reevesr1

I just spent a week in Panorama with my wife, daughter and my daughters friend. The weather was fantastic, and the fishing was pretty good. A couple of years ago, my wife and I "discovered" hiking. We both really enjoy it, and have made several hikes together in the last two years. Our issue is one of aggression in that I have a bit too much of it, and she has almost none at all. Combine that with her fear of heights and my need to get the best view can lead us into situations. This is one of them times. We were doing a hike into an old minesite called Thunderbird up the Sultana Creek Trail. The hike goes up a really old mining road, and has a constant pitch basically from the start to finish. In the 7.5km (of which we did 6.5 km, but more on that later), you gain a respectable 900m, but since it is so gradual it really doesn't feel like you've expended that much energy. The hike leads you through the typical meadows with all the typical wildflowers, and through a couple of different valleys. The views are what one would expect, spectacular. At around 6 km we hit the first of three old avalanche fields. It was fascinating to hike across, but not that tough. The second one was similar. The third however was a bit of a different story. Seems that like many places, they got a lot of snow up there last year. A gully that would normally be pretty passable is now probably 10-15 feet deep. Bedrock on the bottom, shale and unconsolidated formation on the sides. You have to kind of shimmy across a cliffy section to get to the gully, so my wife is already a bit on the nervous side. I climb to the bottom of the gully with her watching warily, but I successfully coerce her to trying to come down. As she makes it to the bottom, I start up. It is not long until I slide down my backside back to where I started. Strike 1. I walk down the creek a bit and find a spot that looks better. I start up that, work downslope on the side of the creek, and go down on the backside again. Strike 2. This time I don't slide all the way to the creek, and I continue to work downslope looking for an out. I realize that the creek is now a good ways below me, I'm balanced against a rock, there is no good way up and I can't figure out how to turn around. At this point I make a fatal mistake. I say "I might be in a bit of trouble here!" which my wife interprets as absolute panic. Anyway, I do figure out how to get back to the bottom of the creek, work up the creek past my wife telling her how I'm going to find a way up. I actually do find a way up and convince her to try also. She makes it almost all the way up, but cannot convince herself to do the last 5 feet (which were admittedly really steep). She told me later she had actually given up the minute I said "i'm in a bit of trouble", but was trying to convince herself otherwise. Didn't work. So she tells me she's done, and that even if she could finish, for the rest of the hike all she would think of was the fact she had to face the gully again. I do what any man in my situation would do: "but honey, you are going to have to climb down the whole way anyway. You only have two more steps then you are done. Come on, you can do it!!" She replies with "I SAID I'M FINISHED AND THATS IT!!" She probably called me something mean. Not smart enough to take the hint, I think that if I can find an easier spot, I can still convince her. So she climbs back down to the bottom of the creek as I start to climb down a bit and look for another path. As I'm climbing down, my foot hits a rock about the size of a football, and it starts down the face of the gully. Im not too worried, as my wife is not on my fall line. Oh wait, yes she is. Oh and look, the rock just bounced in the air and is heading right at her head. I feebly shout "look out" as a 2lb rock slams into my wifes back. ((ok, an aside here. I actually thought almost immediately after it hit her back and I knew she wasn't going to die that this would have been a tough thing to explain to the RCMP if the rock had hit her in the head. "Yes officer, I will admit I was a bit pissed off, but I promise I did not hit my wife with that rock. What's that, oh, I mean I did not hit my wife in the head with that rock on purpose. I know how it looks, but do a DNA sample! I swear I didn't touch the rock!" Im sure they would have believed me, right?) Anyway, the rock hits her in the back, and she does not even flinch. She does not turn around. She does not make any sign that she even noticed. I say "honey, are you alright?" To which she replies "that is the least of my @#%$ing problems." At this point I realize that the possibility exists that she may be a bit mad at me. Trying to be helpful I say 'I'll just stand here until you are out of my fall line". "Good idea" is the reply (at this point I've pretty much decided that pointing out that I had found another spot to cross might be a not so great idea). So I stand there lamenting the loss of my hike. I wanted to see the old mine. I'm looking longingly at the trail when I hear "THUMP" directly below me. I look down and the ice shelf that had been on the face of the gully was now at my wife's feet. "Uh, did you just knock down that ice sheet?" (that is about 10 feet long, 3 feet wide and about the same tall. Weighed several hundred pounds I guess). "Yeah, I just touched it to see if I could use it to lean on. Good thing it didn't roll over!" (she tells me later that she was having an English patient moment and I was going to have to leave her on the mountain with some water, a sandwich, and some bear spray as I went for help. I've never seen the English Patient-I promise- so I didn't get the reference!) So she moves out of my fall line, I climb down, climb back out the other side and she follows shortly thereafter in my footsteps. We get past the cliff and sit down on some deadfall in the avalanche section. Have a sandwich, don't talk much. Shes mad at me cuz I'm an ***hole apparently, I'm mad at her for being a weenie. And I'm mad at me for almost killing her and not being smart enough to recognize when a dangerous situation means time to shut it down (all kidding aside, I hope that's my takeaway in all this, other than the fact my wife is a total bad ass-if you would have seen that rock hit her you would know what I mean. Girls can just shut out pain. I wonder why??). On the way back down when we start talking about it and laughing she says "this is perfect for you. Now you have a story". I said "but I wanted to finish", but deep down I knew she was right. Had we made it, we would just have a hike. It would have been memorable, but not memorable like this. Hell of a day! We did a hike up Brewer Creek two days later. It was awesome. I got her to go on a ridge line and look down a valley (totally safe, I swear. Really). I got to scramble most the way up to the summit before she yelled up "That's far enough!!" I didn't argue, even thought the summit was only 100 yds away. I may be slow, but I'm not stupid.

Allegedly broke it.

Sometimes your camera is not your friend. Tragic story... Alaskan Bear Attack

I've tried to nymph with a furled, and it did not seem to work as well as just a straight leader. But I love them for dries.

I really envy you guys. I raised one fisherman out of three tries. My oldest (now 19) has been fishing with me since he was 3 or 4. I really miss those trips from when he was little, though he is a blast to fish with now. Loves it probably more than I do, and is probably better at it if I were to tell the truth. You guys are in for so much fun, enjoy every moment of it!

Not to mention the overnight. So basically I increased the number of fishermen by 0!

After a short scramble and climb, this was our first view of the lake: We arrived and rigged up. Everyone put on a dry except me. I wanted to catch one for my son on one of his nymph ties. Second cast gets this: I see troutlover finish rigging up, and say "first cast, lake don't let me down!", shortly followed by the first of many, many "YUUUUPPPP!!"s of the day. These Yellowstone cutts are the prettiest fish I've ever caught (ok, except MahiMahi). Several of us were fishing the same bay, with troutlover really cleaning up at first as we all figure everything out. Foothills had a moment of panic as it took him a few minutes to tie into one, but once he did he caught fish after fish. As t-lover was leaving he said that the game he plays is to try to count the number of consecutive casts with fish. I could not do that, but after I'd stood on the same rock for an hour, dfb went just down wind (down drift) from me and started casting. He asked "how far are you letting it drift" I said "I don't know, I let it drift until I hook a fish. It's probably been an hour since the last cast that didn't hook one!" I have no idea how many we caught. Several hundred between the 7 of us. Dry flys took the vast majority of the fish, but if you wanted the bigger boys and girls, a wolly bugger was utterly deadly. Foothills with a nice fish! Saying goodbye to the best lake on the planet! Or at least as far as we know..... And finally, for bobloblaw. Sorry you couldn't make it buddy! We then hiked back to the cabin exhausted. There was talk about maybe doing some creek fishing, and maybe Egypt, but we just ended up drinking all of biggy's whiskey and troutlovers rum (rum and koolaid, yum), playing some card game (where I was the president and never dethroned-sorry for the mixed metaphor), and falling blissfully into sleep at around 10:30. The hike out was uneventful, with a big uphill grind to start (3 KM about 200m elevation gain in 45 minutes to start our day), a quick fish on fish lake again (it was a bit better this time, but the fish were still spooky!) and the hike back to the parking lot. As I said off the top, I could not have asked for a better group of people to spend the weekend with. Can't wait to do it again. I'm scouting a lake in BC in about 10 days!! On the ridge above fish lake on the way out. Deb and Uber were lagging us a bit!! From left to right, a very sweaty yours truly, foothills86, DFB, BiggyJ (or Recon as we know him now), and Troutlover. I think Uber has a shot of the entire group.

We ended day 1 with some fishing at Egypt Lake for little brookies and cutties. We fished until dark, and it never got to "a fish every cast" like troutlover promised. We were starting to doubt his veracity about how good the fishing would be. Those doubts were soon erased...... Uber and Deb (It's wolly bugger time!!) Day 2 dawned after too little sleep on a piece of plywood and a too thin bedroll. But the excitement soon overtook the tired, and after a quick breakfast, we headed up to Lake Scarab: From Scarab, we hiked down the short stream to the waterfall above Egypt. Spectacular view! Same waterfall, seen from Healey Pass And more waterfall stuff Foothills86 and the little waterfall just upstream Biggy trying to get close enough to a bunch of cutts to get a good picture. We tried to fish for them, but they were super spooky. After Scarab, we then took of on an uphill grind to the fishing lake. Here is dfb and troutlover climbing a small cliff

I was trying to figure out before I wrote this how many multi day fishing trips I've been on in my life. I couldn't seem to pin it down. Let's say more than 25, less than 50. The short answer is I've been on quite a few. I can honestly say the report that follows is from the best multi day trip I've ever been on. The fishing was nothing short of amazing, particularly on the second day. The scenery was what one would expect from a trip to Egypt Lake and surrounding area. Breathtaking views in every direction. But the best part was the company. Thanks to troutlover for setting this all up, with lots of help from Uber and his wife. And to dfb, foothills86, and biggyj for making it such a memorable time. Tons of laughs, lots of YUUUUUPPPssss, and a absolutely fantastic weekend. Also, before I start, I'm going to editorialize for a minute (or get upon my soapbox, whatever you want to call it). I've been on this board pretty much since it started. I've met many, many great people because of it. Too many of them not around anymore because of all the negativity as the site got larger, and that seems to be getting worse (particularly right now. Is no one catching fish? Why is everyone so angry?). It's just not as fun anymore, and that is unfortunate. While I'm pretty sure that horse is out of the barn, and that the negativity is not going to end anytime soon, I would like to recommend to people that they try to use this site to meet up with someone new from time to time. My wife calls it "Rick's on line dating" and she is not far from the truth. The reality is that my enjoyment of the sport has been greatly enhanced by the quality of the people I've had the pleasure of meeting here, and this trip is a direct result of that. I had one of the best times of my life this weekend. To me, it would be such a great thing if others would be so lucky. So the problem from this point is the shear volume of pictures. I'll do my best to edit to only the best shots, but I'm not making any promises. A few statistics: We hiked three days, over the August long weekend. We did a total of 38 KM of hiking, with just a touch under 2K of ascents. We visited 4 lakes (1 unnamed and three named after Egyptian stuff!), fished three of them and also fished a couple of small creeks. Most of the lakes and creeks had about what you would expect. Smaller cutts and brookies, with the odd nice fish thrown in to keep you interested. The fourth lake however was a bit of a different animal. More on that later. We started at the Sunshine parking lot, and it doesn't take long for the elevation gain to start: Troutlover and uber, probably arguing about which route to take! After about 9 KM and probably 600 or so meters of elevation, we get to "fish lake", an unnamed lake as far as we know. Fishing was pretty decent for smaller cutts, but they would get spooky pretty quick. Catch a couple, then they would move out. Was still a lot of fun and a nice way to break up the hike! Looking down on fish lake after the climb out: Our first look at Egypt with Scarab lake above it. Check out the waterfall. It is really cool to fish Egypt and hear the waterfall roaring the whole time, but be unable to see it from where you fish. We hiked up to the falls on day 2..... [ Some Lambic beer from Belgium cooling in the stream. Way too heavy to pack, but way tasty. Soon to follow was some cherry whiskey from biggyj. The creek had lots of willing little fish, and did a great job of chilling your booze.

You may want to read a bit more of Troutlover's posts before you make a bunch of absolutely wrong assumptions. First off, he's not really a youth. Second, he routinely takes people out fishing who know next to nothing about the sport and helps them to learn how to fly fish. I've rarely met anyone more excited over every fish he catches, and he catches a LOT of them. I was just on a back country trip he arranged for 7 people where he took all of us, some of them strangers to him, to some of the most unreal water and country I've ever been privileged to encounter. Least selfish guy I know. Always enjoys himself on the water. Instead of venting at him, I'd recommend emulating him a bit. All except his netting habits. He sucks at netting.

I was at a high mountain lake this weekend. The dry fly fishing was outstanding, and the size was very impressive for a high mountain lake. Until my heathen friends says "it's wolly bugger time!" and starts tossing a green bugger and slowly stripping it. The fish he caught were MUCH bigger than the ones we had been catching on the dries. They ate the bugger like cutty candy.

Brian, I have a Scierra that I barely use, a 5/6. You can borrow it until you get something else. I would be in no rush to get it back honestly.

Im with Rev. Pretty sure I would have bailed on the chain climb also. Great report! Heading up to some high country stuff myself this weekend-and the Castle drainage is one of my favorite places. I'm due for a trip now that I think of it...

Your new nickname is Joan Jett "I don't give a damn 'bout my bad reputation..."

Watch out for that troutlover guy, he's a bit of an ass. I thought I would finish packing last night, but holy crap. I've never packed for a multi day trip before. Taking longer than I thought. That and the fact I always bring way too much stuff. So I'm struggling with "want to have" vs "that's freakin' heavy". Hijack over, maybe.

You did. Renting a backpack for a backcountry fishing trip this weekend. Will be handling cutties gently!

WAY tougher. Bass have been catch and release for many years now in many lakes. Populations are in very good shape, at least in the lakes I know of. Pretty damn hard to kill a bass. Contrary to what many trout fishermen believe, the bass guys care about their fish just as much as the trout fishermen do, Bubba's or not. I've fished saltwater my whole life. Catch and release is not catching on as fast as it did in freshwater for a variety of reasons. Biggest is how rapid these in shore species can repopulate. If there is no commercial fishing content, and intelligent limits, managing population really isn't all that tough. There are more fish on the gulf coast now, particularly redfish (which incidentally is the most released fish on the gulf coast) than at any point in my life. While it looks rough to the trout guy, these fish are way more hardy and can take rougher handling. The caveat to that (pretty nice word for a bubba, eh?) is depth. Catching fish in deep water requires some special handling (deflating the swim bladder) to ensure survival of the fish. I've seen lines of dying undersized red snapper because the party boat captain did not teach his fishermen how to deflate. Stupid and sad. That said, as more people practice catch and release the trend is for more gently handling, albeit slowly. The guys on TV could help with that. Remember that most of us ate everything we caught until relatively recently. I don't necessarily expect the tournament fisherman to handle as gently as tv personality due to the competitive aspect, but the straight up tv guys could do a better job imho. It's not that difficult to handle gently, and while it isn't as much of a necessity as it is freshwater, doing it on camera would make a nice example.

Oh, there are some big bullies to go with the big cutts!

I wish I hadn't read that Slignshotz! I have been trying very, very hard to resist the nymph temptation in BC, telling myself (but never truly believing it) that it wouldn't work. So now I'll have a freakin' dilemma next time I'm there! What I have found is that if you have patience, at some point they will get on the surface action. But waiting is HARD sometimes, particularly when you see some beasts in the bottom of the pool.

I fish in SE BC quite a bit. There are a few systems with an outstanding average size, but in many ways they don't act the same as the cutts on this side, at least to me. Seem to be much less willing to come up to anything. When there is a hatch going on, the fishing can be prolific, but much of the time you are just scratching your head wondering why they don't act like cutts! I often wonder if it is because of a higher nutrient load in those rivers? A decent number of bigger fish (more biomass than one would expect), and more selective due to more food sources?

don't think we would have been so lucky Don. It was choco milk as we crossed it on 22 about an hour after the storm ended. At least I hope it would have stayed dirty as I'd hate to think I left fish on the table, to mix a metaphor.

I want one!

So for anyone reading this, seems like if you have a nice telescoping hiking or ski pole of some kind it works for a lot of people. However, this being fly fishing, you really should not use simple and practical when expensive and impractical will do the trick. Fly fishing is a highly specialized sport and only equipment specifically made for fly fishing should be considered, the more expensive and specialized the better. (do I need to add my sarcasm emoticon here?)

Went fishing with a couple of friends on Thursday (I have the greatest job!). My client (who happens to be a friend) and I got out of Calgary later than we wanted, around 10:30 and stopped at Southbow.We were supposed to go on a float trip that day but cancelled due to poor fishing, and since Mike was going to be our guide, I asked him to join us and he said he could since he apparently had the day off! So we get out of Southbow at 11:30 or so and headed south. We made it to the river and were ready to fish around 2 PM. Picked up a few fish, and things were looking good. Then the rain hit, followed by about an hour of marble sized hail. It was pretty intense, fortunately we did not get the golf ball sized stuff they got further south, or instead of being a bit painful from time to time it could have been truly dangerous. We did have some trees to hide behind, but it was still pretty unpleasant. Fortunately for me I had decided to wear my waders, neither of the other guys did. And none of us brought our rain jackets, though we all had them in the truck. The walk out was pretty cold for me, and really, really cold for the other guys! The river was obviously blown out afterwards. Too bad, it was looking like a great day. So after 1 hr of fishing, the long drive back to Calgary. We looked at every body of water we crossed to see if it was fishable, and none of them were (maybe the Sheep). Ah well, at least I have a story. Biggest hail storm I've ever been in, that's for sure!

I've spoken to a guy with extensive experience in both. If I remember correctly, he said bear spray is like .75%, Pepper spray is like 10%. Pepper spray is much, much worse.