reevesr1

My 18 yr old is leaving tomorrow to go back to university. We did not get to fish together as much as either of us would like I think (I know that is true for me, I think it's true for him) because our schedules didn't mesh all that well this summer. We will do a trip in late September to put a hurtin' on some cutties. But he did get a chance to get out tonite with one of his friends. He asked me to come, but I couldn't make it. He just blew into the house a few minutes ago to take a quick shower, change clothes, and go hit the town. But he ran downstairs several times to tell me about the fish they caught and missed this afternoon/evening. I got more enjoyment out of watching the excitement on his face, and the excitement of his friend, than I would if I had been there myself. Not only did they have the excitement of the trout, but they got to do it without either of their dad's there. It was both of theirs first really big day on their own. Very cool. Now I have two more kids to work on. They are tougher.......

I always look forward to your adventures! Can't wait to hear about the fishing part. I've started to do some hike in fishing myself this year, but NOTHING like that!!

Thanks for the replies folks!

Anyone know of any place that rents pontoon boats? I did a google search, but came up empty. Which probably doesn't bode well......

Good lord buddy! To get the take of that fish on film is fantastic. Sweet vids as alway.

Actually grew up in Southern Louisiana. Same difference, people just talk different.

If anyone thinks having a boat and fishing with downriggers and depthfinders classifies you as a redneck, that means you have no idea what a redneck truly is! A redneck depth finder is a piece of string with a rock. The boat must have multiple home built attachments. Fishing is best done with trot-lines or dynamite. Occupants never wear shirts. Or if they do, they wear wife beaters or a white T with a pack of smokes rolled up. Dave isn't even sniffing true redneckness with that boat. That thing is a yacht where I come from!

Yeah, but I must confess I was leaving brand new water for tried and true water. The truth is I had originally planned the day that way, but I still wish I had stayed and fished the headwaters more. But that's fishing. Sometimes the decisions work, sometimes they don't. And for all I know, the afternoon could have shut down where I was as well. Whatever the case, it was a great day. Even if I lost my camera! By the way, anyone find a Canon D10 on say the White River FSR area, it will likely be mine.

Yeah, my problem now is narrowing our trip down!

Here are a few shots: Nice alpine lake cutty: First view of the lake after a 3 hr hike gaining 600m, with 1000m total climbing: The motley crew after the hike was over:

This post was supposed to be of the photo variety, but my camera is either at the bottom of the second river talked about below or sitting very near where my truck was parked. Whatever the case, it did not make the trip home, much to my disappointment. I'm currently staying at my place in Panorama. On Tuesday, the wife gave me an all day pass. There are a couple of rivers in the area I've wanted to try for awhile, so I decided that I would do one of those. Which was happily in the general area of one of my favorite stretches of another East Kootenay river system. So after $40 to the BC government, I packed up a the fly rods, food, water, and GPS and headed out of the house at 6 am for the 2-2.5 hour drive. There were just a few clouds in the sky, enough to make the sunrise over the mountains to my west pretty spectacular. The temperature was around 12 degrees, with a projected high of 25. So I was not going to be able to blame weather on these cutty streams! On the way, I had to drive by a couple of different FSR's that all have great water on them. I honestly had fleeting thoughts of turning down each of them, but resisted the temptation and continued to the goal. The river I chose to fish was the headwaters of a very popular (further down) river. I got my first glance of it at just after 8. Very tiny, but some nice looking holding water. I continued down the FSR (and BC sure does have a LOT of them!), passing some active logging on the way. I finally hit the spot I had picked out on the GPS and Google Earth at 9 or so. Rigged up a dry fly and bullie rods, and started the short hike to the river. I was immediately greeted with a nice corner pool. 2nd cast misses a fish, and I miss him a couple more times. After 3 or 4 swings and misses, I finally hook up on a feisty little 10" cutty. He looks like what you would expect a west coast cut to look like. Less spots and a little more blue than the fish in Southern Alberta I think. Anyway, I landed one or two more from the pool. All the fish were in the back of the pool. Nothing in the head and nothing in the fast water. A theme that continued all day. This pattern continued for the next few hours. Hit a pool, catch 6 to 12" fish in the back of pools, then walk a LONG ways to the next pool. It was a gorgeous river, easy to wade and fairly easy to walk in the forest. At around 1 PM I had probably landed around a dozen fish, and had a really nice morning. But I knew that about one hour from where I stood were some fish in a bit of a different class. And since all the fish in this river seemed to be in the slow pools, I knew just the spot to fish. So I made what may be one of the biggest fishing mistakes in my life. I left a pristine river system with lots of willing fish for the promise of bigger fish. Getting out of the river did have it's moments. I hiked up the hill to the road for the 1.5 km walk back to the truck. Did I mention the active logging? 2 trucks passed me while I was walking and I was pretty much covered in road dust. Nice. And I had to pass 3 or 4 of them on the drive out, which certainly slowed me down. But at 2:30 I was at my spot geared back up and walking to the river. It looked just as I had hoped. Summer time levels, crystal clear, and aching to be fished. More footprints than I remembered from last year, but not enough to be concerned. The first couple of pools yielded nothing. And more alarmingly, not a single rise. As I turned the first corner, I saw another angler coming down. I was fully resigned to the fact that I might have to bomb further up river to get fresh water, but after speaking to him, I realized that we were working in opposite directions and were having exactly the same luck I was. One of the group members had contacted me when I put up my post looking for partners, but we never fully got it together. I did know they were in the area, so was not that surprised to find them there. I must say I was hoping they would be on another stretch! But in the end, it made no difference. Guys, hope you got those bullies, and I hope Wednesday fished off the charts! I walked up 5 or 6 pools to get past where they had started. On this river, that takes about 10 minutes as it is essentially one pool immediately after another. After 4 or 5 unsuccessful pools, including one where BBT, Uberfly and I pulled 20 fish out of last year, I resigned myself to the awful, ironic truth. I had left fish to find fish, and was paying the price. I did miss and then land one 16" fish on the way back, so at least I avoided the skunk. Not a single rise the whole day. Which I still find utterly shocking. Other than loosing the camera and the logging trucks, it was a fantastic experience. I loved hitting water I knew nothing about really, other than looking at it on a map. I will confess that I know it fishes well downstream, but I have never spoken to anyone who has fished it as far up as I was. I'll be back, next time to stay for the day. That would be the end of the story, but when I got back to the condo, my wife said she wanted to hike. So the next day my wife, 2 of my kids and my niece hiked up to Lake Diana. I normally wouldn't out a high alpine lake, but since this one takes an hour to reach the trailhead followed by a strenuous 2.5 to 3 hour hike in, I'm not too worried about pressure. The hike is unreal (I might post pictures later off the IPhone) and the lake is full of the most perfect cutties I have ever seen. Unfortunately, the two 14 year old girls were ready to hike down and soon as we arrived, so I only got to fish for maybe 30 minutes. I landed 3 little guys, biggest like 12 or 13". We did see one big (and I do mean big) cruiser before the rod was rigged up, but never saw him again after. The big fish were rising from 50 yards out to the middle of the lake. Next time, I'm coming with a belly boat or small pontoon (I'm getting a bit addicted to this hike in stuff. I might have to outfit myself this winter). You could even bring waders and wade out on the rock shelf that extends 20 yards or so into the lake. I tried to wade it barefoot, but could only stand it for 5 minutes. Very, very cold. I should have known by looking at the 10 foot ice shelf on the north side of the lake! I hope to get one more day of fishing in, but I must say that it looks highly unlikely. Seems that pool time with the wife is in my immediate future. But whatever the case, I had a blast. And my wife is open to hiking into fishing lakes on our hikes to let me fish for a bit while she relaxes and sucks in the views. So looks like I might have to fish some high alpine lakes the next few years. Pity.

I was at Cabela's in Edmonton. Same price tag guy works there!

That is so cool! I plan to hit two rivers totally unknown to me next week. Hope some of my fish look like that!

Damn, that sucks Din. We have a lock up in the parking garage. With the disc brakes, I find taking off the tire a pain in the ass.

Awesome guys. And thanks for the support of the auction!

Yeah, there were a couple of BIG jet boats on the water Sunday as well!

I called Korkers about this a month ago. They said send in the boot and they will repair under the lifetime warranty. But I haven't had a chance to do it yet. I luckily have an extra pair of boots I can use.

Well, the lower bow could be becoming just that. There must have been 100 people at Mac's on Sunday afternoon at 5 PM. Never seen anything like it. Some rafts, lots of canoes.

It's more fun to say "treble hook". And absolves us from any possible responsibility. No telling what this is from. Not like a treble hook has any more growth causing properties than any other hook.

Nice job osprey! Hope they aren't in the area you and I fished.....have yet to see bait cans there, but only a matter of time I guess.

Wish I could have joined you on the creek buddy. You could have paid me back for that schoolin' on the Bow! Truly sorry about your loss.

Here is what I have never understood about fish in plunge pools: If fish are intercepting stuff that falls into the pool, then why the need to get down so fast? The real stuff falling into the pool isn't lead weighted to drop like the proverbial stone! I know that heavily weighting works, but I've never understood exactly why if the fish are truly in an active ambush mode. I think mostly the fish on bottom are somewhat inactive and just reacting to the easy meal that just plunged in front of their face. Sort of a "I don't know how you got down here so fast, but what the hell, free food."

I know quite a few people on here like to hike. I had the pleasure of hiking up to Lake of the Hanging Glacier with several members of my family last week. The weather was not the best, a little cool and rainy on and off, but that likely made the actual hike easier. Bright sunshine would have upped the sweat factor considerably. The hike is spectacular, particularly if you like flowing water. Really, really fast flowing water! It is about 7.5 - 8km to the lake, with probably 4 km of that being alongside a very rapidly plunging creek. Essentially 4 km of waterfall. The lake is the headwater of the creek. The lake itself is what you expect a glacial lake to be, blue and gorgeous. If anyone is staying in the Invermere area, I can't recommend this enough. You do gain 700m, with 1000m of total climbing during the hike. It is never really steep, but it is relentless. The road in was really good, except for a couple of downed trees, which we were able to move, and some sections near the top where run off has crossed the road. We got to the trailhead easily with a ridgeline, and got within 1 KM of the trailhead with a Chrysler minivan (much to the dismay of my wife). There are a ridiculous number of pictures of the hike here. I'm pretty sure they are public. Facebook pics

Passed through 1000 km's this week. Sure would be nice if I got to ride down wind every so often. I go north in the morning and south in the afternoon. Seems like the wind is in my face both directions every day. Oh well, makes for a better workout!

I know a guy (who is probably reading this!) who went to NZ a couple of years ago. He was fishing a popular river, and there were several people fishing a slow deep section. Not seeing any room to fish, he noticed a fast riffle section that nobody was fishing. Walked up there and proceeded to catch some nice rainbows! Not saying he could have done that in Australia, but it is telling that nobody was fishing the fast water in NZ even though there were obviously fish there. My bet is techniques you will learn here will serve you well when you get back home. And I also strongly suspect the converse is true. You probably have techniques you learned in Australia that nobody here practices. Don't be afraid to try them here. A trout is a trout. If it worked on trout in Australia, it will likely work on them here too!