unclebuck

Any updates on this matter?

THey are much better than a low end sage- I have am A5 5wt and it is a great all around rod, well balanced smooth delivery - good for dries and decent for nymphing. It is my workhorse rod. It's also a 5 piece so it is nice for backpacking. It is not a super fast rod but has plenty of backbone. It has a nice soft tip for accuracy and I don't break many off with hook sets. I think casts better than winston but the cork and wrapping is rougher.... It is 10 times the rod a sage launch - Can't beat them for the price- but watch the shipping charges I seem to remember that bill was higher than I thought it would be.

Well the Gov't in its infinite wisdom is at it again. This time closing Provincial Campgrounds. Looks like Chain Lakes and Cottonwood on the Old Man among others are going to be closed now. Day use only. This sucks although with the state of repair and management that many of these places have endured, I'm not surprised that not many people camp there. I was at Cottonwood a couple of years ago, got there around 6 and had to go without fire for the night because the wood sales truck never did come around. It is details like this that make people think what am I doing here? I may as well random camp - at least then I can go gather up some wood to burn! It is really frustrating what has become of our parks BUT instead of fixing the problems these guys decide to close them!!! Good strategy, ignore them to death then close them and hope no one notices! Here is the link - http://www.edmontonjournal.com/travel/Prov...2481/story.html

Forget chickens. Phasants! That way when people get sick of them and let them go they'll be stocking some uplalnd birds for us.

I watched this live after school in the mid 90's I didn't even know what an HMO was but it is something I never forgot. THey didn't cut it short either when it was live like they did here. Don't watch if you are queasy but it shows the desparation that some people have felt with HMO's over the years. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zS-CdjB1sLg

I have caught clams while lake fishing in alberta. You can actually feel them strike - weird. Also a Crawfish pinched a streamer on me once in the NSR, wouldn't let go. I think I may have hooked a willow tree on my backcast once too but I can't remember for sure

It seems that 1000 is just a made up number that sounds good. Kind of like 10 - (ie the top ten lists, 10 commandments etc) So far as I know no one did a count of bears back when it was 'sustainable' so estimating these numbers is dodgey at best. 1000 likely means grizzly bears back on the plains. Do we want this? Historically they were more a prairie mammal than a mountain one. They still prefer open meadow to dense bush. Today the grizz range is expanding further east of highway 22, from hiway 3 to 16.( remember the dogpound incident a couple years ago + the crossfield hunter?) More bears in less habitat is not going to happen. They will expand their range east. The historical prime grizzly habitat is the banks of the lower Bow, Red Deer, Batttle and NSR Rivers. Even ranchers with severe gopher problems may not welcome the grizz back to the plains, although this is choice habitat. Where do you draw the line?

Ahhrrgh! I just saw this on the news this morning as well. I' wondering if we ever even got a dollar from the increased royalty rates. It seems to me that the implementation was delayed to 'help the oil companies transition' into the new scheme. Seems like the only thing that did was buy them lobbying time while placating us with 'future changes' that never happend. Got to love Eddie's spine!

Anything you can find by Roderick Haig-Brown is wonderful, Robert Traver has some great writing too. These are older books so they may be hard to find new. Also Issak Walton and Charles Cotton's book from the 1600's is surprisingly easy to find and worth the read. Other than that I second McGuane and Norman Mclean.

Playgrounds have become sterile and idiot proof and therefore not much fun. Merry go rounds have been banned, no more wooden seated swings, swings now have a saftey bar so you can't jump out of them (that was the whole point wasn't it) and are made of rubber so you get a good wedgy and it won't hurt too bad if you get cracked on the head with a floppy rubber seat. I heard teeter totters are next on the list followed by monkey bars. Both may be *gasp* dangerous. Soon you will nead to sing a waiver to play on a playground. You will need a helmet and the attractions will have to be spray coated with a velvet nerf substance. I hope that there are still kids out there somewhere catching frogs, making tree forts and burning ants with a magnifying glass but I'm not too optimistic about that. As George Carlin Said it is the pussification of our culture.

Came across this video and thought it was worth putting up here. This is a pretty neat show, at the end it shows the workers putting on the Thomas and Thomas labe. Anyone recognize the rods they show here? How about a report?... hope the link works

Yes that one was pretty obviously lip synched. Bryan's voice started singing before he brought the mic up to his mouth when he first kicked in. It kind of make me suspicious of all the other 'performances'. When did KD Lang become an Elvis impersonator?

Amen

That's kind of my point. When did this rebranding take hold. Back in the 80's it was the tar sands... no ominous overtones. The verbage has become politically charged (by who?). You are providing good evidence that in fact the focus groups must have found Oil preferable to Tar. Maybe that kicked in when the anti smoking Nazis started to talk about tar or something. Until then tar was just fine and accurate. The natives have used the natural 'tar' up there to seal birch canoes for thousands of years or at least since Alex Mckenzie made note of the habit of it in 1789.

Did some PR firm decide that oil did better than tar in some focus branding group or what?!? Just wondering, I've noticed that most media no longer use tar sands ... Did I go rip van winkle and miss something?