TimD

Thanks everyone, found a place that has 3 different boats. Tim

Some buddies and I would like to float the Bow for an overnight trip this August and were wondering if we could rent a drift boat - or two. Does anyone know of a rental shop/outfit? Thank you in advance, Tim

It would be hard for someone to spend 800 on a rod and not say it is a great rod - possibly the best ever. Every new series of rods is lighter, faster and more accurate than any rod they have made before and I would not be surprised if it is more marketing and cosmetics than actual performance. I would love to see some sort of blind test between the XP and the Z-Axis - and maybe even the SP or the RPLXI+. I am happy with my fishing equipment and I catch a lot of fish - the less I spend on equipment the more time and money I have to go fishing. Cheers, Tim

I would like to help out but I have joined the "Freedom 46" group. In the past 3 years I have about maybe 6 flies some tippet, strike indicators and a few containers of fly floatant. Other than that, my only trips to shops have been for replacing tying materials (mostly hooks) - oh and a license once a year. The nice thing about fly fishing is that one does not need a lot of gear to enjoy it. Bass Pro shop - no comprende Cheers, Tim

Thanks Weedy, Cool video, kind of makes me wonder why we fish them so still. See you on the first. Cheers, Tim

Don, Thanks for your work on this. I don't think the government really understood the scope of the problem when we brought it up at the roundtable about 6 years ago. The perch get in there by someone actually stocking the lake or by people using live minnows to fish for trout. I think that the proposed fine and recovering the cost of rehabilitation from perpetrators will go a long way towards getting people to think twice. The next thing would be some type of information campaign to get people to understand how why they should not stock and why they should not use live minnows. I know it seems like a no-brainer and that people should know better - but . . . . Regards, Tim

I agree with SilverDoctor, I like how they hook and hold. I mostly use them for pike - something where I need a big fly with a hook at the back of the fly - instead of the middle or front. Regards, Tim

Is that a vid of the landslide at the Sultan River in Washington State? Regards, Tim

Don, I would agree with Swan that it's distance from major population centers keeps people, except for the RMH and the ETFC posses, from the lake. Most of the people that seem to fish it when I am there put the fish back in and that it is pretty hard to fish over the summer. I have also hear that it gets hammered by the fish-keeping types all winter. I have never really seen Dolberg without a lot of anglers, most of the anglers are fish keepers and it is pretty busy in the winter - it has been this way for years. I found that my catch rates haven't changed and have been pretty happy with average size out of Dolberg. If I were to compare these two lakes with Muir, I would say that they are just as busy on the weekends and Dolberg may even be busier. I wold also say that they both produce better than Muir. Muir's original management objective was for high catch rates with a larger than average fish, when compared to a typical put and take fishery. When we cut the stocking to 2000 from 5000, the catch rates dropped and a number of anglers moved on to other lakes that were less challenging to fish. I was concerned about this trend and pushed to get the stocking rates up again. We will see what happens in the future, but I feel that just focusing on size of fish instead a combination of size and catch rate will limit the positive impact of delayed-harvest fisheries. Best regards, Tim

Hi Don, What is your take on how lakes like Dolberg and Swan, which consistently produce fish over 20" in an environment where stocking rates are like 20,000 fish per year, people are allowed to keep 5 fish and use bait. Muir had a stocking of 5000 fish this year, as opposed to 200 for the two previous years, and there was not a noticeable affect on growth rates but catch rates stabilized. Regards, Tim

I know what you mean, fly rods are basically consumables. Switch to the backup and invoke the warranty - I don't bond with the equipment, I just use it. Regards, Tim

Pseudonym, I am not sure which studies you have cited. The one about hooking mortality on the Bow also cites studies on fighting fish to exhaustion, exposure to air and water temperature as being detrimental to fish survival. I think one would be hard pressed to find a study that says they are not a factor in hooking mortality. I am sorry if you feel condemned, I don't think that was anyone's intention. The idea of these forums is to openly discuss things that affect fish and fishing; so people can have a full range of information when making a decision. It seems pretty clear to me that it would be wise to get fish in fresh, take a picture of it in the water and try to do so when the water is not too warm. It hasn't hurt my fishing. Best regards, Tim

Pseudonym, Here are a couple of abstracts, I would not dispute that handling of fish is important, and I am sure that you would agree that other factors are important as well. These abstracts point out that getting fish in fresh and keeping from exposure to air are important - feel free to cite your own studies that show them up. I handle fish properly, try to keep them in the water, and land them fast because I want to reduce angling mortality as much as I can. Regards, Tim Ferguson and Tufts 1992 -Abstract: Rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) which were air exposed for 60 s after exhaustive exercise initially had a much larger extracellular acidosis than trout which were only exercised. In both groups, however, plasma pH returned to normal by 4 h. Blood lactate concentrations were also greater in the air-exposed fish and continued to increase throughout the experiment. During air exposure, there was retention of carbon dioxide in the blood, and oxygen tension (Po2) and hemoglobin:oxygen carriage (Hb:O2) both fell by over 80%. After 30 min of recovery, however, blood gases resembled those in fish which were only exercised. Finally, survival after 12 h was 10% in control fish and 88% in the exercised fish but fell to 62 and 28% in fish which were air exposed for 30 and 60 s, respectively, after exercise. These results indicate that the brief period of air exposure which occurs in many "catch and release" fisheries is a significant additional stress which may ultimately influence whether a released fish survives. Meka and McCormick 2005 - Rapid capture fish were significantly smaller than extended capture fish, reflecting that fish size influenced landing and handling times. Fish size was related to cortisol and lactate in 2002, which corresponded to the year when larger fish were captured and there were longer landing times. Body condition (i.e., weight/length regression residuals index), was significantly related to lactate in 2000 and 2001. Water temperatures were higher in 2001 (mean temperature ± S.E., 13 ± 2 °C) than in 2002 (10 ± 2 °C), and fish captured in 2001 had significantly higher cortisol and lactate concentrations than fish captured in 2002. The pattern of increase in plasma cortisol and lactate was due to the amount of time fish were angled, and the upper limit of the response was due to water temperature. The results of this study indicate the importance of minimizing the duration of angling in order to reduce the sublethal physiological disturbances in wild fish subjected to catch-and-release angling, particularly during warmer water temperatures. It is also important to note that factors such as fish size may influence both the duration of angling and subsequent physiological response.

I hear you, We are just putting them back anyway. I have heard of anglers 'lovingly' resuscitating fish for __ minutes after an 'epic' battle. My goal is to get them in fresh enough so they can swim away at whatever speed they want. I was up at Swan Lake last year and it was amazing how fast a 20" fish can be landed when one puts their mind to it. It was all about checking runs by getting the fish to turn a bit early then really leaning into them to turn them around. I used the same technique to stop them from burying as well - keeping their heads up stops them from building up any momentum. The only fish that I consistently lost were the ones that I reacted too slowly to check their first run and they got up too much momentum to turn them. They ended up taking me out to the backing and I ended up losing them in the weeds. Regards, Tim

Hydropsyche, Yes I agree about the tippet, the lightest I go is 4x and I use a lot of 3x. I don't think the fish are as leader shy as the magazines make them out to be, any shyness issues can usually be taken care of with presentation. I try to challenge myself by getting fish in faster and try to find better ways to bring them in. I have read that the more exhausted a fish is, the lower its survival rate. The side benefit to heavier tippet is having to tie less flies, although I now have to re-tie some flies because they get chewed up. Cheers, Tim

Brother Brent, All things being equal, it is about backbone. Jim is a good guy who plays a mean guitar and flyrod. Tim

Yep, the number on the rod is about the line it casts. The higher the number the more backbone the rod is supposed to have, maybe your 3wt is under-rated or perhaps you have a weenie 6wt. I have seen rods rated as a fast 4 wt when they were actually a medium 6. It is all relative brother. Higher weighted rods are designed for bigger fish. How would your 3wt deal with steelhead? For me, dealing with the wind has more about casting technique than rod wt. I am not that worried about rod weight with presentation, I have caught spooky fish with all different weights of rods. Regards, Tim

I like to land fish fast so I use an 8 wt for streamers and bobber fishing and a 6 for dries. I have been known to go down to a 5 wt for Stauffer and the Crow. Regards, Tim

I have been using polarized prescription sunglasses for years. I broke my old pair last summer and went to replace them. They wanted $284 for the lenses at the local places around here. I ended up buying a pair of Wayfarer frames from the US on ebay and then sending them to a place in New York state that was charging $84 for lenses. The total cost for the Wayfarer flex frames with prescription polarized lenses was about $200 including shipping. Check on the internet, there are lots of places that you can get good stuff without paying through the nose. Regards, Tim

Don, The beaver ponds restriction is to give fish a break when over-wintering in the deeper water that the ponds afford. Much the same thing as preventing fishing at fish ladders, it prevents anglers from targeting 'trapped' fish. Like I said before, in our situation at Muir the local fisheries person did not feel he could ban ice fishing because it is a legal way to fish, the best alternative would be to do it by date. We agreed with the date concept because it would work for most years. From what I hear Bullshead is not aerated so any aeration-safety based argument would not necessarily be applicable. People ice fishing with artificial lures are fishing legally in waters like Muir and Bullshead, if there is a poaching problem then the solution is either education or enforcement. The people that fish Muir have been doing a good job of keeping an eye out for poachers and teaching people how to fish legally. Regards, Tim

Yes, that is the case. The lake opens on April 1 under its current regulations, ice or not. We ran into the same thing at Muir and decided on a May 1 opening; that way we figured there will only be an icy opening once in a while. I do pretty good with flies when I ice fish - probably as good as or better than using bait. The winter closure at Muir is there to give the fish a bit of a break from anglers, keep people from going through the ice (our aeration system can make the ice pretty sketchy) and because it is hard to enforce the no-bait restrictions on ice fishers. Regards, Tim

You might start seeing ice fishers on it when the lake opens April 1. Regards, Tim

I would check with the people at Westwinds flyshop in Calgary. I think they run trips out there in the winter. Let me know how it goes, I was thinking of the west end of Cuba or somewhere in Belize next winter. Tim

I fished it with a friend from Calgary last August. We had to each pay $20 for the day and I had to spend a little more on a BC single-day license. It was alright. We went up the canyon and then down on the flats downstream of where the Lodgepole joins. It was a weekday and there were a bunch of people fishing there. There were lots of big bulls laying in the bottom of pools, I wasn't really into fishing for them but they were cool to watch. There are a fair number of Cutts working along with some whitefish. The Cutt fishing was ok, I think I got about 10 and probably would have got more if the sun was shining. I am glad I went, the canyon is gorgeous and the water is very clear. If you aren't into the bulls, the fishing is about the same as the Cutts we have in Alberta. I will probably go back some day but I am not sure when. Cheers, Tim

Hey Don, The main reason I brought up (1) is that it is important to get a feel for the rod as it moves without load and then how it feels different when it is loaded. The idea would to develop feel for loading and unloading. There would be other ways like listening to the rod/line, watching how the line casts (rolls out) and seeing how the line lands. I can feel a real snap with my faster rods and a release (almost forceless/weightless) feeling when the slower rods unload. (2) Yes they do but, they almost always load when a rod is overlined but they don't unload like they do when they are properly lined. When I put a 8wt line on my 6 rod, the rod really starts to complain as the casts get longer. The rhythm of the unload slows down and I can tell the rod has had enough. Regards, Tim