reevesr1

3-2, Game on.

Brent said something very interesting, and very true. New golf clubs will shave strokes off your game because you think they will. You trust your new gear to do what you paid for. Problem is, first time you have a bad round your faith goes out of those clubs and you regress right back to where you were. Bet the same holds true somewhat for fly line. If you think it's supposed to help you relax and let it. But a bad casting day ruins the confidence. That said, my irons are Titleist and my woods are Cleveland. Odyssey putter. Handicap dropped 2 after I bought the Titleist (single digit to a lower single digit). Pinky swear. Equipment can matter some.

I fished with Dee. He is very, very good. Fished with Max too. Same comment as above.

It doesn't happen often, but this debate caused me to have a revelation. An epiphany, if you will. It is completely unethical to fish the mouth of the Highwood, at any time of year. Particularly on the east side of the river. Particularly in the morning, though it is sorta unethical in the afternoon too. I'm comprising a list of 15 other places I know of where fish congregate (like deep chop, riffles, runs, etc.) that it is unethical as well. Also, I've decided casting to a rising fish (cuz you know he's there, is eating and therefore vulnerable) is skirting the line of ethicism as well. Hell, let's just extend that to any visible fish. All you guys after the challenge should always fish long flat sections of river with no depth changes or contrasts with no visible rises or cruising fish. Dry flies only. Have fun!! Let us heathens know how you do.

Thanks Harps. My ignorance of the Crow showed on my rant.

Not sure about that Hawg! Maybe my interpretation skills aren't as good...

So I'm only going to state my opinion on this and not debate anyone. My favorite saltwater fish spawns all summer long. Every full moon. If I didn't fish them when they spawn I wouldn't fish all summer. The Crowsnest has no spawning tribs. How many people fish there right now? Every steelhead and salmon go into rivers to spawn. Seems to me they get fished a bit. There are river's in BC that if you say the name, everyone gets mad. It is covered up in the late summer fishing for Bulls that are staging to spawn. Rainbows are now moving towards their spawning rivers. Some have probably gone up, most have not. Everyone knows where. Studies have shown very little to no impact of fishing for these when they are still in the Bow. If you don't like to see people fishing the confluence, where is the line? 1 mile from the HW? 2 miles? The entire Bow? I fished there this week. I'll go again. I see absolutely no issue with it. If you do, then don't fish there. If you think the laws should be changed, come up with a valid reason to change it and I'll stop fishing there. But anyone who calls me a fishing novice (*hit, maybe I am. Only been fishing for 45 yrs) or someone who doesn't care can frankly stick it. And I didn't vote in the poll, because frankly, that I don't care about. Edit: Brian, I should have read your replies first. I could have just said "ditto". Wanna go fishing this week? I know a place.. Oh, and want to know why I fish there? BECAUSE ITS FUN!!!!

Writing the report now. Didn't think the pics belonged in the story.

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!

I'll be ball 4? Mine has what, 200 days on it since I bought it? Maybe 50 days with the 7/8. Both have been into Saltwater for a week (and as far as I know they are not saltwater reels), dropped, kicked, never been in a case, thrown in the back of a car after every trip. Never oiled, greased, taken apart, cleaned (other than fresh water on the SW trips). Don't know what else you could want. I am a torture tester for a reel. I treat my gear like crap. I want to fish with it and forget it. So far, so good. It ain't my Bauer, but it ain't $250.00 either. If you do decide to step up a bit, I used a Scierra XDP on Wed. I worked it out with about 7 or 8 fish, biggest around 22". Loved the drag and it's a good looking reel. I think they are around $150. Good luck Pete! Don't let the equipment hounds talk you into a higher end reel!

Double Post.

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

Good question actually. I thought the same thing the first time the conservation of energy thing was explained to me. But it's not like they are teetering on the edge and any excess expenditure of energy is a death sentence. In a long term sense, they get enough excess calories from their food to allow them to grow, defend their territory, procreate, etc. all of which use significant energy stores. But they don't get a lot of excess from any small bug they eat, so on an individual "eating event", they can't expend much energy. If that makes any sense. And some will die when you fight them (though not very many), but that is more from the chemicals released from stress. Edit: should have read Toolman's reply first! Sorry for the repeat.

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!

That's why I'm figuring out this River stuff! I think like the fish. Position myself such that I can watch the conveyor belt of food go by and reach out and grab something when I want it, with very little energy expended. I also spit out things I don't like!

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.

Something else to remeber: Fish are lazy creatures. Their lives depend on conserving energy. There is very little energy contained in much of what the eat, so they cannot expend more energy in eating it. That means they will move very little to eat that nymph. There is typically no "strike" in the traditional sense. The fish moves slightly, opens its mouth, sucks.in the nymph and move back to its lie. Within a couple of seconds (the amount of time it takes the fish to finish the physiological process os sucking in and reversing the water back out) it WILL spit the nymph out. It knows instantly its not food. In that time the impulse has to travel up the leader, to your indicator and you react and set the hook. Easy huh! There will be many times a fish will sample your nymph and you will never see it. To make it even more fun, the big fish have mastered conservation of energy. So their "strikes" are even more subtle. So strike at everything as others have said. And the alley visual from Monger is great, as was psuedos grid. I personallly like to work out a foot or so every cast when I'm in fishy water, knowing the fish wont move much. And when your friends see you fighting a big fish on a fly rod, the laughter will stop and their questions will start!

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.