reevesr1

At that age, in my opinion, it is far better to use whatever method is easiest and catches fish. Don't complicate things at this age. If it's too complicated, or worse yet not effective, most kids will get bored and quit. I know there are exceptions to this, but it is true in most cases. Get them hooked on fishing first, then worry about methodology.

Nice, buddy!

I'm in the very early planning stages for a trip next year! Turns out one of my colleagues here is from Mongolia and she has family who does some outfitting.

Stingrays. Blech. I've caught a few, they are like the opposite of sharks. Instead of explosive runs you get slow unstoppable power. And when they wear out (which takes too damn long), they like to form a suction cup on sandy bottoms. Think sore arms. Then when you finally see them, they are way smaller than you thought they would be and you feel like a wimp. We would fish for them with crabs, and we always kept some of the crabs alive so that when the rays do their suction cup thing you can take the crab pinchers and tape then around the line and drop the crab down the line. The crab lands on the ray, starts crawling around driving the ray crazy and it gets up off the bottom. I swear. Also the damn things get into prime wading water in the spring time to spawn making us shuffle step when we wade. And when you hit one, it scares the absolute CRAP out of you. I also know several people who've been hit with a ray barb. Lots of swelling, puking, and hospital time when that happens. Stupid Stingrays. I'll still fish for them though, what the hell.

This is a video of fishing for spinner sharks in Florida. It is really a product endorsement for the 1 pc Hardy Zenith 8 wt, but I put it up here for the shark fishing. I have fished for Spinner Sharks several times in my life. Almost always with gear that was a bit under powered for the task, fishing off the beach. Some of the most fun I've ever had fishing is watching 75lb spinners jump 6 ft out of the water and making that first screaming panic run. I had not heard of people fishing for them with flies (we fished for them with bloody cut up fish and had no idea they were susceptible to any time of non-natural bait), but after watching this, I have a new thing to try out. 6 foot spinners on a fly rod? Get the !@#$ out!!

So paul, are you saying that the Bow is not only for Fly Fishermen, and that we should be willing to share with peoples who's vision of how to enjoy a river is not necessarily the same as our own? That's a shocking opinion. Wish more people had it. I just looked at the poll and 50% of the voters to date (albeit a very small sample size so far) are for banning jet boats. I find that almost depressing to tell you the truth. As if the river is our sole domain, and no one else can enter . Not jet boats, or partying rafters, or dogs, or kids splashing in the water, or spin fishermen, or whoever else we can think of. Unless of course they stay 100s of yards away from us in our single minded quest to have it all to ourselves, all the time. A friend of mine in the industry once said to me "I love fly fishing, but I hate fly fishermen." Sometimes, I do too.

Wow.

I've been everywhere financially from broke to being pretty well off. I'm certainly not rich by the standards of the society I live in, but I'm in no way hurting either. I have found my satisfaction/happiness in life has very little to do with my financial situation. I'm currently really happy in my job. I have been offered higher paying jobs in other companies, and must admit I've been tempted. But while the grass may be greener on the other side, it's pretty damn green where I am right now and I figure why risk it because the extra money wouldn't make me any happier anyway. So on the surface, I would say that you should think hard about how happy you are now and is the job you don't seem to want worth it. The big kicker in this for you is the debt. Only you will be able to answer if you are willing to accept giving the bank the extra money to make up for getting over your head a bit. There is no "right" decision in this, just a matter of weighing options and going with whatever you think is best. But when you decide, don't look back. You will never know how things would have turned out had you made the other decision and it does no good at all to look back and say "I wish..... Finally, if you do decide to go up north, you are really going to watch your spending habits. The fact that the last time you had some disposable income and over disposed it (I should patent that line, I like it) means you may be prone to doing it again. Be very, very diligent in putting away as much as you can afford and do not make ANY big purchases until the debt is gone. I've also found that we tend to adjust our spending habits to the money we make pretty quickly on the way up. You would have to work hard to avoid that trap. Good luck man. Tough decision. And to the coming comment about how long winded I am (I'm talking to you Taco), sorry. That was as concise as I could make it.

Unless we don't really need those opposable thumbs. Nice fish!

I have a Garmin 60 CSx. It's been around for a while now, so I'm sure there is a newer version. Absolutely does NOT need an external antenna. I've never had it not be able to get a signal, and I've had it in some pretty deep bush, canyon sections, etc.

Succinct as always Taco. Looking for tranquility? Fish with Taco. Not me.

I don't own a jet boat, and likely never will. I have fished in one, and it's owner was certainly not an ***hat (though he catches way too many damn fish). We fished very late in the afternoon into the evening below Police both times I've been on one Never even saw another drift boat. There are a few things that always stick out to me in these sort of threads-the idea that some outside influence ruins your fishing. So much of it comes from our natural inclination to blame ANYTHING we can for the fishing sucking at any particular moment. If I'm catching fish every so often, a jet boat comes by (or a drift boat, or another fisherman gets too close, or whatever) and the fishing slows down, I have a ready made target to blame for the change. I wish I could come up with a reason for the 1000s of other times the fishing shut down without somebody coming in and screwing it up for me. Or had an explanation for the times the fishing sucked, one of the outside influences raised their ugly head, and the fishing picked up. I think we assign way, way too much blame on these distractions. We want to find reasons for things, but in many cases our reasons are absolute and total bs. The other is this seeming need for "tranquility".If you are fishing the Bow expecting tranquility, in far too many cases you are setting yourself up for disappointment. I find it pretty hard to sympathize with someone who gets pissed about the ruckus on a river that runs through a city with a million people in it. Frankly, I'm just glad the damn thing has fish in it! If you are looking for tranquility when you fish, go to the mountains. If you are fortunate enough to find tranquility on a fishing day, relish it. But don't get all pissy when you can't find it or you are going to spend a lot of days all pissy. And that's no good for anyone. It wouldn't break my heart if they eliminated Jet Boats from the Bow. But I can't in good conscience call for them to be banned. Lots of people have spent lots of money on these things, with them being perfectly legal. Doesn't seem fair if they were to suddenly be eliminated from the river they were bought for. Now if everyone would follow Dave's rules, all would be great. But not everyone will. Whatever the case, don't let it ruin your day!

Depends on the donation. If it is a personal donation, then yes. If it is a business donating a rod, or a trip, they can get a tax receipt to the value of the gear/trip/whatever.

Hello Everyone, I am postponing the Project Healing Waters auction. We are waiting until they get their tax status set up so that people donating equipment can get a tax receipt for it. Once everything is set up, I'll let everyone know and we'll kick it off. Thank you to the many people who signed up to assist with this. I'll be contacting you all again once we are ready to roll.

Nice!

WE didn't. But we are hopefully going back in Feb with the kids, so will put it on the list!

During all this, I was getting a little action as well. Here I'm casing to some bonita on surface with some spin gear. Anyone who doesn't think this is fun either hasn't done it before or does it wrong. Total blast. Run up on a bunch of fish going nuts on surface, cast into them while trying not to get tossed in the water, and then reel like mad and if they hit, hang on! But as fun as that was, it wasn't what I was looking forward to. And while what I really wanted to do was land a fish while casting, the conditions just were not favorable. But I was determined to at least fight some fish on the fly rod, so tied a big streamer on and trolled. I don't think Elias thought it was the best idea, but he went with it. Didn't take long for this to happen: We trolled by letting out all of the fly line. And we were trolling pretty fast, so when the fish hit you loose a bunch of line pretty quick. Takes me a few minutes to get the fish back by the boat, and when I do, he decides he didn't like it there and did a big run straight down: Elias reaction: (wasn't long after this he asked "how much is fly rod??" After quite the tug of war, Elias is wondering when, or if, the battle will ever end: But finally, it does! My biggest fish to date in salt with a fly rod. A bonita. If you've ever caught them, you know that pound for pound not much out there fights harder. Essentially a little tuna. I also got a few smaller jacks and lost a couple other nice fish (will not pinch the barbs next time. Elias's wife would kill him if he didn't bring the fish home!) We did go the next day, but with the big waves and with a second bout of stomach issues (thankfully nowhere near as bad as the first), we cut the day short after a couple of hours. Good deal for Elias as he got the fly rod and reel as payment, and the "tip" was a fly box full of the flies from Faceles and some assorted saltwater flies I had. I did hook another pretty big fish, felt similar to the bonita, but with a bigger first run. I had to tighten the drag when I was down to less than half my backing. Got the fish back to the boat, and it does what they always do, make a panic run once they see the boat. But I had neglected to loosen the drag back off, and the results were pretty predictable. As was the long string of swear words that followed. I also tried some beach casting when I was there one morning. Again, the waves made things pretty difficult. I did manage to hook 4 fish. One bit me off (think it was a mackerel), and I just flat lost the other three. One was for sure a needle fish and I'm not sure of the other two. I hope to make it back down there next Feb with my family when the ocean is supposed to be like a lake as opposed to April when it isn't like a lake at all! If anyone is looking for a place to go, I can't recommend Huatulco enough. I also have Elias's contact info. I have absolutely no idea how he compares to other guides, but he has a panga with a big casting bow and does have a cover with 4 seats under the cover. Like most of the Panga's, he had a 60 horse yammy. Really, the boats are pretty slow, they use smaller engines to conserve the gas. He supplied breakfast taco's, water, beer, etc. Super nice and funny guy. I know for sure I was supporting a local guy, which was important to me. Next time I meet him, he will be a fly fishing expert!!

More random shots: Our tour guide: Some small Bonita (I think) on a feeding frenzy, seen from our party boat on a snorkeling (but mostly drinking) trip: Tortuga! My wife, on the right, leading "YMCA" off the bow of the party boat. After many drinks! Now for some fishing: My wife and I spent about 5 hours on the water one morning. Our guide, as mentioned before was one of the fishing vendors on the beach outside of our resort. Like most of the guys around the area, they were subsistence fisherman before the resorts showed up. He seemed like a personable guy, so we signed up. We were supposed to fish on Sunday morning, but I had some stomach issues Saturday night, Sunday morning that made fishing is 6 foot swells sound like a bad idea, so we rescheduled for Monday. Monday morning we head out to try some casing around rocks. Unfortunately, it was even rougher Monday than it had been on Sunday making casting pretty damn tricky, and basically impossible with the fly rod. So we started trolling while keeping a lookout for surface feeding fish to cast to. We did get a couple on rod and reel via the casting method, but nothing with the fly rod. I couldn't seem to strip fast enough. When the fish were in the feeding frenzy mode, you really had to rip your offering through the water, and I just couldn't seem to get it going with the fly rod. Part of the problem was definitely the size of the swells. Tough to get a good long cast, and tough to strip fast when you are fighting your balance and the waves themselves. So mostly we trolled with two rapalas and my fly rod. My wife was handling one of the regular rods, and I was on the other and the fly rod. And while the fly rod held it's own in numbers, I must say my wife kicked my ass in species and size as the following pictures will show: Jackie's first ever saltwater fish fully on her own, a small jack; And hooked up on fish number two: Right after she hooked this fish, it makes a blistering run, then starts jumping and jumping. The guide yells "MAHI MAHI, MAHI MAHI!!!" Pretty unusual to get one of these so close to shore. Super cool! Not quite satisfied, she closes with a really nice Mackerel:

My wife and I just returned from a one week all inclusive in Huatulco, Mexico. It was a fabulous trip. We stayed at the Barcelo resort. The place thrives on Canadians, and will tolerate the odd American or two. Also, they are getting very near the end of the "Canadian" season, so the resort was around 60%+ Mexican families, which was really cool as well. Friendly staff, very clean older resort. Can't recommend it more. Here are some random shots, including the one day of fishing we did. One thing I did learn is that they have to pay LOTS of money for fishing gear. A Rapala lure that would be $10 here in Canada will be $20 there. Same thing with gear. When my wife and I were fishing, we were mostly trolling because the casting was very difficult in the pretty rough seas. So we did mostly troll with 2 rapalas and with my fly rod. The streamers I used (given to me by Darcy over at Faceless Fly fishing. Thanks guys, they worked great!!) performed really well. After I had landed a couple of fish, the guide (we fished off a panga owned by a guy who was soliciting on the beach) asked "how much is the fly rod?" It's an old 8 wt TFO and I estimated it at $250. He asked about the reel which was probably $80 (and I explained it was not a saltwater reel). He says "trade one more fishing day for rod and reel?" I say, what the hell! So we went a second day, and created a new fly fisherman! Next time I go I'll be armed with an extra fly rod I'll pick up on eBay or FFC, and a bunch of flies and rapalas to give to the guys and trade for trips! Not sure if this strategy will work in high season, but worst case is I have stuff to give to guys who could certainly use the gear. I might even try to get donations. The guides there seem to be pretty hand to mouth. But the one's I met sure seemed to be great guys. Anyway, here are some shots and some fishing stories...... View from our hotel room: Some random vacation stuff: More to follow later this evening......

I was more than happy with them before I lost the stupid things! I have a non prescription pair now. The prescriptions were the grey lens. I currently have a pair of MJ sports with the HCL Bronze. I think I like the bronze a bit better. I got the prescription ones done in the +15 Downtown. Can't think of the name of the place, its around the stock exchange.

Hope you guys are smoking them. The fish I mean. Happy Belated Clive!

Hey Guys, if anything happens to the logistics on this, my son is down from University and will be heading back up to Edmonton on Monday I think. I'm sure you have it all figured out, but if not.......

First off, I must admit to not reading all of this. It got a little detailed for me, and I'm not eligible to vote any way (because I'm too much of a lazy arse to go get my citizenship). I will say I don't like it when people say they are making a protest vote. Unless you really, really don't see any difference in the choices, a protest vote has never made sense to me. I was fortunate to be able to go to lunch last week with a client of mine who is from Romania, and lived there until about 10 years ago. We talked politics quite a bit, namely the difference between politics here and what she grew up with. After talking to her, I became more aware of how little the politics here really matter. I mean really, there is just not that much difference from one party to the next. My job is going to stay the same, my taxes won't change much, no matter who is in power, my life is going to remain pretty damn good. But in Romania when my friend was a kid (and there are still lots of examples of this today), politics MATTERED. Like food in the stores mattered. Like machine guns in the street mattered. Like life and death mattered. There, one person in charge could make literally all the difference. Here? Well, it matters, but the system runs itself in a lot of ways. We aren't in danger of electing a dictatorial party (though my friend harps might think that Harper/Federal PCs are dictators!). In a lot of ways, the system runs itself. I really don't have a point here. JIts just that lately I've seen a lot of very mean political discussions on stuff that does not seem to matter all that much (though this thread isn't an example of that-the disagreements have been debated with respect). But this thread made me think about my Romanian friend and I felt like spewing pointless rambling. I'll probably delete it later. (Note: Nothing here is directed at any particular poster above!!)

Awesome Ryan!

It's worthwhile, but I wouldn't say more worthwhile, unless you are fishing during a full moon. Full moons can really change daylight fishing. Fish can and do feed hard at night on full moons, which can make the mornings fish pretty tough. Tends to get better later in the evening. When I'm planning a trip specifically for fishing, I avoid full moons and look for days with significant tide movement. On the gulf coast the tides are nothing like the tides further north. I look for 4 tide days to assure I get movement for most of the day. But I'm talking pretty specifically about flats/inshore fishing on the gulf coast. I assume it's the same in a lot of places, but my knowledge base is pretty location specific as I haven't fished salt water in many other places.