DonAndersen

But Taco, Your irritant is not controlled from Ottawa but is brought to you courtesy of the good old USA/God and frankly, there isn't a lot you can do about yours 'cept live with it. TV volume is doable. Don

Folks, Here is your chance to remove one of life's irritants. The increases in volume on TV commercials The CRTC is requesting submissions @ http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/info_sht/g3.htm You got only a couple of days. Canada is following the lead of international and US regulators. Don

Guys, Now don't pick on me. Just pointing out the "Guide" shot inside the front cover of the FF Cabella's catalog. Looks like few of you wanta be guides!! And do you guys ever use The Urban Dictionary - Austination - means The act of dating a 14 year old girl, and playing Grand Theft Auto for too damn long at your friend's house. Especially when he is tired and you have school in the morning. Don

Austinator, It is critical to your angling success that your garb be the same colors as a 2>5 days old cow flop when fishing for trout. But sea water requires a more colorful persona. Suspect it has to with the drinkees with umbrellas in 'em. Presented to you from a guy who just got his new Cabella's FF catalog. catch ya' Don

Russ, email coming your way. Don

ruff, Ya, comparisions are kinda fun. Think of it this way. The green is always moving, the hole is kinda receptive. You make your best putt, the ball falls in the hole and is quickly spit back in your direction and the hole disappears for an hour or so. All the while the course police are yelling @ you to hurry up as there are others that want to play as well. What you did forget is the dress code. Now golfers get to dress in pastels - off white, lavender and the like. They are also expected to smell good and grass stains on any part of their anatomy may result in a summons by the golfing police and quick ejection off the course. Whereas --- Fishermen get to dress in rubber suits and frankly - get to smell bad. Dirt is appreciated and grass stains on your knees doesn't solicit comment and is frankly admired by those that recognize the craftiness of the angler. Fishermen and particularly FF types get to wear funky hats although it seems like the capo of today tends to reflect advertising by this or that rod company rather than fishermen of old who tended to reflect beer ads. Still, the FF hats with their complete tops just have to be a step in the right direction although both hats of Ff types and ball floggers still focus on ball caps - the forerunner of skin cancer. But there are two real big differences: 1] is balls vs flies. Balls tend to "stick" out when in the environment and nobody ever names their golf balls whereas flies, who are tied to blend into nature, hide when dropped. And the names - Thunder and Lightning, Tup's Indispensable and who can forget the Chernobyl Ant trip off FF lips without embarrassment. 2] The score- golfers count and the lower the count, apparently the better they did whereas fishermen who count are seen as weird by many and are shunned by their companions and society in general. FF types believe somehow that fishing is all about "being out". Golfers could really give sweet tweet about the out part and only worry about the "score". Now equipment is where the difference really shows up. There are few if any golfers who make their own balls, craft their own clubs, repair their own shoes or for that matter do much of anything about the craft of golf. It's all about the "score": FF types are more pragmatic or maybe a little cheaper - well maybe more than a little - make that very cheap. They make this and that, rods, flies, leaders and there are some I've heard of make their own lines. Not only that, but due to the lack of dress code, some of them don't really dress in rubber suits preferring to address their manhood by finding how high their voice rises when the water deepens. And while I could go on and on. one thing is readily apparent. Golf by it's nature requires manipulation of the environment tweaking the landscape to make the course somewhat but not too challenging. After all, the golf course wants them back to spend money. Now FF types abhor changes in the rivers environment and have been known to fight tooth and nail to preserve the landscape. So there ya' go, a rapid look @ why some golf and why some fish. The cheap fish, the rest golf. catch ya' Don

Folks, I fish 130 days or so/year and usually am out about 6 hours average or 780 hours. Now I had a look @ golf green fees for 18 holes in Central Ab. Ran about 37.50 for about 5 hours or $7.50/hr. Now if I paid that much to fish it would have cost me $5850.00/year. Makes what I used to pay @ 28/yr pretty cheap. Mind you, this past year I turned 65 so now I'm protected by the Govt like farmers, fishermen and whooping cranes. Life is good!!! Don

Comparison of License Fees by Govt is located here. http://www.srd.alberta.ca/ManagingPrograms...rta-Feb2010.pdf Don

Harps, In Alberta, you're right. The rainbows here share traits with Herefords. In BC, wild stocks are used as egg sources in some cases. In others, wild stocks are added to the mix regularly. The difference is related to the statement made by a bio. from BC who said right out loud " the fishing in BC is better than it was 30 years ago". BC has some idea of what it's doing to improve the lake fishing. In Alberta - well! Don

Folks, For those that wish to be informed by experts in fish culture should look @ what BC does in this document. http://www.gofishbc.com/docs/2208A06B4B85CFDB.pdf regards, Don

Bigtoad, Such trips have been tried in the past w/o success. Leading a horse to water doesn't mean he'll drink. Don

Guys, Just looking @ some lakes c/w camping that I can spend some time on when traveling <>Manitoba. Prefer lakes from Pr. Al. > Alberta. Know about Manitoba. Was there in 2004 and last year. Going again this year. Don

Guys, Thanks for the pointers. I've fished the same lake as John K. last June on my way to Manitoba. Was as good as he said. Not a lot of fish but good ones. Don

See what happens when you fish in Alberta. You never see your backing knot. But, for whatever reason, BC, Sask, Manitoba, Montana, the backing knots show up regularly. Don

Folks, Anybody know anybody that help a old guy get educated on where to find trout in the Central Section of Sask. thanx, Don

But, There are triploids and triploids. BC stocks 3NAF = 3N [extra chromosome] AF [all female] Alberta stocks 3N [extra chromosome only] Difference - 3NAF have no jacking males in the population that exhibit spawning colors or behaviors with 1/2 of them dying @ age 2. Don

Folks - well no Guys, If you want to suck up big time, book a lunch for you and your significant other @ the Dove's Nest in Glenmore Landing. I know, I know but after nearly 45 years of marriage to the same woman, you learn that sucking up matters. The restaurant serves Quiche regularly. The women/man ratio is about 25:1. But I learned something that may or not effect your Federal Vote. Steve Harper has his constituency office upstairs above the Dove's Nest - that's a restaurant that serves Quiche for God's sake. Now if that if that's not a "get in touch with your feelings kinda thing, I don't know what is". But all is not lost. Asked the waitress about Steve ordering out. After all, it's a small CDN business and delivery is close. To this point, to her knowledge, Steve hasn't been part of the scene and in fact she's never seen him there. So what does all this mean. Not a darn thing. Just a comment on the herd. Don

Don't you just loved hyperbole. Like "The processes used to create triploids have a 98 per cent success rate, leaving 2 per cent able to breed. And no one is checking every triploid for sterility. So over the past five years 6,500 genetically modified fish capable of mating have mixed with our wild stocks, including the blue listed ones." What this idiot of a newspaper writer it trying tell you is that every fish that is not sterile made it successfully into the native populations. A lot of these lakes have the potential to dump into a downstream water course. All it takes is a 1:1000 year flood. He/she probably worked for Global @ one time. Don

Clive, There are two types of people. Self Starters & Kick Starters. Where did you put the BIG BOOTS!!! Folks, If Police Outpost lake reverts to what it was just 4 years ago, we have no hope ever of doing anything about lakes in this province. I know few fish lakes. I fish everything. You're missing some of the best fun of your life. The lake fishing season is starting next week for me with a chance to catch something that looks like this: Don

But how would it cast? And I'm really curious of how it was built. Typical tubular rods are constructed around a mandrel. The question is how would the mandrel be withdrawn? Or are the rods solid. Solid plastic rods were the first pass @ building plastic fishing poles. Got one in the basement build about 50 years ago. The guide issue is a neat one. There is a trade off between too few and to many. Forget the weight thing - it's marketing BS. I'd suspect that putting more guides on a rod may have a lot more to do with hitting a price point than decent rod design. What you gotta give the guy is that he was challenging accepted thought. As far as spey rods, nothing new about them. About turn of the century design. Don

Folks, This is one weird set up. http://img337.imageshack.us/f/ultrawaverod.jpg/ Don

Taco, Didn't know that - knew that they did have some KKK types in the mid-east. Wasn't sure of the far east. Still, you gotta give Alberta it's due. Only place in the world the KKK is incorporated. Not something I'm terribly proud of. Don

Whoa there folks. Alberta can lay claim to the only legal incorporation of the KKK in the world. The KKK has been around for a long while. Apparently 80,000 people in Sask. were members @ one point. Alberta had its share of clavens. The local group still resides in Calgary. Here is a copy of the charter. http://http-server.carleton.ca/~warrent/2100/kkk.html The charter was incorporated in the mid-20's if I recall correctly and was re-issued under Lougheed's Conservative Govt. Just because smoothies and lattes showed up in Calgary really doesn't mean that white supremacy died. Don

Gaffer, Unless things have changed a lot in the past short while, the Demerast folks are now out of the business and the business was sold. Builders have attempted to contact the new owner w/o success. And about 1/2 of the cost of cane is getting it to Alberta. My first order in 1978 was $600 for cane - $600 for delivery from Demerast. Knew the Demerast people well. For western N. America, Royer is cheaper because of shipping. regards, Don

Nearly all the rods I use are 8' or less as most are cane and they get heavy beyond 8' long. When I use a longer rod, it is 9'. Got one 10'er maybe 20 years ago for all the reasons mentioned above. Doesn't cast worth a crap. Maybe the rods are better now. And Osbornes - you should try to keep the rods and reels under 50. Storage becomes an issue otherwise. Don