all the other older guys I see there in the morning. Start my way toward the river. I briefly considered calling Troutlover, but that voice of experience told me that waking up his lovely young wife (and mother of young uns) to ask Jared if he wanted to go fishing quite possibly wasn't in my best interest. I knew what her HHHRRMMPHHHH would mean! So sorry Jared. But I'd rather have you mad at me than your wife! Hit the parking lot at about 6 or so. Put on the gear and made my way, slowly, down the hill. Saw a couple of deer on a ridge. I would say I admired them, and the geese flying overhead, but mostly I was bitching internally about my stiff back, the stupid rock inside my stupid waders, and the fact that I wished I had gone to the bathroom before I left. This is starting wonderfully. Get to the water. Look at the run and briefly consider working out halfway to the main seam so I can work the quiet water inside and the faster water outside. I decide that I just don't want to spend the effort necessary to wade in moderately fast waist deep water and put in the casting and mending effort to fish the faster water when I can be lazy and walk the bank and fish the slower inside water. I would like to say that was totally a fishing decision, but in actuality it was a too damn lazy and old to work hard decision. Made the first cast into almost motionless water and 5 seconds later, fish on. And a big fish. But strangely no head shakes. Or runs. Just dogs it. Big brown? No, 4 lb sucker. Oh well, at least its a fish. And a old one at that. Nice start, I guess. I won't bore you with the next hour or so, but fishing was pretty good. Nice rainbows making flash, jumpy runs. A couple of young (I think) energetic fish had run me well into the river. I wanted to follow and tried, but kept slipping on rocks and didn't want to fall. Lost them both. But a pattern was developing. The smaller, more energetic fish were out closer to the main seam. The bigger, older, (and in my mind smarter, lazier, grumpier and therefore able to defend their territory) were in the slower inside water. After an hour, I hit the first really nice fish in very slow water. Big male rainbow that jumped right in front of me. Unlike his smaller kin, he did not run out into the middle of the river. I like to think he thought about it but decided it was too much effort. So he stayed in the slow stuff and jumped, ran across the surface, and mostly made a splashy spectacle of himself. After 5 min or so, I slide the net under 24" or so(and by or so I mean maybe bigger) of gorgeous male rainbow. Sweet, my biggest Bow rainbow! Funny, I'm not feeling quite as old now. Half an hour or so later, I slip and almost fall making a cast. My coordination is shot and getting worse every day. The cast falls about 2 ft. inside of the swirl I was aiming at. But the sloppy cast had a bit of slack built in and drifted nicely so I let it go. The indicator twitches, I set the hook and the biggest trout I have ever seen in my life blows out of the water and starts working upstream. I realize with horror that my line is caught in the buckle of my vest. I fumble with getting it off, and then in a move belying my age, quickly flip the line before it goes behind my reel seat as the beast makes its first run. On the reel now, it spins, jumps again (I let out a war whoop here) and takes off downstream with really bad ass head shakes. Like its big old friend before, it never goes into the fast water. But its looking like a long battle. But like lots of old things, I think its lost some coordination and really gets itself badly wrapped up in my line. So after a shorter fight than I expected, I'm trying to tail (I broke the lanyard of my net earlier when I clumsily stepped on it) in 26 to 27" (measured quickly against my rod) of an unbelievably fat and pissed off old brown. The fish was so fat I couldn't grab it anywhere else. I quickly took a picture, held it up for the guy across the river and let it go back to its home. Slowly and grumpily I bet. I fished for another 1/2 hour or so. It was good. I didn't feel old anymore and actually looked forward to the brisk walk up the hill. Good for the back. When I was at Church with my wife and 3 kids it struck me how blessed I am in my life, my family, and how lucky I am to love the place I live in. I also said a quick prayer of thanks in being allowed the honor of meeting 3 other older souls today (I have to count the sucker. He was big and old too!) and in having experienced enough in life to be able to appreciate it. Getting old ain't so bad!

Who told you about my recent surgery?

Hanson's does a Fly Fishing Boot Camp. $200.00 for about 6 (or more) hours of what the gear is called and what it does, knots, casting instruction, and a bit of fishing on the Bow at the end. Oh, and you get to keep the rod and reel (or get $200 in store credit instead.) Really good deal, Whatever you choose, best of luck. You are in for a lot of fun! Edit: You may want to consider this clinic once you get comfortable with casting. Great help in learning to nymph fish.Very effective on the Bow! Nymph Clinic

Continuing on the total hijack: I've driven in lots of places. California, I would say, is absolutely the best. People drive fast, but know how to merge, allow people to merge, signal, give room, etc. Want to see the biggest difference? Watch the merges when a lane ends or a road comes in in Cali vs here. In Cali, people automatically give room for a seamless merge (1 car from one lane, one car from the merging lane). No fighting, no car putting its front bumper against the rear bumper of the car in front to block a merge, and best of all NO STOPPING!!! The merges here are free for alls. Drives me batty. That said, my biggest problem with driving in Calgary is the total lack of design of the Deerfoot, horrible traffic light patterns (hello, anyone ever heard of timing light to improve flow??) and poor entrances/exits from any road or highway.

They will be between $500 and $600. And you can look this cool: Any excuse to post this picture (again......)

So why are the drivers worse here? Used to wide open roads, going as fast as you want? I lived in Idaho for awhile, and the weather was way worse, and I would say there were far fewer cars in the ditch. That said, there weren't 2.5 Million living in a 300 KM corridor either. The general skills of the drivers here won't be any different than anywhere else. Some combination of driving conditions, attitude, training (or lack thereof), driver density (the QEII gets pretty high density, many going very fast), and many other factors will contribute to the perceived "poor" drivers here. My company instituted a driver trainer course for all it's employees several years ago which includes defensive driving at a track. Our accident rate plummeted. Why isn't driver training done in schools? Funny thing about drivers, 90% of them think they are above average (that's an actual statistic. Can't remember where I read it, but if sure feels true), which makes at least 40% of them wrong (I would also bet some of the 10% that think they are below average are actually some of the ones above). Don't want to be the one to break it to you, but it is a virtual certainty that some of the people posting on this thread are in the lower 50% category (and I include myself as a possible poor driver).

Wish they had gotten more at Sunshine today. Made it there with my all seasons, no problem. Mountain was great, no cars in the ditch (ok, two that spun out and crossed the freeway). Glad I was not in calgary all day!

Maui Jim's are fantastic. There are a couple of places in the +15 that sell them. Not cheap, but great glasses. That said, I am far too disorganized to be trusted with expensive glasses. Clip ons and over's for me!

Actually, the original plan was to go to the fishout that weekend and have the anniversary thing the next weekend. Unfortunately, the next weekend is May long, so we decided to have the party the weekend of the 9th. She would have certainly drank the wine. We'll get together with you guys at Racehorse, or Dutch whichever it is you go to!

Boy Lynn, you sure make it sound tempting. Let me ask you something: Jackie thinks we are having our 20th Anniversary gathering on that weekend. You think she would be mad if I drug her to Police Outpost instead? Just curious about a woman's perspective.

Here is the Wikipedia site concerning the Merger. XM/Sirius Merger Final approval on the US side expected this month. It is unclear what this would mean in Canada as Sirius Canada is 40% owned by the CBC (siriusly). Once approved, NHL, MLB, NFL, NBA games would all be broadcast on one carrier.

$14.95/month. Four letters: ESPN Enough for me! I get my American sports fix. My wife listens to music crap every once in awhile, when I let her.

So I basically said the same thing as Hawg when this post first appeared. Fishpro replied and I believed him that the picture was not meant to provoke, so I removed my rant. I agree that the picture was poorly thought out, but as I said, I believe it is an honest mistake. A whole bunch of us here fish in the winter.I would love to say none of the fish I caught have hit the snow. That would be untrue however. We all try our best, I think, to handle fish the way we feel is correct. Sometimes we fail. Sometimes we take pictures of us failing without even knowing we are failing. There are people here that don't believe you should even take a picture of a fish because it takes too long. Who gets to make the decisions on this? The most sensitive? I'm asking because I truly do not know. After reading this board, I've learned to not let them hit the snow, try not to let them hit rocks, take pictures with them close to the water so if I drop them they won't get hurt. Never mind I've seen fish jump 3 ft out of the water. Am I being too careful? Maybe. But what the heck, better to error on the side of caution I guess.

Happy Birthday Clive!

I liked her handling of the Doberman!

Caramel, and ever so slightly undercooked. Mmmmmmmm.

Chris, Not artistic but yummy, courtesy of my 11 yr old daughter. Lava Cake!!

I guess it would depend on the arc of the parabola with which it fell Factors effecting this would be angle of incidence of the fish's path to the water (as the height from the water has been established by the 5'8" man and 5.5 ft ice shelf) , the velocity of the fish at release, and the abrasiveness of the surface the fish struck. Oh, and the # test of the tippet. So assuming the cut started with the maxima and was ripped off on impact with the bottom following rapid release, I could see how this injury could result. Or it could be an Osprey.

No chance that being from a release. If the hit was large enough to tear off that chunk it would kill the fish.

Now if I wanted to cast that with a regular single handed rod, would I need the lead eyes or not? I'm just asking. Nice job buddy!

You'd be surprised how much force you can put on 3x. I ran out of 2 and 3 in the past couple of weeks and have been using 8# Flouro. Forgot that in the car and had to result to 4X yesterday. Had a big fish take me to my backing, but got it turned around and all the way back. Just try to avoid sudden load!

Have a hard time conceiving of line do it, if it could my hands would be a battle zone. I've seen cuts from spiderwire get pretty bad, but cannot imagine mono doing it. Plus I think the "exit" wound would be cleaner?

Hey Boys, Sure glad to hear you had fun and success! It is a real accomplishment to catch fish on this river first time out. Funny thing about "spots". I gave these guys a general area to fish, nothing very specific. Where they pulled the rainbow out of, I haven't actually fished before. So you guys did it on your own. Major congratulations. I'll take that beer anytime.

After it was rolled around in the snow, and caught with a count down rapala. Through the ice perhaps? Whatever it was, ouch!

Edited out my friend. I apologize.