reevesr1

Very fun to watch!

Lynn, Your comment made me feel bad. Could you, and all your friends, please tie me one dozen flies each so I feel better?

Guys, Troutlover and reellife were mean to me on our fishing trip this week. They said mean things and laughed when I fell down, which was often. I wouldn't have fallen so much if I hadn't been so sad. I didn't think they were funny and now I hate Alberta. I'm pretty sure lots and lots of flies would make me feel better and I would love it here again. Maybe a new bauer reel would make me want to stay forever. All kidding aside, you guys are awesome. First time I ever wished I tied flies, just so I could donate. Maybe I could buy her some?

I just spent the last 4 days fishing several different cuttie streams from tiny headwaters to mid sized creeks to big rivers in 3 different watersheds. The area I fished is not, nor has ever been as far as I know, over run by random campers. I've seen some quads, but almost all hunters. Some of the creeks had footprints, but those were ours from the last week. In the 4 days, we saw exactly one other fisherman. Cuttie fishing was not good (though the trip itself was fantastic). A couple of the creeks I'd fished before and they are typically very productive, one for big and one for smaller cutts. The one known for bigger fish did produce ok (maybe 40 or 50 fish between the three of us) but the size was WAY down. The second creek, where you can be fairly assured of lots of 12" class fish did not produce really at all, though we did catch a few really small fish and a few brookies. We went to a river system I had never fished before, but it had a reputation of being a good cutt fishery. We caught a few fish in the 12" class, a few smaller guys and hooked a couple of bigger fish. But it was very slow. We did not see a single fish rise all day! The only big fish we caught the whole trip was when we lucked into a big mayfly hatch. Suddenly, the river was absolutely alive with big cutts. See a rise, catch a fish for about a 1/2 hour or so. If you missed the cast, you were likely to catch another one anyway. Then the switch went back to off. We did not catch a single cutt on that section before or after the hatch, and it's not like they were not there. Other than the mayfly hatch and a bit of surface activity in a very deep pool at the end of day 1 (and if they rose, you could catch them), we only saw maybe a dozen risers the entire trip. So the moral of this story is that I think there is much more going on with the fishing in the cuttie streams than the random camping/quad dilemma. While I am not naive enough to believe that it isn't having an impact, it is not the only ,or maybe even the major, cause of the poor cuttie fishing this year. I don't know if it is weather, cooler water temperatures, more food, whatever that is making the cutties act weird, but whatever it is it is not random camping, ohv's, or angling pressure-at least in the area of bc I was fishing. Something else is at play here.

We (troutlover, reellife, and myself) just finished day 2 of our 4 day Panorama fishing adventure. Fishing has been good, and I hope I can remember everything that happened when I actually make the report in a few days. Sensory overload does not begin to cover it! 1 day fishing some water t-lover and I know, 1 day totally winging it. Have mapbook and truck, will travel. But today, I wanted to put up a couple of shots fishing some really small water ala Taco. Fish were most certainly caught, in one of them anyway........ Sorry for a the quality of the shots. I had my camera on a bad setting. And some even smaller water:

And i just love the fighting butt!

Wait a minute, this site is free? DAVE, I want my damn money back!!

Story 1: Has always had a bit of an urban legend feel to me. Very funny, but hard to see it really getting pulled off. It was attributed to a legendary engineer who pulled many, many practical jokes. I met him several years ago and asked him about this story. He said it wasn't him, that he heard it was this other engineer. So it may be true, but I have no direct proof. Story2: Totally true. It was my operator it happened to (he was the crapper), but I wasn't on the truck at the time, a buddy of mine was. He said the drilling guy was very mad and never believed they had not done it on purpose.

I'm waiting for Pete to give me a hard time about noone cleaning up the crap!!

Crappy story 2: Operator walks into the woods to do his thing. Looks behind him afterward to discover he had not fully moved his hood out of the way. These hoods snapped onto our winter coveralls (and were the envy of the oilpatch back in those days), so in much disgust he unsnaps the hood and waking back to the truck throws the offending hood into the flare pit. He tells no one what had happened as he was a bit embarrassed. Several hours later, the engineer was getting his ticket signed when the drilling engineer stated "we did not think your little joke was all the @#$@#$ funny! The engineer says "what joke?" and is told how one of the rig hands had found the hard hat cover down the slope into the flare pit and waked down to retrieve it. Picked it up and was rewarded with the contents spilling on him a bit. At least he didn't put it on his head!! That really would have been funny!

I used to work in the field for a large Oilfield Service Company. One of the company legends involves taking a crap outside of a lease. In many cases, there was no bathroom anywhere near the wellsite, which caused the occasional trip into the woods. In winter, this also included lots of snow. On day, an operator leaves the truck to go take care of business. He walks out into the snowy woods and drops his coveralls, being very careful to make sure no part of his very nice winter coveralls, or worse yet, hood are hanging behind him. He finishes his business and does what we all do, look behind him. To discover nothing. No hole in the snow, no evidence at all of what he knows should be there. He then begins to carefully check his coveralls to see if the unthinkable had happened, but no evidence of any unwanted messes. He is very unsure what to do as he knows it has to be somewhere, and he still suspects the coveralls. As he is standing there perplexed, he hears a slight snicker from behind him. He looks and standing behind a big tree is his engineer holding a long handled shovel he had stashed in his truck for such an occasion!

That was me marking my damn territory and trying to keep your sneaky ass out of it!!

Never really bothered me to tell ya the truth, the off leash part anyway. Just noticed that they put the sign up a couple of years ago and no one pays any attention to it. The poo on the ground next to the trashcan? Maybe a little! I remember being there one day and a dog jumped in right next to me. Big, young lab. Looked at the dog and laughed, then back to my suddenly missing indicator. Set and caught a nice rainbow. The lady comes up while I'm fighting the fish and apologizes. I tell her no problem, but the dog can't leave cuz it was a good luck charm!

Actually 3. That area is treated as an off leash area when in reality it isn't. My personal favorite is when the trash can would get full, people would just continue to dump the poop on the ground next to the trash can. Let those damn garbage collectors deal with it!

Very nice! Welcome aboard. BTW, nice name, though you appear taller than in the funny pages.

Gotta give Brian his props on this point. He is willing to sacrifice 5 yrs of fishing of the water in his back yard. While I personally don't think it is the right path, ya gotta respect his sacrifice. It does show immense commitment. And who knows, maybe it is the correct path. s But overall, I totally agree with your sentiment Jeffro. But it isn't just fly fishermen. Everyone is the same (including me I might add). We are always looking for the problems caused by other people while conveniently ignoring any problems caused by ourselves.

Nice job. Need to do that one day!!

Stop hijacking my thread!! Gorgeous lake! Give me a shout if you ever remember the name. If you do, I might just remember the name of mine. Maybe.

Brian, Then I would help in any way I can. Do I need to be a citizen first?? Seriously, I don't have any idea what to do here, but if I can help, I will.

Ok, that's a bit of an exaggeration. It was a 6" cuttie! ((note: no cutties actually flew into trees during either of these trips))

Depends on who you are looking for. Would I be willing to participate in a group who is trying to come up with a plan to address the issues of over-crowding in the southwest? Yes I would. Would I be interested if the goal of the group is to ban all off road and random camping (not regulate it, but ban it) as well as fishing for 5 yrs? No, I would not. Now if after studying the problem the group decided that the best answer was to ban activity for some set period of time, then fine. But if the stated goal of the group is to ban activity, then not only would I not support it, I think I would oppose it as I don't think it is the solution.

Well at least I didn't swear at any fish this time as my hookup ratio was awesome. Course the fish were littler! I did however swear very loudly on my last fall.

Without mindless and ill-informed bitching there would not be an internet. Or at least internet forums.

Agree that it would be a long conversation, and that we would unlikely change each others minds. Might get nice and drunk though.

Know what I think is funny? Who's the one not wearing waders? The Texan!! Weenie Canadians. Which actually worked out well. All I would have done was fill them up when I fell. Twice.