Hawgstoppah

Yeah I was calling that before it happened. I told my wife... look he's rattled now and paying attention to stuff OTHER than the game... and sure enough... goal... Mind you... who was it that couldn't get around one guy and find an empty net?

Taco. Unless I am wrong on the co-ords...I guess my map's showing a spot that's just upstream of where a reservior NOW is located. The stretch shown by your co-ords in my humble opinion, used to fish a LOT better... (mind you, I haven't fished it for about 4-5yrs now)

About the cam... yeah your not kidding these were taken with a 10 dollar gas station wind up fuji film peice of crap becuase my wife lost my digital cam. I've since found it... hey at least I have some pics!!! Could have gotten none... so I can't complain

So there I was, headed for Houston BC to pick up a load, and this was friday sept 5. I'd get to Smithers and buy my licenses and be on the river by about 2pm on the 6th... excellent! With high hopes I got to the fly shop in Smithers, got some old faithfull flies that got a lot of takes last year, and headed on in anticipation of chasing steel. I went to a run that I'd tried with Greg last year, and had seen some large fish hooked by others in. My first pass was a blanking... and as I headed back up the run, I saw a large fish roll right near the top of the run. I eagerly slipped in at the top of the run and let loose a nice long cast (using a TFO deer creek 7/8wt 12-6 spey). The fly must have looked just right, and the hit was hard and fast. The fish went screaming towards the middle.... no jump.... aren't steelhead supposed to jump??.... another 5 minutes of long speedy runs.... I kept working the fish in close only to have it run 100yards.... no jumps yet... finally I got it tired enough to get it to hand.... a COHO?? SWEET! I'd never seen one of these before! It was easily 15 pounds, a fella on shore said it might be closer to 18 or 20. I'll give it 15 to be on the safe side, but it was a dang nice fish. 34 inches long by 23 inches around. I managed another hookup that evening, and it was another coho, just slightly smaller. This one tore line and jumped 7 times.... as you can see in the pics, it was a much fresher fish.. and had a LOT more energy than it's larger counterpart.. It was a riot. it was starting to fog up... and a chill was in the air. I tried another half hour, missed a good solid take, and that was it. I was both elated and dissapointed at the same time. I had gone out in search of steel, and found coho. The coho were a absolute riot, but at the same time, my heart was set on a steelhead... hard to explain it... Sept 7th... The fog was so thick I had trouble finding my way back to the spot.. I finally did and got rigged up. It was supposed to be +17 and sunny today... and I figured I'd better get down and started early, since rumor has it steelhead have no love for bright sunny weather. The fog was thick along the path, and I found myself humming a tune from "a river runs through it". The scene was out of a movie. I got rigged up and was ready to start my first pass. about 10 minutes go by of rythmic casting and swinging... cast... swing... hope... trying to will a take with my imagination... come on you son of .... BOOOMMMM!!! BeeYYYaaaAAAHHH.... a few jumps and I knew this was steel!!! The 32 inch buck came to hand after a rather brief but spirited battle... and I was in heaven. This was my first 30+ inch steelhead, and only my second ever. Unfortunately, due to the poor camera I had, the pics of this one did not come out. It was a bit too dark. I got myself settled down and made a phone call (to brag, of course). And then I hopped into the top of the run. As I made a few short casts to get the line ready for some real casting... I was shocked when it went flying out of my hand and zipped through the guides and onto the reel and ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZ holy crap!!! Another steelhead!!! The giant hen tore off for the middle of the river, jumping 4 or 5 times as she tried to get to the other side. I was still tired from fighting the first one, but I was running on adrenaline this whole battle. I worked her a bit closer, inch by inch, as it seemed this fish was just resting for her next run... and it was... ZzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ across the river again in a series of leaps and dashes that left me breathless.. about 20 minutes later I was finally able to get her into some shallows and tail her.... You guys may have heard the WooHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOO! in calgary.... this fish was a 36 inch hen... bright and fresh, that gave me the best fight of any fish I've ever hooked. I'd guess somewhere around 15lb... didn't get a girth on her she was just too wild and crazy to do much more than snap this quick shot and get her back where she belonged. So now I had hooked and landed TWO steelhead, and a total of about 3 half casts between them. Crazy. I was so pumped up. The rest of the day went as I thought it might, the fog lifted, it got warm and sunny, and the fish shut off. I did find a few working the top, and actually got them to rise to my fly, but I suck at waiting for a 15 or so pound fish to tighten up on it's own before I set the hook. I just couldn't do it. And yelling at yourself just makes you look like an idiot... especially when you look around and notice a few people on the path looking at you funny! I ended the day having gone 2 for 5. I was pretty pumped. 2 days of fishing, and 2 coho, and 2 steel, to hand. I had purchased my 2008 steelhead stamp, and was hoping to get another chance at using it, when I finally got to. It was a cold Oct 30th, and I had driven all night to get this day in. I went to the same run again, and was greeted by two guys who had fished it early. I wished I didn't have to wait for the fly shop to open at 9am. I talked to them a while, and they had each hooked one from the run. My heart and hopes were down a little, as there's only so many fish in the river, and this run was one I could actually get to with the big truck. I decided to stay, and began working from the top. The other two guys decided to go try another run about an hour later, and I continued my efforts. To describe this run - it's long and there's a lot of structure - and one must work quite slowly to cover it well enough to ensure the fish get a good look at what your throwing at them - and a quality "pass" through it takes about two hours. I was nearing the end of pass #1 when I got a hard hit and run.... the fish ran upstream... spat the hook, thrashed and was gone. DAMN! settle down!!.... 5 minutes later and about 10 yards downstream, another one!!! YEAH!!!! .... NoooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! DAMN! %^&(*$^&($^&^... %^&*()$^$%^&(......... lost it again!!!! 0 for 2!!! CRAP. You just don't get a ton of chances.... gotta make the best of them!!! ARRRGH! I continued my pass through the run, and then switched flies for pass 2. I'd go with a small egg sucking leeech this time... and about the same place as my first hookup, came another! I battled the fish for quite a while, though with the cold and chill... I did not get a jump. This was another really nice hen... 35 inches.... YES!!!!! Without anything to compare 'em to, the pics suck.... but they sure look like big overgrown bow river fish don't they? This 35 incher had a girth of 18.5. I haven't done any calculations till now, but the best formula for steel is length x (girth x girth) / 690. So she'd be right about 17.36lbs. I'm pretty sure the one I got in Sept that was 36 inches was a slight bit larger (maybe 18+ pounds). These big steelhead hens are amazing. They fight soooo hard. They really do look like a bow river fish in body shape... take a 20 inch healthy bow river rainbow trout picture, and compare it. Very similar... I wish I would have put something in these pics to demonstrate better the size... something like my hand. That's a quite large reel, probably the size of a hand in a fist shape. So... it was about 1pm and I had done it again.... steelhead dreams come true. I had lots of day left, and continued to work the run. I wasn't giving up just yet, although I had figured it would be a difficult thing to get another today. about 4pm... it happened. My mind was off somewhere else.... as it had been for a while thinking about the other 3 steelhead this year, when the take came. The fly was almost on the dangle, I had been wading a lot farther out on this pass to show it to them a bit slower. The head shakes felt hefty, and then the fish rolled and turned sideways... WoWWWWW!!! I knew right away it was a big buck, as the red sides were unmissable.... I was a good battle.... and I was so excited to see such a fine fish. This was the steelhead that you could put on the cover of any journal, any magazine, any dvd... anything. It was just perfect. I wish someone would have been around with a better camera, or even to take a few more pics ... with me holding this beauty. The big male slowly swam away.... I watched it for about a minute... I could still see its color when it was 40 feet away, and then it was gone. I let out a deep breath. That was the steelhead of my dreams, the very fish I'd hoped to catch, when I first started trying for steelhead. It was a most gratifying moment. Hope you enjoyed steelheadin with me

That's right rickr... step away slowly... and join hawgstoppah's spey recovery program. Meetings every tuesday where we get together and discuss why we don't need more than one spey rod.... and interventions if neccessary!!! Greg... you really , really, need to come to spey annonymous.... :)

Hey Taco... Your picture and your GPS co-ords don't show the same place. Your GPS co-ords show a spot that we all know has absolutely no fish whatsoever. PS: did you fish that spot before the bloody damn got put in?

I take complete blame for the san jose game. I did not know it was on.... and had I not turned on my XM radio and found it, the flames would have had a good chance to win (becuase they win when I do not watch or listen). The second I turned on the game SJ scored their first two goals within a minute. And yes.... Kipper is a frikkin siv. Time to move on.. his days in the sunshine are gone.

we better see one hungry deparate team tonight. Points are easier to get this time of year than they are in April. Why does it seem the Flames are content to play lazy some games. Do we want to finish in the 7-8 seed and get stomped again in the first round?

I'll bring the bananas!

This makes me so sick I just don't even have words to describe it...

Weedy have u ever called in to the Jim Rome show? That "take" was hilarious... you should try your hand at a jim rome show e-mail or call, for sure.

To be honest... I thought this would be a thread about the Edmonton Oilers (given's the thread's title)... BURN!

Dang. Lynn musta saw a bunch of us at "wing night"

Sweet. I love brookies.

I hate snow...

snow is coming

I'm officially dumb as *hit.... and lovin it!!

All I know is... in 2004/2005 me and several friends were at bullshead a lot and Many, many, MANY fished taped at 24-26 inches, and some better. we stopped coutning the 21-22 inch fish. We were not overestimating fish sizes... as many got taped. After taping the first 3 21 inchers you know what your looking at when you have one. and there were LOTS that size and bigger, as a matter of fact I'd say over half the fish caught each day were above 20 inches easily. And the pictures of bullshead fish now--- guys they look THIN compared to the footballs of /04 and /05. And now after a bunch of years of a LOT of fish getting put in, the widespread observations are that no one is catching truly large fish anymore (22-23-24-25+) and yes, people were bonking everything in sight back then too... I'd see 15 fish / day leave the lake.... on a slow day. That's fine, the lake was created for two kinds of fisherman, we gotta accept that. But... fish the next year should have been able to get to the 22-25 inch range easily, but they are not? What happened? There's SOOOO many fish in there..... You don't have to be head cashier at Walmart to figure this one out

I'm not scared of bears, cougars, and the like... or being in wilds with them. But BEES scare the beejeesus out of me... LOL

There needs to be one of these vids for fishing... like rods breakin, peeps falling backwards outta z boat on hooksets, etc LOL

Get outta my backyard foo! LOL Nice pics man

I gotta say I'm not going to complain about a win... I thought the flames should demolish the kings but having said that I thought the Kings played a HELL of a game. And we still won it... thanks to Kipper. He was very, very solid, and stole this game. Can the team rebound from a hard and very exhuasting game tonight and get the ducks tommorow? I hope so!

Headscan. I also learned. Never trust your wife with YOUR digital camera for any period of time. The result: your first 4 large steelhead on a crap 7-11 wind and click camera

No need to change the regs, just change the ridiculous overstocking....

I have now learned that getting pictures developed in Cardston takes a frigging WEEK!!! ARRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Also... I have learned that waiting for pictures to be developed, really sucks.