Harps

My wife uses it on her little laptop (just since xmas)... seems fine, and closer to the 2003 word which I like better than the new one with tabs (comfort thing). I hadn't realized tracking didn't carry over... that would be a issue.

Oh and many of those New Zealanders helped with a petition to protect steelhead on the west coast (of N. America) and a few of them came over here and picked up trash and helped with a stream clean-up.

BBT, I'll borrow $100 if you have it to spare... could you also send me a plane ticket so I can come collect it from you?? Do you have more fishing planned? Rick, you'd better watch out for mercury in that can of tuna... and they've got sharp edges!?!

Wow? You'd open a months old thread to complain that people had initiative to (try to) protect a river in New Zealand? What made you so bitter? Honestly? In your few other post about the environment here in Alberta you call our elected reps and ministers idiots, and you wonder why you're not getting anything productive back (not that I've gotten much back that was productive, nor would I argue that they don't act ignorantly about the environment... although they do have to balance there opinions and moderate their acts)? We do have alot of issues in Alberta, but we also seem to have less people getting off their butts to do anything. That's our wonderful western society. I think New Zealand(ers) have a different opinion and fit on the fringe of western society... they seem to consider quality over quantity. I have never been there but would love to go... and I have broke friends that have travelled there... you just have to be willing to give up something... how much does a computer cost? a tv? a big truck? You could go to the library, use their computers, take a bus and buy a used car and save the money to go to New Zealand in no time. The only place I've been to off the continent was Cuba last spring... and no fishing, just a honeymoon. If you really cared, you care about all places, not just the places you can drive to. If you really have an issue you'd do something. I don't know if you ever have because you've never posted anything in that regards, besides mentioning emails (kudoos for that which is much much more than most do). You've talked about the Livingstone and the Oldman and the Crow... so what do you know about what's going on? Where are they logging? What would you propose to fix it? Have you talked to the local fisheries biologists to find out that they've been dealing with this? They've looked at buffers and slopes. They've had meetings with industry and public. Have you separated rumour from fact? What are the oil companies doing? Please explain it me so we can come up with a solution. Is it bad crossings? Should we petition for clear span bridges only? Is it roads... they are a problem with all the dirt that gets washed off in rain and snowmelt. But do the O&G companies own/lease the roads? Is it cutlines? They've been recently making them squigly to disrupt sight lines, but what else can we fix? THere are obvious issues, but we have to be able to solve piles of small stuff to move forward... O&G and Logging aren't going to go away. Is it ATV use? Should we petition for an access closure? Stiff fines for off-trail use (and actual enforcement). Maybe we should be taxing ATV sales and putting that money in a restoration fund... Neeed MLA support for that one. You obviously have some issues, so please share. Educate us please, because we're all obviously rich anglers making our buck off timber and crude, while waiting for a flight south. Really, if you have some specific issues, lets bring them up on this board and see if we can work through a solution to take to the gov't.

Wow Some f'd up injuries. Its okay to look back on them, but hate for it to happen to anyone. At 10 I got a deer antler shoved 2-3 inches into my knee (under my knee cap). Stuck in a blizzard so we couldn't go to anywhere for help, but ducktape held it closed for the next few days. Was playing Indiana jones and didn't quite make a jump later that spring... landed knee first on a cut log and sliced open the underside of my other kneecap. That summer I was climbing a tree under a friend... falling stick got me in the eye. luckily the scar isn't affecting vision and I got to pretend to be a pirate for a week. Training in the reserves, got a piece of grenade scrapnel down the back of my flak jacket in Wainright. Cool scar. Got smoked on the forhead with a hammer at full swing; laid me out, but I don't remember any pain, or much else. Carring a couch at a beach when a girl jumped onto it from a lifeguard stand. A nail from the bottom drove into my collar bone. That hurt, but I was pretty numb from the booze. Partial blew an eardrum... but the bleeding stopped and they couldn't do anything. Most painfull by far: I had menegitis last fall... 8 attempts at a lumbar puncture (spinal tap) before they got it. No drugs for the first 7. Plus the headache was like nothing I can imagine... pain causing blackouts, vomiting etc. Was a wonderfull month in the hospital. Still get bad headaches on occasion. Always had a damaged brain I guess?

What!!! Somebody not talking to DFO!!! wait... What!!! Somebody doing good on a trout stream!!! I'm a touch bias, but... a good rancher will have a healthy water supply and maintain it through proper grazing management. I grew up on a ranch that believed in co-existing with the environment, not competing or subduing it. This is one of our riparian quarters (this past spring) and lately I've been disapointed at the management on some parts, but we keep cow-calves on it throughout the fall and winter. It also used to be a well used elk valley and I treed my first cougar in it as well as ran away from countless bears. Don, Hopefully the idea catches on... Diamond Willow Beef has done well with organic meats (selling in Save-on now), and I hope the watershed health is coming along as good. I'm not sure how they view access though? Even if a stream is overgrazed, it can come back with TLC (or if it is ignored). Straightened channels, berms, logged hillsides, parking lots, and poor road crossings are alot harder to recover from. As for good intentions... look at the wooden cribwalls that are failing on Dogpound Creek... they will be hard to fix without heavy equipment. Good intentions, but maybe it was just a short term bandaid?

Rob, I've sent an email. Cheers,

I wish our gov'ts took watershed health as seriously here in Canada/Alberta Glad you had a great time, Chris!!

We've (Guito, Clyde, Dr Bulltrout, myself, and Flyfishfairwx from this board) been working on a fly tying/ fishing club for Lethbridge, The Chinook Waters Fly Fishing Club. We hold fly tying nights, fish-outs and will be doing much more this next season. Guito's website will be the site for the club (http://goneflyfishin.ca/) and right now the events are posted in the forum there. Right now we get together as a club (at a local pub) and tie about twice a month.

Weedy, Great links there... There has been great "fun" with Alex Ivanovic on the sexyloops board http://www.sexyloops.co.uk/cgi-bin/theboar...l=alex+ivanovic and http://www.sexyloops.co.uk/cgi-bin/theboar...l=alex+ivanovic Fun reads if you are bored... all about whether this style of distance casting is considered fly fishing: 170 Cast http://www.sexyloops.com/movies/170/ Fun stuff when its cold outside, but it makes you wanna grab you rod and go practice casting in the snow (if there's no open water).

You could improve your casting knowledge and at the same time watch sensless amusement here: http://www.sexyloops.com/movies/

Smitty, there are good riparian restoration projects going on all over S. Alberta. I've worked with a few of the groups, and know of alot more, but they are moving forward and doing much better. There have been some real noticable benefits in the past decade. Even Callum Creek, while there are no trout in it yet, has started to grow shrubby riparian vegetation and the banks have been stabilized. It may be an excellent meadow trout stream if trout become established and there is enough constant temperature water (maybe a higher water table from upstream beaverdams). I won't name any Alberta creeks but check out what some ranchers have done in Montana with the Blackfoot legacy project. http://www.themontanalegacyproject.org/ There was a recent tour of Alberta landowners to the Blackfoot and many are thinking that it is a direction they want to take.

Spam is much better than canned tuna!!

I don't eat tuna. Period. Very unheathy fish. Most tuna fishing is horrible for the life in the ocean. (I found this that is good though)

http://www.hook.tv/

Glad you and Al had a good time!!

Dr Bulltrout: and

Saw this and thought it would be good for a New Years resolution (I know I'll never make it to the gym or fishing down to S. America...) 10 Ways to Fish Green GFF lists ten things we all can do to be more green By Steve Schweitzer From Global Flyfisher at: http://globalflyfisher.com/fishbetter/10waysgreen/ You've heard it from so many sources...live green, do green, be green, green this and green that. The green message is as much marketing hype as it is reality. For the partners at GFF, this made us think how the "green" movement affects flyfishers. It's common sense really...and the if you sit down to think about it, fly fishers have been practicing "green" since the beginning of the sport. But just to be sure, we at GFF have developed a list of ten things we all can do to be more "green" as fly fishers. Call it by any name you want, but being "green" as a flyfisher makes just good conservation sense. We feel the list below contains the most important items, but there are many other ways to be a "green"-conscious fly fisher. After reading this article, consider adding your Fish Green idea at the bottom of the article using our comment form. Your comment, along with those from the thousands of other readers that visit this site daily, will make the most comprehensive list of fly fishing conservation tips for others to read, learn and enjoy. So, on with the list... #1 Pack Out Tippet NEVER discard tippet streamside, no matter what the length. Put excess tippet and old leaders in a spare pocket, then throw it away or recycle it properly when you are home. Some streams and lakes now have monofilament line recycling cans. Or, consider leading the charge in placing recycling bins in your area. #2 Pack Out Split Shot Read this article to get ideas for alternatives to using lead in flies http://globalflyfisher.com/fishbetter/deep/ NEVER discard split shot into the water. Remove them and re-use them. Keep them tucked away in a plastic ziplock bag in your vest. When they’ve reached their useful life, discard or recycle them properly. #3 Minimize Synthetics Consider fishing flies with little or no synthetics at all. Use only materials that nature gave us. If you loose the fly, they’re designed to break down naturally. Isn’t this how fly tying began anyhow? #4 Walk Minimize the use of your personal vehicle; ride a bike to the stream, take public transportation, share a ride, walk the extra mile. Do whatever it takes to minimize the use of fossil fuels #5 Tread Lightly Respect the habitat in which trout food grows. Stream and lake bottoms all contain essential habitat and nutrients for nymphs and small bait fish. Don't walk through a cress-laiden stream to get to the other side. You just destroy the scud-laiden cress which took all season to grow. Don't trapse through a slough of a stream just to see what's going on. You destroy silt in which burrowing mayflys live. Don't walk on stream improvement structure. When you walk through a stream, if you splash, you trash...be gentle...you get the picture... #6 Reuse Bottles Re-use water bottles . Most of us carry a liquid refreshment while fly fishing. Instead of buying a bottle of water and discarding the bottle when you are finished, keep it, fill it up and use it for the next trip. Imagine if those same 10,000 people in #5 all re-used 1 water bottle for just one time; yep you guessed it…that’s 10,000 less plastic bottles sitting at the bottom of landfills. #7 Pack Out Ciggy Butts Pack out cigarette butts . Cigarette butts are the most littered item worldwide according to cigarettelitter.org. For those of you who smoke (and you shouldn’t to begin with for obvious reasons, but I digress…), carry a small baggie in your vest and put your cigarette butts in the baggie. Ciggy butts are not biodegradable. “Cigarette filters have been found in the stomachs of fish, birds, whales and other marine creatures who mistake them for food ... Composed of cellulose acetate, a form of plastic, cigarette butts can persist in the environment as long as other forms of plastic", says the Clean Virginia Waterways organization. Better yet, get your own free personal ashtray by visiting http://www.cigaretteLitter.org. #8 Clean Equipment Thoroughly clean your waders and boots. Several issues that affect our waterways are now becoming pandemics: whirling disease and New Zealand mud snail (and other aquatic nuisance species) to name a few. They are easily transported in the felt of wading boots and on the surface of waders. #9 Collect Trash Make a habit of picking up at least one piece of trash on each flyfishing adventure. Let’s put some numbers behind this concept: let’s say that just 10,000 of the hundreds of thousands of visitors to this site each year, pick up one piece of trash on each flyfishing trip. Let’s assume they fly fish 10 times a year on average. That’s 100,000 pieces of trash picked up with hardly any effort at all! Just imagine the volume of garbage we are saving from contaminating the waters we all enjoy. Now, imagine if we made a point of picking up several pieces of trash on each trip….whoa!...now we really are making visible strides. Make a habit of carrying a kitchen-size trash bag in your vest, fill it up as you see trash streamside and discard it properly when you return from your trip. It’s as easy as that. #10 Educate And what’s the most important thing you can do? Educate those around you of the nine things above (& of the list of ideas below, shared by our loyal readers). Send them the link to this article. ***And stop feeding ocean fish to pets...

Andrew, you still planning on going out??

I bought the one pair last year... red lens, excellent in low light... then I broke them and bought another as a back up... now I use the grey tint lens as the primary and red lens as an option. Your eyes are worth the best protection you can get.

This is a quick public thank you to Maui Jim! I sent in a pair of singlasses for repair with a MO to pay for shipping them back. I expected to get dinged for the repair also (my second time sending them in... gotta stop leaving them on my desk under a pile of books). They were back at my house in a week and the money order was returned with them! Very quick (even during the xmas rush) and no questions asked... Can't ask for better service for an excellent pair of shades!

Come on, come on... It's Christmas!!!

Andrew (Dr. Bulltrout) has a tying demo up on Youtube. It's one of his flies of the month on the Lethbridge local site.

I'm buzzing with curiosity (and too much coffee). Come on somebody... help him out so I can find out what he's making!!!

I'll be there, no matter what the weather is. If its too cold to fish... campfire and hot chocolate.