reevesr1

Kungfool, No offense taken. Got any more of those red pills?

Dude, that is so funny. I was actually going to tell almost that exact joke, except a golfing version.

Chidders, Anytime. Though my luck has little to do with me and lots to do with who I've met.

All the best buddy. Next time schedule the surgery in the Winter!!

Birchy, First year for me too. My "teachers" to date have been Max, MissinTheBow, Toolman, my friends Didier and Kevin, and Wayne and Trevor Hanson (but I don't know about Wayne. Mostly just tries to get my money ). This forum has helped immensely as well. To say I've been fortunate is an understatement. I was thinking of this the other day as I come to the end of my first year. PBs: Rainbow 26.5" (may be awhile before I top that) Brown 22" Bull 17" Cuttie, maybe 15"? And some little brookies and a few cuttbows. Also, a 22" Redfish and a 20" Spanish Makerel in the salt. I know its not about stats, but I cannot help myself. Anyway, great first year for us both! BTW, would truly enjoy fishing with you and Corey someday. Hope you make it in the showcase! Edit: By the way, I proofed your post again. Is it "hold" or "hole"? I thought hole, but maybe not? Hold makes sense to. Also, I've read enough of your stuff to know how excited you are about fly fishing. I would not be afraid to let that come out a bit more in your submission, IMHO.

Greg, Cut away buddy. Makes it fun. I grew up in the chemical refinery capital of the world. I understand environmental disaster. We deystroyed our own backyard before we ever thought of destroying anyone elses. But in my lifetime it has gotten much better, not worse. The bays are cleaner now than when I was a kid.

Boy, sure didn't take long for you to rise to the bait. Wish I could get some trout to do that! I was just being funny. I don't think you really rape the planet. There may be some larger browns around who disagree with this however! I do disagree with your take that large corps are left with stern looks and warnings. I think that like many other things, we remember the times where it seems the big company got off and forget when they are hit with the multi-million dollar fines, since they so obviously deserved it. And whether we like it or not, catastrophic errors will ALWAYS occur. No matter how well you plan or execute a project, there is always residual risk involved. I did risk analysis for a couple of years and no matter how well you do it (and I was pretty good at it, pat on the back), you just can't plan for everything. And the thing about residual risk is, given enough operations, the bad thing will happen either through human error, lack of planning, outside interference, whatever. The goal is to limit the chance of it happening as much as possible. We do that. When problems happen, it ain't always because of greed. Greed is a nice, easy target, but like many easy targets, the truth is almost always much more complicated. Also, any belief that industry (and I mean any industry here) is not held accountable for mistakes, is mistaken. It's the level of accountability that is always in question. Most often depends what side of the fence you are on whether it is acceptable to you or not. Did you just call my philosophical musings BS? That hurts mang!

Harps, I'll have a civil discussion with you. Preferrably over a Guiness, that is if you don't drink some sort of organic compound you pinko liberal tree hugger (did I say that out loud? Just foolin'!) By the end of the beers I'll have you rushing out to buy an H1 and a quad. Or maybe I will strip naked, grow my balding hair as long as I can, and chain myself to the nearest sour wellhead. Lots to respond to in your above post. But instead of taking them on one by one, I think I'll wax philsophic for a moment, or maybe two. It never ceases to amaze me how easy it is for us to believe supposed facts, opinions, scientific 'findings', etc. that fit nicely with our belief systems. Conversely, how easy it is for us to discount or discredit anything that does not fit those beliefs. I do not in any way exclude myself from my proclivity to fall into that trap. Another thing I have noticed is that over the past couple of decades, environmentalism has become more akin to a religion than anything else, with lots of different sects. Like any religion, there are moderate (faithful stewards of the enviornment), conservative (planet rapers), and fundamental (extremist) movements. How those are defined depends on where you see yourself. In my case (a bit tounge in cheek here) rickr=moderate steward of the environment. Everyone should think like me harps=extremist (but a friendly, well intentioned one) toolman= planet raper (I mean come on, he makes tools for the forestry industry. Just kidding bud!) From Harps viewpoint (again, exaggerating for effect) Harps=moderate steward of the enviroment rickr=planet raper (and a American one at that. A Evil man) PETA=extremist (just a guess) What happens with these labels we tend to give is that many people will only believe someone who is a member of their group. Everyone else is just wrong. Always. About everything. To me, the saddest part is the lack of communication/association between the groups, however you define them. If we don't listen to differing ideas, how do we learn anything? Also, it is BORING to only listen to people who think like you. So to get back to the original discussion: I truly believe the O&G industry has made great strides in my career at better considering its' impact on the environment. We are also much better at reporting where we are falling down. That being said, we certainly have room to improve. So while this economy needs the O&G industry to prosper to maintain its' economic health, the industry needs people who are looking out for the environment to rub our collective noses in it from time to time. A you need us and we need you sort of arrangement, no matter how much we try to deny it. But we do need to listen to each side and not alway instantly start lobbing intellectual bombs at each other. Kumbayaa baby!

Lonefisher throws down! Sorry bud, but I'm going to have to put you on the no fly list. And since W controls your puppet premier as well, I can probably get you on a Canadian version as well. I'm also going to have to revoke your access to any southern alberta stream for the rest of the summer. Kungfool, I got a little sumthin sumthin planned for you as well when we go hunting the bulls in September. Watch your back! For the rest of you, I'm going to have W cut off the TV for a month. No US TV for you. Hope you like Hockey, Degrassi, and Beachcomber reruns. Don't mess with us, we carry big sticks. In all seriousness, does anyone truly believe that W can get anyone to sign any type of North America wide agreement? He is totally a lame duck president whose power has been eroded beyond the level of ineffectiveness. I would be shocked if any process like this is not dragged out until the new, and probably democratic administration takes over in a couple of years.

Can someone tell me how I can find a saved post? I was replying to a post before I logged in and it saved the post, but where??

A couple of observations from someone who has lived in a lot of different places: I have lived in Calgary for about 2 yrs, and have benefitted greatly from the economy here. I think that almost all of the "problems" associated with the city can be directly attributed to overwhelming growth. So naturally, one of the thing people will say is, "let's put some brakes on the growth". The question is How? The realities of the world economy today is that the resources in this province are incredibly valuable. And as long as that is the case, no company will purposefully slow down. If there is money to be made today, they will try to make it. Unfortunately, long term planning seems to be a thing of the past. People are governed by the quarterly report. Bad quarterly report, down go the stock prices and down go peoples (and I'm not just talking upper management here) bonuses and maybe their job. So the fact that the oil or gas is still going to be there tomorrow is absolutely irrelevant. It only matters what it is worth right now. All that being said, with the exception of heavy oil (which is still very strong), while the world oil economy is absolutely booming, Alberta's Natural Gas market is not (and gas drives the bus here.) One of the reasons is with the relatively high operating cost in Alberta, and capital is starting to look attractive in less established economies. One of the many reasons for the high operating cost is the increasing cost of safety. More and more money is being spent on safety and the environment than ever before. And while it is not infallible, (re: the increase in spills and blowouts) it is far better than anywhere I have ever been. Go to Utah one day and tour an oil and gas field. Or my home states of Texas or Louisiana. Or Russia. Alberta is freakin' paradise compared to that. So in a way, the brakes are being put on. Drilling is substantially down this year. The market adjusted to the ovewhelming growth by slowing down. That may well be the case until the next war breaks out, or the next hurricane. When that happens, companies will accept the lower profit margins in Canada for the relative safeness of the investment, and the money will pour back in. What is comforting is that even with the short term decrease in drilling, the economy of Alberta is still booming. I would submit that anyone who wishes for anything less, or looks for a recession (and I know the statement above about a recession was tounge in cheek) is delusional. Trust me, you will trade the problems associated with a recession ot the problems of a booming economy any day of the week. We do not need another bust. While it may be a short term advantage for some parts of the environment, it is devastating to thousands and thousands of families. Stability is the goal, but very hard, if not impossible, to achieve. Could more be done to increase the safety record? Yes, and I think it is. But there is a price for the economic engine of this province. The goal is to limit that price as much as possible. As a final thought, anyone who thinks the people of Alberta are not friendly have not been to many places, IMHO. I find it amazingly friendly for a city of 1 Million. I think the city is just fantastic and is the best place I have ever lived. My wife calls me the Chamber of Commerce. (here are the places I have lived: Houston, New Orleans, Orlando, Chicago, Pocatello Idaho, San Diego, Waikiki, Edmonton, Grande Prairie, Calgary). Sorry for the rambly post.

57 is 1957, the year he graduated HS. I remember asking him one day, jokingly: "I only count like 50 fish there. Was it a slow day?" He replied "Nope, they didn't want all the fish in the picture. That's about half of 'em." It was stupid how many fish they caught. What is also funny is how many of todays well known fishing areas in south Galveston Bay were "discovered" by Dad and/or Kenneth. Attitudes certainly have changed. He grew up keeping everthing he caught and selling what the family could not eat. In his later years, he kept very few, just some to eat. Released the vast majority of his fish. Pretty drastic change in 1 generation.

My dad had his own army. They weren't armed with guns, like good Americans should, but with fishing rods. To understand a bit, let me set the stage: My dad got pretty well known around Galveston Bay as an exceptional fisherman when he was pretty young. When he was in High School, a bunch of teachers got together and started a Fishing class during PE. Not that they were good fishermen, their plan was to get my dad to attend so he would teach them how he caught so many fish before school every morning. When dad was 18, he was written up in a Texas monthly magazine about his fishing prowess. What really upped to popularity was the following picture. It was taken by a photographer from Ft. Worth who was in town to cover a fishing tournament for one of the local refineries. Dad and Kenneth (dad on the left) were not involved in the tourney, but they happened to hit the dock at the same time as the folks coming in from the tournament. They had WAY more fish than anyone in the tourney! The photographer published the picture in Ft. Worth, AP picked it up and it was published in most of the papers in Texas, including the Houston and Galveston papers. Instant notoriety for dad and Kenneth. So the next time dad goes fishing, there are literally people waiting for him at the dock. The started to follow him everywhere he went. They became known as Richard's Army. He tried lots of diversionary tactics to get rid of them. One was to go to a very known reef system, get out to wade and wait until everyone was out of their boats. Then he would run back to his boat and try to make a clean getaway. Unfortunately, boats weren't very fast in those days and he couldn't get out of sight fast enough. He said the only way to make it stop was to just not catch any fish for a few weeks and finally people just stopped following him. But afterwards he was very careful about where he cleaned his fish so people wouldn't see just how well he was doing. And he stayed away from photographers! As an aside, Kenneth went on to play professional football. He was drafted by the Green Bay Packers as a wide receiver and was the last player cut the year he got drafted. The player the Packers kept instead was Max McGee who was the hero of Super Bowl I. Kenneth played a couple of years for the Eskimos (I think). He also at one time had the Boone and Crockett record atypical Elk, shot in Alaska. Also one hell of a big shark fisherman. The picture also ended up being posted at NASA in Houston under the heading "Things to do in South Texas" .

I just bought a pair of Magellan breathables at Academy in Houston. Magellan is a low cost supplier, and competes directly with Columbia for clothing at about 1/2 the price (or less). I have been buying their fishing shirts and pants for years and have always liked the quality vs. price. This is the first pair of their waders I have bought. The waders cost $69.00 US. I got 'em for my son, who like any teenager, is incredibly rough on his gear. I'll see how they do. If they hold up, I go to Houston a couple of times a year and could pick some up if anyone is interested.

LOL!!

Yep, from what I understand, sometimes for miles. Part of the charm I guess.

Rob, I drove around that area a couple of weeks ago. Did not look at the Columbia, but Dutch Creek looked good, and I think the White River (I may have the name wrong) is supposed to be excellent.

I know what they would say: "I hope its not me"

Lots of people are starting to kayak, much safer than the pontoon. Today, no waves. Some days, big waves! Getting through the breakers in a pontoon would be very dangerous. One guy in a kayak hooked a bunch of tarpon the other day--on a fly rod. Didn't boat any, but lots of jumps. Now that would be fun!!

You can talk to the animals, learned their language? What a neat achievement that must be! I wonder how many people here are old enough to get that reference?

I effin hate seagulls. My father shrimped in the Texas City Ship Channel every day. When you do it, you drag the edges. So you are always going the same direction inbound then the opposite direction outbound. Some days, the wind would be blowing perpendicular to the boat. On those days, for 1/2 the day, the seagulls would be flying ass towards you waiting for you to throw off the excess fish so they could get a free lunch. So wind in your face, seagulls above and in of you facing away, and they are getting a lot of free food. Get the picture? It's warm and white and hits you a lot. God I hate seagulls.

Nick, Feb would be tough on the beachfront, but there are certainly other options. If you, or anyone else for that matter, are looking for fishing advice in South Texas, let me know. About the fly rod--people think I'm nuts. It's just so much more work for very little outcome. Most of the fly fishermen here (and the numbers are growing) are super shallow water sight casting where the big lures scare off the fish. But in open water, you just cannot cover enough territory. That being said, I had more fun catching the one smack than I did catching all the other fish combined. That is in no way meant to knock the other method, it is still very fun. I've just done it for so long that the change is very sweet.

Went to the surf in Galveston this morning with my brother. Not much surf as it was pretty much like a lake, which usually means fish! I used the fly rod exclusively for the first couple of hours and did about as well as anyone, ie, not very well at all. I did miss a few fish, so I was being kept interested. I only caught 1 with the fly rod, but what a great fish to catch. It's called a Spanish Mackerel. All teeth, agression and speed. Really lucky he did not cut me off as they have a mouth full of needles. The fish was in the 20" range and got me to my backing in the blink of an eye. He hit it about 20' in front of me, and I must have had 30 or 40' of fly line in the water when he took off. I have a nice little cut on my index finger from him ripping off that line! Just a rush!! Here are a couple of pics. I may be taking the "keep the rod tip high" to a bit of an extreme, but I REALLY wanted this fish. Unfortunately for me, I lost the clouser to a fish about an hour later and when I went to tie on a new one, I realized my fly box had somehow floated out of my pocket. This is amazing since every time I try to remove it from my pocket it takes me a couple of minutes. Oh well, there went a couple hundred bucks worth of stuff. So back to the truck to pick up old faithful. With a fly rod in waist deep water, I can cast 60 feet or so (a guess). With my open faced reel, I can send it out 80+ yds (maybe 100 yds, I don't know. I do know that I can cast really far) when I have a breeze at my back like I did today. Makes finding fish a bit easier! After a bit of experimentation, I found out what they wanted: they wanted it far, and pink. I started picking up fish almost every cast as everyone around me scrambled to figure out what I was doing different than they were. My brother was the only one who could cast as far, and he started hooking up. Eventually, people started catching fish all around us, but we had them pretty much to ourselves for 1/2 hour or so. Once you see the pics below, you will understand how unnusual that would be. While we were there, we had several schools of pogies go through. These are bait fish the size of your hand. School sizes measured in acres. (no exagerration here). They were moving so fast that there was literally a current caused by them when the school passed. Never seen anything like it. It was like the wake of a boat. Just amazing. Anyway, back to Alberta tomorrow morning. Can't wait to hit the bow, sad about the FTR. This was a great trip. The best part, schooled my brother today!!

Great pics esleech! Glad you got some fish and glad you didn't have to take out the bear.

Notice I didn't put anything in there huh? So the first place we stopped was a very shallow reef. Both my brothers were throwing big topwater baits and I was throwing a pencil popper and clouser with the 8 wt. I was so nice casting off the boat (ie, high up) and no wind! Getting better at the double haul as well. But no fish. We did have some blow ups on the topwaters and I think I had one chase the popper, but no hookups. The jetties are pretty much a bait place. Catching them on any type of artificial can be frustrating, particularly when everyone around you is catching. The plan is fly rod in the morning in the surf until the wind shuts me down, then plastics with my old rod and reel. No bait tomorrow, unless plans change drastically.