reevesr1

Ewwww.

It was spectacular! I was there with a guy from Colorado and a guy who used to live and ski in Calgary (he's from Sask), but has since moved to Houston. It was his first day in 5 yrs. I worked him real hard so we could stay in the powder as much as possible. By 2 pm they were done. We skied like 5 KM vertical in that time. And the last run was the funnest of them all, to give you an idea of how good the snow was hanging in. My last two days at Louise have been perfect!

No fishing. Went skiing on Saturday, it was really great. Friday was too much work.

Thanks guys!

But how can you achieve increased line speed, accuracy, and hook setting power?

Happy birthday buddy. 50 is no big deal!

Must be made by Simms.

I have a William Joseph as well. Don't know how much it cost because my wife got it for me for xmas. But I can't see her spending over $150 for a rain jacket. Anyway, I've worn it for 2 yrs and really like it.

Agreed. Catch and release allows us to catch more fish per fish killed. We delude ourselves into thinking that we are doing it for the fish. We are doing it for us. But I think of it this way. Lets say my mortality rate is 2% (and I have no idea what it truly is, just using an example). So for 100 fish I catch, 2 die. Let's say on the Bow I average 5 fish per trip. It would take me 20 trips to kill two fish. But if we still all kept our limits, in 20 trips I would have killed 20 fish, assuming I stopped as soon as I kept my one. More if I kept fishing and did catch and release afterwards. So there are benefits to the fish as well, or at least to fish populations. Which of course is better for the fisherman as well.

Good lord am I dense I cannot tell my hy'q From the true haiku

I've never thought of that. In fact, if practiced correctly, I bet that the mortality rate of "shoot and release" hunting would be even less than for catch and release fishing. Shoot your game, take a hero shot, animal recovers and walks on. PETA folk would cry "animal cruelty", but better than animal mortality. (I should interject here that I have nothing against hunting as long as you are eating what you shoot). Now if someone could only get darts to go the same distance at the same velocity as a bullet, we'd be onto something. Would be very interesting if they could. Think of what it was like 30 or whatever yrs ago when catch and release fishing first started taking off. Many people claimed that fishing would have no point. Most of us learned, however, that the keeping of the fish had nothing to do with our enjoyment, much to our amazement. I would suppose that the same would hold true for hunting. Though I don't imagine many hunters currently share that sentiment.

I don't have the faintest clue what you are talking about, except that Back in Black is an AC-DC song.

Yeah, pretty sure it is unfishable where we were by now. The ice sheet is huge, but deteriorating quickly. Fish were pretty indiscriminate in what they were eating. SJW, midge, pt's, etc.

Here are a couple from this weekend. Two gorgeous fish caught on a gorgeous day, way out on a massive ice sheet.

I fish, I golf, I bowl (I'm American, sue me.) Don't know if they are sports or activities. They are surely all fun.

Boy, a little crowded up on that perch.

But can your reel handle 7x tippet, and yet have a sealed drag system capable of stopping a small truck at 20 mph? I think not.

Holy crap was that funny. I liked the reel one better, particularly this exchange: "I think you have lost your mind" "Up your you cheap bass fisher of junk store tackle and take the clattering of you Pflueger Medalist and the ratchety cackle of you imitation Hardy's and other offshore junk and stuff them in the closet where the rest of your sorry ass cheap tackle should be gathering dust." Oh, that made my day. I think tomorrow I will dust off some of my cheap ass junk and fish for picky trout. Always remember: "Money is irrelevant when you are chasing a dream!" spend up boys.

Sounded like Steven Wright.

I subscribed to Netflix when I lived in the states. I don't know about the on line version, but their DVD selection was fantastic. I don't think the lack of selection in Canada has anything to do with number of subscribers in Canada, I think it is a rights thing (though that is total speculation). Much like on my kindle, where there is more selection for first run books in the US than there is in Canada. Could it be a Canadian content thing? Don't know. I do know that the Netflix selection is presently too weak for me to subscribe. That said, I have been a shareholder in Netflix since 2003. Made a pretty small buy that has gone up 17-20X since then. So everyone subscribe please!!

The wind warrior is touted as a lake rod, or chironomid rod. I use it for that, but also as a nymph/streamer rod on the Bow. It is 10' long, and works great as a high sticking rod. It will throw bombs, but I must admit that I don't often feel the need to blast casts out on the bow, I find it more trouble than it's worth. I have used it for dries, but it is a bit heavy for that I find. I use the 4wt topfly on the bow as a dry fly rod, but at 8 ft (I think), it is too short for a nymhing rod, imho. Not sure of the Coast Rider, but I would imagine they have some sort of an all around rod in the arsenal.

My son has a midge 3/4 with TSX reel and I have a 4 wt topfly rod and also a 5 wt Wind Warrior rod that a friend custom built for me. I have been really happy with all of them. The Wind Warrior is my go to rod on the bow or lake fishing. The Topfly was bought as a backup mountain stream rod, but I use it often and enjoy it as well. Landed a 22" brown with it on a dry this year. My son loves the midge, and the reel has given him no issues, though it has mostly been a cutty rod/reel.

Thanks for the line Jigsaw, that was the song.

My 13 (and very soon to be 14) yr old daughter and I spent the day skiing in Louise today, along with a very good buddy and his son. Thanks to the wonders of temperature inversion, the temps were right around freezing, and probably peaked at +1 or so. Couple that with a big dump of snow the last few days made for one of the best skiing days I have ever had. Add to that a full day with my daughter enjoying the wonderful snow made it even more memorable. The only downside is now all of my kids can beat me down the hill. Oh well, small price to pay. Last night I had a chance to spend an evening listening to John Wort Hannam, John Mann (Spirit of the West) and Carla Luft. You might wonder how this fits in? Well, Carla is from here in Calgary (and can she flat ass play guitar) and talked about growing up around here. John Mann was fantastic solo. Great stories and great songs. But the reason this all fits is John Wort Hannan. He is from Ft. McLeod, and sings songs about small town life in Southern Alberta. One of his songs was about what he calls his "cathedral", which is located on some land just past "Head Smashed in Buffalo Jump." It really got me thinking about how much I love the country around Ft. McLeod, all the rivers in the area, be they pristine headwaters or some of the excellent tailwater fisheries. While I was on one of the chair lifts today I was thinking about how lucky I am to live somewhere that I can enjoy the outdoors with all my kids in all seasons. Periodically, at work (I work for a very large multinational company), I am asked by expats from different countries what I think of living here. My answer is always the same "It the winters were shorter, everyone would want to live here." I've met more than a few people who did not like it here that much (though they are certainly in the small minority, we have more problems with people not wanting to leave). I am frankly amazed every time I talk to someone who doesn't like it here. I truly don't understand it, what is not to love? I know that there will be someone to tell me how great it was back in the day and how much worse it is now. I really couldn't care less. It is great here now. You guys don't know how lucky you are to be from here. They'll only drag me out of here kicking and screaming.

In a related story, All Queen's music has been banned as well. I had always thought Sting wrote the song, and Dire Straits recorded it. Guess not, Sting just sang on it, and contributed the "I want my MTV line". "The lead character in "Money for Nothing" is a guy who works in the hardware department in a television/custom kitchen/refrigerator/microwave appliance store. He's singing the song. I wrote the song when I was actually in the store. I borrowed a bit of paper and started to write the song down in the store. I wanted to use a lot of the language that the real guy actually used when I heard him, because it was more real...." quote from Mark Knopfler. Anyway, seems rather silly to ban it after all these years.