yonderin

Merry Christmas to all. Best wishes for the new year.

Eyes on both the Oldman at Maycroft and Crow at Frank this afternoon. Pretty low for the season. Brace yourself.

What you see is what you get. Haven't been home in a couple of weeks but it seemed the runoff wasn't much.

Merry Christmas to all.

Thanks muchly for the info. Must be nice if it's worth that much effort. What kind of results did you have? What worked best? Not nice to tease us with just "It was worth it". We want stories and details!

In Montana they've advocated a four trout distance. Obviously they haven't seen the size of the ones I catch.

Province has shut down staging areas in the Pass. As in you're not even allowed to unload your sled and take off for a ride by yourself which would be less close contact than going to the store. Can't even park within a kilometer of them. How do you think they'll view fishing access points? Or even people "randomly" parked alongside the road?

Quit my job on Wed. On Thur found out the work I was expecting disappeared. I'll worry about isolating once/if I get sick.

Allegedly they MIGHT be found in the Belly. Have never heard of any being caught to confirm. A couple of stocked ponds in K Country. All of my Grayling experiences have been north of the 16.

Well, nice while it lasted.

I set a new personal record today. Most consecutive days I woke up. Your turn.

Where will they be stocked?

Preaching to the choir. But if you're out with a new person; ask them if they want to run until they're out of breath and then stick their head under water for over a minute while somebody is maybe pelting them with rocks (beaching a fish). People I've taken under my wing, who have been mostly using hardware for their life, are horrifying to watch. Sometimes involves a lot of coaching (yelling) on my part when it starts. My granddaughter got a good start, mind you it helped that initially she was reluctant to handle her own fish.

Restrict outfitter/guides who have positioned themselves to make some money taking other people out fishing? But if it was the same number of friends fishing the same water, that would be acceptable? Not sure I see any difference except that the guides are being painted as a boogieman. I use a boat to float the same stretches and have a lower impact than having somebody else do the rowing? That could work I suppose since I can't run the boat and fish at the same time. So maybe the answer is no more than one person per boat. Using a guide allows you more to time to actively fish the river, reducing the time and subsequent pressure in any one area as well as contributing to a more enjoyable day since he knows the poor spots and problem areas to avoid. As well, a new(ish) fisherman can be supervised/advised on fish handling by the guide. I've taken new guys out and their practices can be horrifying. Besides the fact the guide will try to keep you legal. I look forward to my guided floats because it's just a much more enjoyable day, aside from the fishing. When I drive along the upper Missouri and see all the nice water that I can't access without a boat it's frustrating. But I could fish the easily and publicly accessible areas to my heart's (dis)content, same as any stream here at home. Maybe the answer is to make classified waters, restricting the number of rod days and perhaps even breaking it down into stretches that you are allocated for your day if the intent is to reduce the pressure for any waters that have gone downhill. Hands up: who wants to go down that road? And unenforceable without more CO's on the "ground". It's only fair that their pay, benefits and resource requirements are paid for by the people that they're watching, not general revenues. If you walk and wade, maybe a better situation than now. If you have a boat: do you look forward to only being able to use it a few days a year? If you're lucky at drawing lottery style permits. Go that way and you'll undoubtedly have fewer guides on any given day, with prices that put such a trip into the realm of "for the well to do only".

Your point? I seem to have missed it.

If you think that's going to happen..... Is there any evidence that hikers are transferring stuff between water bodies or is this just some theory? Animals wander all over the place as well.

Was the disinfecting a legal requirement or guides choice to incorporate?

A complicated issue. Life is chaotic and often not fully understood, including our impacts. Even our attempts to improve things run into the law of unintended consequences. Consensus is that fish stocks on the Bow have plummeted. But is there a single answer or is it the result of cumulative effects? I would think it's the latter. Too much pressure? Maybe a multi-year closure along with extensive monitoring to determine how much that is as an impact? I'd be surprised if that didn't show at least some increase in numbers. Very few people will support that anyway. Unfortunately, poachers might become even more emboldened by having fewer eyes on the river in the form of lawful fisherpersons. As part of that, if you provided more access points you will reduce the pressure on the current localities but potentially create the unintended consequence that even more people would be out, eventually extending the heavily pressured areas even more. Anybody have a sound number on how many rod days there are on the Bow? Supplement with hatchery fish? May work as an ongoing project but if numbers are in fact dropping, shortly after you stop stocking history will repeat itself. At what point would the Blue Ribbon Bow become a miles long stocked fishery and not a source of truly wild fish. Thinking on it, who cares? A fish is a fish. Aquatic targets. How old does a Rainbow have to be to be considered a reliable spawner? If it's not going to survive in the wild that long, good money after bad in the ongoing project. Seasonal, local and size limits, in my mind, are reactions to the problems we either can't identify or control. But they will help. If part of the problem is Whirling Disease (and/or similar), I understand that ensuing natural generations become more resistant. The reason Browns are affected by it nowhere near as much as RB, it's been around in Europe for a loooong time. Would seem to be at least partially confirmed by the findings in Colorado. Should the province get into capturing RB from the Bow to try and "breed out" the effect of WD? Can't see that happening. Habitat degradation and/or destruction? Good luck getting the money spent by individuals or government to reverse or even do much to effect meaningful remediation. You can achieve some feel good successes but I would think not enough to return things to the glory days. One and a quarter million people within the city of Calgary plus the outlying population centers and individuals living close enough to the Bow or it's tribs to have a negative effect. Introduction of invasive species? It has, is and will continue to happen. Much that could be done to minimize it, IF everybody did what was req'ed. The bloody white man is the original invasive species to the province. Followed by others. And they all either didn't know what the effect of what they were doing would be, or didn't care. Not as long a post as I could have made, tired of typing already. My thoughts and two cents.

Been south of Campbell River a couple of times, just wading off the beach. They can get pretty large so heavy gear is needed. Taking a 9wt this time, previously used my 7 with floating line. Did the job but thinking the 9 is better. Be prepared for long casts. Clousers seemed to work best, 4 to 5 inches long. Chartreuse and white or pink and white. If you're getting consistent hookups on things like sculpins, you're retrieving too slow. Ideally you can find passing schools and cast out ahead of them. Give your fly time to hit bottom and strip quickly, you're trying to imitate a baitfish trying to escape. Right off the top of my head I don't recall the effect of tides, we fished incoming, outgoing and in between without favouring any one condition. Did seem like we got best results early morning and late afternoon and evening.

Road work?

I've only used a floating 7wt myself. Different colour Clousers and a 2 inch red leech suspended under an idie have worked for me. As for leaders, how concerned are you about loosing the odd one? My first time out I was targeting Jacks at somebody else's suggestion and simply cut a leader back until "I thought it was stout enough". Didn't lose any. The last time I wasn't specifically going after them and landed my only hit on 5x tippet. Their teeth aren't made for grinding, how much of a nick from a tooth it would take to allow one to break off, who knows? It will happen but my limited experience is that wire tippet is not absolutely necessary.

Yeah, missed that little point. My info for Alberta.

No license req'ed for Resident 65 and over. Enjoy.

He's got stuff that he wants to share. Appears to be more than many other people do.

Are you sure it's the bladder? I had a valve start leaking on me, it was so slow that I had a hard time finding that was the problem. Couldn't find one in stores and the few I found on-line in North America were $40 or more. Got one out of China for something like $9 but it was a long delivery time. After it was a couple of weeks overdue I complained and got a free one shipped. They both arrived within a week of one another.