DaveJensen

Mitsubishi Delica Spacegear L400 - look that up. Import 4x4 turbo diesel van. About 27mpg. We have one here & another in NZ. Great vehicles. Tons of room. Great availability of parts coming in from the coast, though in 2 years no mech issues. For longer drives we have a VW Jetta Wagon. 50+mpg and you can haul everything you need in the back or tow.

Homewaters, please share more. Please get out more. Please fish more. Please keep loving what you are doing. Take heaps of pics and vids while making sure those fish stay in the water. Check out Western Sportfishing site for an example of just doing something because you enjoy it. Join the Central Alberta Fly Tiers/Fishers when you can. Meet some of the young fellows there too. Post your web address on your photos and be proud of them. For anyone on this forum to complain about some kids hijacking a few viewers would be of extreme irony to me. This forum is testament to the nature of the internet - change. My old forum derived traffic from the old Fly Fisherman Mag forum when it lost touch with the local audience; this one spawned from the traffic off my old forum with perpetual links from it (which I rarely complained about - though I once or twice had to draw the line with one particular guide company getting free publicity perpetually - irony there too), then filled the void when I shut ours down. If 1% of the traffic of this site goes to see your stuff, so? No website is an island and the only thing keeping traffic is the perception of value, which every website has to maintain through its own vision. In fairness to forum mods and owners, the last thing they need is a conflict, especially when common sense can be applied. This site has value. It is far tamer than our forum, for good or bad, and is a more hospitable place. It has its own flair for the dramatic, but the drama here is far tamer than what ours was. Enjoy it and keep it a relatively nice place to visit, those keeping it running sometimes can get tunnel vision to the negative and every ounce of positive goes much, much further than anyone can imagine.

http://calgary.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTV...hub=CalgaryHome Clearly, a difficult time for the staff at the helicopter company. Kananaskis is the parent company to Icefield Helicopter Tours out of Cline River. Since 2005, the owner of the co rolled and wrote off a machine on a glacier; a pilot was over weight in the Ram (not us) and the tail rotor hit the water and rolled the machine; mechanical failure caused another machine to crash into Abraham Lake; now this pilot dies in this incident. I feel a moral obligation to point this out for your safety. We stopped flying with the company in 2005, after many things peaked our concerns (doors opening mid flight while banking corners, rookie pilots making poor decisions, nearly getting fogged out near the peak of Mt Columbia, pilots getting lost and the subsequent fuel burn causing us to have to land in the middle of nowhere to wait for another machine to bring fuel, etc). Since we stopped using this company, the above accidents occurred, confirming our concerns. We have since been informed by CEOs trying to fly with the company that they cannot get life insurance policies that cover their flying activities with KH/IHT due to their track record. If you wish to fly into the Ram or alpine lakes, there are other companies. This is why it is important to do due diligence and not just leap at the cheapest flight. Yes, accidents can happen to anyone which is why it is difficult to post this. But when these kind of thing happens systemically, it is best to say something.

That's great - Congrats all @ FTFS. Hope you have another 15 in you!

Nope, he's a 26 or so year old that got out of school a couple years ago, that needs to learn the eternal value of communication via non-posturing methods, approached with humble manners, that respects others may have vast experience and knowledge apart from what his limited experience and ability has led him to believe to be black & white 100% accurate. He's actually a great person that, with tact and developing his weak areas of communication, could be an amazing asset to everyone. His communication unfortunately does not come through in the way he hopes, which is clear to most everyone, but he'll have to take ownwership and explore that area in life to fully develop into his potential. But, and I can tell you out of similar experience to him, it's up to us to learn our own life lessons, often in a much harder manner than needed.

I'm leery of saying some of this... I trust one or two will understand... But is it improvement if it gets away from what fly fishing is about and is not authentic to what it is hyping? Is it improvement if the hype, quality of film, and editing causes new anglers or the inexperienced to expect sizes/#s, or the experience to be fast paced? Is that authentic? When was the last time you carried a slider, jib, crane, etc to the back country or used a remote control quad-copter to fly your camera over a river? Is it the back country if you are simply pulling off the road and walking 20m into the bush to stage a shot? Is it authentic to fly fishing, to even a destination, if you pick the peak of a mouse year to film such a movie to show what NZ is, then wonder why tourist anglers are flocking to waters and they wind up disenchanted at their lack of success or the fact that they have arrived to find skinny spring/post flood season fish and the next mouse year is 4 or 5 years down the road but nobody told you otherwise? Is that improvement? You can try to separate film/editing quality, but you cannot escape those types of considerations. That's the biggest consideration of films moving forward. Content and film quality is a major concern, but - unlike the ski movie world (save for mtn goat wintering habitat considerations and the like) - we have another edge to our sword that can't be ignored. And man, I wish I had a fraction the talent these folks have in the edit room. Now, that all said, that film is amazing to watch. But NZ is much better in person than you'll ever be impressed upon by film.

And I know a lodge owner that would likely donate something to a charitable cause, if asked.

Put it between two pieces of heavy cloth/leather. Pound on sidewalk with hammer for about 10 seconds. You'd have enough for a couple seasons. Cheers

I love these threads. It needs jet boats. The best hwy sign we've come across the past few years is appropriate in this thread. Brag away!

Great job. Good on the folks spearheading it. But, and this might make me old school - great for Kyle McNeilly who made the suggestion to go that route for years, and now some folks followed through on the concept. Wonderful. It's great to see that what Kyle had purported is now in place, the 1 over regulation. As Kyle was bang on right about - the only way to keep fish in the water to see what the true potential is, is to have either C&R or a large min size (with no under size allowance) at that specific location. Hopefully the gov will give the fishery at least 15 years to sort through a couple of generations before re-opening discussion on regs. It's the only way to come as close to potential aside from closing it entirely. Once we establish what that potential is over those 15 years we can re-examine what its use and productivity capabilities can be assigned to, if at all.

I love this kind of thread. Back to the young man that asked a question based on his supply and likely allocated funds for fly fishing. I hope the point of what everyone has written is taken as "Give it a go" and you receive it in an encouraging manner. There is a ton of info and knowledge available, but the bottom line is that if you are given something or can only afford `x`, then use it and do your best with it. As a kid, I used what was available - read - whatever my uncle didn`t lock away for safe keeping was fair game. The combination of lines and rods didn`t matter - getting out fishing did. Some set ups are easier to cast than others in some circumstances, but you can cast pretty much anything, any combo of gear. Sometimes it isn`t pretty. I remember using a floating line on a willow branch on the rainbows in BC`s Clearwater R, we arrived at the camp site but the fishing stuff was all in the other car that would arrive the next day. We had a few spare guides and tip eye, as well as the fly tying kit, so we whittled up a rod. What line is a thumb thick willow branch rated for... regardless, we caught a few fish. But this was back in the 70s and we didn`t know we weren`t supposed to under or over line the rod. Bottom line - give it a go, be thankful for what you have, and get the most enjoyment from what you have. Remember, that $900 Helios rod isn`t going to make you cast that much better or enjoy the fishing any more or less. I`d put my ability to enjoy fly fishing with a $49 Mitchell fly rod combo - circa 1970s - against the $3K worth of gear I walk around with today. Cheers

Here's a different perspective. Given the rate of anything actually ever happening between bears and humans, how ridiculously low % that truly is, and given what I now know about ticks and Lyme disease, I'd encourage everyone to spend far more time learning about ticks and Lyme disease and taking steps to prevent it. I got it sharing a hotel room with people with dogs after being on the water for a few days - got a tick on me while sleeping. AJ had one in her bely and 2 other tcks crawling on her in one day, though she luckily and thankfully avoided Lyme. With 20,000 cases in the US each year and having had first hand experience at how it can impact you, I would strongly suggest that the likelihood of Lyme infection and lasting long term impacts of it are FAR more likely than the fear mongering realities of any bear incident. Ticks & Lyme are at least as far north as Rocky Mtn House, having had quite an infestation in the Caroline area last year. And given the lingering tingles and twitches from my experience with it last spring, which is mild compared to most cases, it's something that can be avoided. With what Kathryn Maroun (What A Catch tv show) is going through with Lyme and what I've gone through, and what I've been told about from 3 other people I know, it's something to spend more time educating yourselves about than worrying about being the one angler every 10 yrs to get mauled by a bear, no offense to them or their families - just offering perspective. Sorry for the hi-jack, though this thread's been off on other tangents already. Cheers

Amen to that. As I said to Amelia this week on a rainbow trout river here, if it wasn't for the art of the camera, there's no way I'd be able to fish nearly as much as I do. The other day we landed 25 rainbows, 4 1/2 - 8 lbs on a river - all on dries. On one hand, if the camera had been left in the van we'd likely have caught 50 but doubt we'd pursue that #. On the other hand, if it wasn't for the interest in photos & video and the desire for the different subject matter, angles, artistic expression, etc, I'm not sure we're in New Zealand for 3 months. With photos and video, there's always something different to see and capture and be inspired by, no matter where or when you fish. We'll be here 90 days this year and on the water about 80. The landscape is so diverse and offers so many ecosystems to play in such close proximity. It's not the big fish that drives my heel. But to the vid club at school thought - that's likely the best option for that. It'd be great for a young photographer to get out and work on such a project too.

Just a few things from what I've been able to pick up on and employ - It really depends on your editing style, your audience, where you hope to get to, etc. Are you video content based or editing based? If you want a manic, heavy transitional bit of video with all those fancy edits, Sony Vegas is likely your best PC program. If you are simply trying to do smooth, simple edits, WMM is easy to use and the concepts you learn in it are very much applicable to other programs. The easiest one to use with the most to offer that I've found is Pinnacle, but my goodness is it glitchy once you add in even the simplest of effects or multiple file types from various cameras used along the way. All the vids on our flyfishalberta.com site are simple Pinnacle edits, but those are very simple in our desired style. Besides camera selection - and GoPro or other P&S cams are only good to a point - you really have to plan a lot to get something of value too. Story boards, time lines, cohesion, etc... 3 hrs of raw shot vid might produce 2 - 10 min of vid. We haven't released the projects we've been working on (as in learning, re-learning, hating the learning curve, getting perfectionistic, and - the biggest one - making sure we don't type cast ourselves with the first release). So, the scope of all of those things needs be looked at. And, once you get rolling, how do you catalog, store, and database 5 trips x 3 months per trip to New Zealand, let alone the other stuff along the way... and how will you organize what you use on one project as to avoid needing that footage on another? And of course, what file format are you shooting in, what file format is the editing software compatible with, how will you separate the 30 useable seconds of a 4 minute clip and what file format will you save it in to ensure no quality loss... and will all those things be compatible in tomorrow's world? Just saying. There's waaaay more to it than how 'easy' it all looks. And for 99% of folks... how do you spend that much time on something that is simply costing you $ to do? Again, just sayin'. Go into it with your eyes open to what you want to do! Happy exploring. Cheers

http://www.aquabatics.com/home.php Aquabatics or maybe Auto Marine Hope that helps - both places should have something that would work. Cheers

Hi guys. As the guy who started SW with Barry, I have a couple of things to say. I apologize if I ruffle some feathers or put my foot in my mouth here. Niether would be a first for me, but my intentions are genuine. Just want to touch on a couple of things: Streamwatch was NOT started with an eye to be a gov program. Nor did I come to the table hoping it would be all about enforcement. The education and grass roots, angler initiated angle of the program was lost once gov got seriously involved. SW was started to have eyes on the waters, with hopes of garnering attention to poaching by gov enforcement officers. From there, it was hoped that education would occur through an individual hired through the program talking to people. Remember that the original hires were NOT gov employees and NO funds were funnelled through the gov. It evolved that nobody really wanted to take on the staffing & liability issues of such a program and that the gov was the most likely organization to be able to handle this as that's what governments do. HOWEVER, and I have an email from Barry that he specifically wrote to me to tell me that I got to tell him "I told you so" - the organizations that you deal with and give way to and allow to have a foot in your door by asking them to take you on where you need help, they slowly start to creep in and control things. I quit involvement in SW because as this evolved past Barry & I - in the small group of us that then advanced SW - I was the only one that wanted foundational guiding principles to be established. The stuff that establishes process, who / what we are and why we are, the decision making process, etc. I quit because Barry wasn't interested in getting to that level and the other fellow was simply dismissive of the idea. Barry knew that it would eventually come back to bite the original idea of SW in the ass because he knew that by not addressing this stuff like I wanted, the orginal concept and ways would be compromised. And they sure got that. The differing ideas and values of gov and TU and others that got to be involved certainly steered the ship to differing agendas and interests. And now this... Why bring his all up now? To gloat and posture? NO! If you go back and see what the intention of SW was, it was anglers trying to get gov to listen, to try to get gov to take action. Along the way, this clearly went the wayside. How can I say that? Well, SW being shut down because of gov re-org / re-grouping tells you the tail is wagging the dog that was the original intent of this program. The original system was an employee and funding being done through TU. It could easily be done through AFGA or some other org. You don't need TU specifically, you don't need gov specifically to funnel the $ or the admin. You simply need an org that wants to see this get done. If you get back to the original intent, this whole SW concept - signs, eyes, and discussion to acheive education and compliance - can easily be accomplished with a WILLING org. Do you need an officer with full powers of authority? NO! Just get your hired hands a sat phone and force the gov to get out to investigate. If the gov doesn't get an officer on site, in the field, start to inquire and make a stink about why not and address the issues of funding, staffing, etc in the gov. From there, education could be done through pamphlets or a hockey card (fish id pic on one side and a short write up of why cutts and bulls are fragile on the other), as well as the website and social media campaign. It goes from there. Barry & I started this thing very simply and it could be very easily handled. Just get it out of the gov, get it away from an org that wants 50% of all fund raised $ to go to their org, and get back to the basics of what the program was & is about. This isn't a shot at gov or TU, it's asking what is best for the future of SW based on what it is - if someone should step up. Also, a re-org of SW is what sounds like needs to happen - if it continues. Clearly define what it is, who's involved and who needs to be involved, develop a strategy as to how to acheive the plan and purpose, and develop fundraising plans, and have a well versed person that can talk to who needs to be talked to. But, given how bastardized it became, I suspect a new org, autonomous from gov would have to be started, and there are few that do this kind of thing, and it's difficult to get energies back on track after having one effort cut at the knees. For FFC to give up on SW and go to another org, that's unfortunate. I would very much encourage one last exploration of how FFC could do a grass roots SW as was originally set up. Once FFC goes to another org, it will be very difficult to say no to that new org and go back to supporting SW. And by no means am I saying not to support PHW, it's wonderful. Finally, the above all said, while we originally designed SW to keep fish in the rivers, we very much saw what we were doing as people management - without our intrusions fish would do very well on their own. But since SW is a people actions management, if FFC went the route of supporting PHW, which helps deserving people enjoy our fisheries, why woulnd't anyone want to support that funding? SW or PHW, I hope the FFC community keeps stepping up. Cheers Dave

We were finally able to have a moment to update the blog with some more pics and moments from this trip. Some good fish, some moments in willows, a NW ach sunset, and our favorite beech forest spring creek have been added to the blog. www.flyfishalberta.blogspot.com Cheers!

Haven't updated the blog in some time as the fishing has been rolling down here. But, we're getting a few things together for some blog posts to catch up on some of the fishing. This blog post simply shares an amazing 2 days of dry fly fishing, including one day on what I consider the most beautiful river I've ever fished. Again, hope this is ok as it is simply meant to be a diversion from winter for folks back home (though it sounds like winter isn't happening this year). The link: http://flyfishalberta.blogspot.com/ Cheers

Mitch - we have a 1236 Aulmacraft and the gunnel width is wider than that of those trackers. So, while the base width is important, so too is the gunnel width. A fellow I know bought that 1436 Tracker and hates it - he and his wife and dogs - as it's too tippy. But that's him. AJ & I, however, love the 1236 for the Red Deer, Bow, small lakes. Heck we took it to a bigger lake in WA state and used the 8HP Evinrude on the lake. We did 18mph on the flat calm lake (a 'touch' slower in waves tho!). It hauled ass and we giggled ow nicely too. If you aren't in too much a rush, as I think it's still winter there (wink) come up to Red Deer in the spring and try out our 12' raft and frame as well as the jon. TTYS

Brad - was refering to a previous poster about the auto detailing, not you. I suspect that you have many entertaining tales in your line of work as we do taking care of our guests, just in a different setting. "I do also belive guides work very hard but so do alot of other people, my whole point is that people cry about this and that but at the end of the day it was their choice to be in the feild that they work and no one made them do it." - The understanding of that, that's the whole secret to life, in all areas, ain't it? Now, if we could just all wear pro-active glasses...

It has been an amazing trip. The next update will likely blow many folks away as we fished a few off the chart streams where trout averaged 8 pounds. I have to say that the past 10 days have been likely the best 10 days fly fishing of my life for the scenery, style of fishing, discovery of interesting water, sure some larger fish but more to what they were doing and where they were, and how we simply stumbled onto them by looking for out of the way, smaller, pretty, intimate waters and going with the flow of discovery. Yesterday's earthquake had us rolling on the river bank too. And it's not even a mouse year where trout tend 30 - 50% heavier. It's a trip I wish I could get more folks to join us on. But it's also one with a steep learning curve and one that will tear you apart emotionally.

Brad - paying taxes - how many bus boys pay taxes on tips? I recall working at Maxwell Taylor's on Calgary Tr in Edm back 1988 - 1992 making $300 on Fri & Sat nights. Hauling $500 a weekend in tips 20+ years ago at 16 - 17 years old was pretty good. Was I going to pay taxes? Nope. But, was I looking to buy a house, a new car, etc, things that needed a credit history and a proof of income statement? No. Was I supporting a family? No. Was I concerned that something I did/didn't do was going to possibly impact someone else as a busboy? No. But this wasn't full time, it was in a different age of society when taxes on tips weren't looked at with as much scrutiny as today, etc. When it comes to guiding - some do it with the same mentality and it works for them until they want to buy a house, car, etc, or expand in business with a partenership or buy a lodge, fly shop, etc, where income statements and proof of business comes into play. How many are so short sighted as to not see this or to not see that insurances are vital and the ramifications of not having it are devastating to all involved in things that can happen in this business? I suspect any guide not charging at least $400 a day as a guide is cutting corners somewhere, or has a good off season job that affords them to subsidize their love of guiding. The truth is that a guide association is not going to fix any of the above or curb illegal guiding. Here in NZ, our good friend is a director for F & G as well as the NZFFGA. The NZ guide association is one of the strongest lobbies out there yet Aussie guides run trips non stop, illegally. Can you get insurance coverage if you are doing something illegally? And on and on it goes. Again, and I was thinking of this again yesterday on the water, the main reason that so few guides last 5 years is that it is hard work, you deal with a lot of personalities, the $ aren't great, and the responsibilities for someone else are huge - there's a lot of stress in hosting someone's prized vacation time and making it about them and not about you (as the guide) is very difficult for most people. Add everything up and few people bother to stick it out when it takes 5 to 10 years to finally BUILD UP a business to possibly, finally earn that $35K a year. Remember, there's almost "0" chance you'll make that much in your first 5 years. Likely 1/3 that for the first many. Maybe by year 7 or 8 your income statement will get there, likely longer as depreciation and initial start up capital needs to be in place. Do auto detailers take 7 or 8 years of apprenticeship income to build up to $35K a year?

100% profit. Love it. Any professional guide has to work 30 days just to break even if they are properly insured, has good working gear, boat, vehicle, proper marketing, etc. After that, the profit point is 2/3 of std full guide rate. But that's based upon the $500 / day. Many guides are contract, paid $350 to $425 from the outfitter/shop. Those are the plain, hard facts of guiding. And it's no 200 day season. Run off, big rain, big wind days, cancellations, etc take it down to an honest 100 - 120 day season in Alberta. Which is why, if you do the math, no guide ever makes more than about $35K/yr going full out and doing up sale trips. Sure, hidden in there is you get a few ff type product perks, but those are the realities unless you grow things past the guide stage.

Glad a few folks enjoyed the pics. It is worth the trip, certainly. The fish size - they are bigger than what we have in Ab, yes, but that's on a relative scale. But it's also what you fish and where. We've yet to fish anything bigger than 10m across this trip, and the avg fish is about 4-1/2 lbs. We fished 900m of stream the other day and it took us 6 hrs. We landed about a doz trout and they avg 5lb. The creek was 8 feet across and shroud in willows and I doubt if anyone had fished there in 2 years because the going so hard, grown over, and the ease of nearby waters to fish. Fish a larger back country river and the avg fish is 6lb but there are fewer. Biomass-wise, it's actually similar to Ab, just that the distribution of that biomass is quite different (fewer, bigger fish/km). And learning the how-to, where, and the movements of these fish is fun too - it takes a bit of understanding. The fishing isn't as hard as you're led to believe, but the caveat is that you have to know what's going on and have to be able to execute what needs be done to have consistent success. Once you're dialed in though, it can be cutthroat like. I've caught more successive fish in a row here than I ever did on the Red Deer R, for example.

Hope this is ok here as it is meant to be for folks snow bound back home. Our first NZ trip blog update is up and ripe with photos. It's a little long and involved (too much so to share here) but hopefully provides a brief escape from the off season for some. http://flyfishalberta.blogspot.com/