Myth1228

Happy belated, old timer!

Correction - it just wasn't in the paper. Link below. http://cooksouthland.com/obituary/jeffrey-wilson

Wow, great post Clive! Sounds like he was a real pleasure to share the water with.

A sad day for Alberta fisheries. I'm sorry to hear about the loss of your friend, Don. Mr. Mitchell left behind one hell of a legacy though! His name and efforts will be remembered for many, many years to come!

Rough day today. More pics. A great shot of Jeff and bloom with 2 hawgs! This is a picture of the very first fish he ever caught at Lower K - the bully I talked about in the story above. This is a pic of the rainbow that I caught earlier that day. This is my favorite catch photo that he ever took of me - one of the funnest trips ever. This is a photo from our last fishing trip; its the last photo he ever took of me.

I always used to give him hell about those freakin ugly brown waders you can see in the pics. It was later winter in 2005 and Jeff and I decided that we should go and try fishing the Crow since we had nothing better to do. Neither of us had any waders and figured that we better stop at wholesale sports in Lethbridge on the way. Forum member Wes_G was running the fishing counter at the time and he jumped in to suit us up with waders and boots. Wes "So what can I fix you boys up with?" Us: "Cheapest thing you've got" We had our choice between a nice looking pair of breathable waders (that look like the ones he's wearing in the boat pic that Clive posted, except 100x worse quality haha) and those hideous brown things you can see him wearing in the others. I opted for the fashionable breathable waders, Jeff, on the other hand, decided to get those horrific brown things because they would likely be a lot warmer in the icy river. Well let me tell you - those damn waders would not die, or should I say he wouldn't let them die! He spent more money on fabric glue and UV knot sense and whatever other kinda repair materials than those ugly things were worth, 3x over! i always told him that he look liked an old man wearing spandex pants with a soiled diaper when he strutted around in those things. I cannot express the joy I felt the day he finally retired them after YEARS of use. He must've got 6 years out of those POS things haha. Fly fishing fashion was always a fun topic between us - anytime one of us would actually get something nice to use the other would relentlessly torment him about becoming a Bow river wannabe. I'll miss all of the fun daggers we used to chuck at each other.

Another story from the early days So it was either 2005 or 2006 – I can’t quite remember, but Dave Devlin had been making Jeff and I’s mouth water by posting pics of absolute tank bulls from Lower K; needless to say, going to K became a priority. Neither of us had ever been to K before so we pestered poor Dave endlessly asking about the do’s and dont’s of chasing big bullies. It was very early spring and most of the lake was still frozen except for about 2 football field lengths near the interlakes (we would later get absolutely roasted on FFA for posting “misleading fishing reports that caused people to travel from halfway across the province for nothing....” LOL). The weather was awful – it was snowing like a mother and very cold and foggy. I was wrapped up tight in a garbage bag that I had in my pack (if you ever heard Jeff talk about special Orvis rain gear – he meant a garbage bag with a head and arm holes cut out!) and he just sucked it up and got soaked. Fishing was slow but after a while I felt a small bump. FISH ON BUDDY, FISH ON!! He came storming over with a camera and watched me battle a beast who put of a mighty fight that could only be compared to pulling a water logged boot from the depths. Despite the less than stellar fight, I pulled the most gorgeous rainbow I’ve ever caught in my life up. We weren’t there for rainbows, but man, this one took the cake. After some hooting and hollering and pics Jeff headed down the bank and caught a small bully on a big black bugger. Mission accomplished! Well, the size wasn’t what we had in mind, but hell, it was a bully! The weather had turned so bad that we needed to make an escape. Problem: the roads had gotten so bad that we couldn’t get out! Those of you familiar with the interlakes road know there is a little ampitheatre up in the woods a few km before the lake – that’s where we took refuge. Dekkard mentioned the old Coleman stove on the back bumper – this trip was the inaugural Coleman stove bumper supper! I had brought a bunch of elk meat and Jeff had like 15 pounds of potatoes and onions and he fired up a meal any chef would have been proud of. Jeff: “Dinner time buddy! Dig in!” Me: “Uh buddy, where are the plates?” Jeff: “GODDAMNIT I FORGOT THE ***** PLATES! Guess were eating outta the pan” Me: “Haha, yeah no big deal.....um, knives and forks....?” Jeff: “You gotta be f’n kidding me....” So needless to say we enjoyed a glorious wild game dinner in a full blown blizzard monsoon while we ate with our fingers out of a hot pan. No big deal.....time to break out the bottle of Gibson’s Silver I guess. Jeff: “Rye and root beer buddy! Angel piss!” Me: “Hell yeah!” Jeff: “Grab your travel cup I’ll pour us a drink” Me: “Ugh....” Jeff: “Jesus Christ....” Me: “Give me that pop bottle, I’ll just cut the top off of it...” So we proceeded to get absolutely piled up while huddled together in the cab of his 70 something Ford while wrapped up in garbage bags and waders to avoid dying of exposure. We needed the anti-freeze to survive the night, you know! Wake up in the morning and we are both just a wreck. The snow is a foot deep and the lake is froze over. Me: “What do you figure?” Jeff: “Well, *hit, this ain’t gonna work. I feel like hell..” Me: “Me too..” Jeff: “We better head to Canmore and warm up” Me: “Sounds like a plan” Jeff: “Have you ever been to the Grizzly Paw?” Me: “Nope, what’s that?” Jeff: “Oh buddy, raspberry beer buddy. You aren’t gonna believe this stuff!” Needless to say, our inaugural K-lakes adventure turned into a Canmore runaway where I was first introduced to the sweet, sweet nectar of the God’s known as Beavertail Raspberry. We ended up grabbing the cheapest room in town and lived it up for the next couple days, but those stories may be better left off the forum hahahaha.

One of my favorite Jeff stories from the early days.... This story happened during the first year we started fishing together. As is often the case in early to mid April, Mother Nature decided to bring a bit of winter back one morning - it was COLD and WINDY - like -10 or so - cold enough that you needed to clean your line and guides after ever single cast. Jeff and I had taken a break from fishing and ran into Elkwater to grab some breakfast and warm up (something that would become a tradition - nothing better than an Elkwater breaky with your fishing buddy!) and had just returned to the lake. Needless to say that between the Tim Hortons on the drive out and the multiple pots of coffee we drank at Elkwater, the fluids were freely flowing. We were both dressed like we were traveling the Arctic in order to combat the frigid wind, so getting the business end out to relieve oneself took a bit of effort. Jeff had just cast his line out when he decided that he needed to drain the vein, so he set his rod down and stepped a few feet away. He was probably about halfway through his business when we both heard the unmistakable sound of a fly reel being drug across the gravel! Well, this was no ordinary fish - apparently it had the power of an ocean tug boat because that bugger put the afterburners on and that rod disappeared into the lake before you could even register what was happening. Jeff let out loud scream, the language of which is not appropriate for the forum (haha) and with all of the grace of a 220 pound saint bernard chasing a football, business end still hanging out of his pants and all, he dove head first into the lake in a motion that I can only describe as beautifully chaotic. Jeff was gone - I mean he was totally submerged! Even though this happened over a matter of seconds, it seemed like forever. I was freaking out - all I could see was bubbling water where he had plunged into the deep! All of a sudden a big whoosh up water flew up about 20 feet off shore and I heard my friend yell "I GOTTER BUDDY - WERE ALL GOOD!". Jeff drug himself back onto shore, surely weighing the better part of 300 pounds with all of the water he had soaked up, and instantly starting turning to a walking block of ice in the wind. The fish was still on the line, and like the pro that he was he landed that hog in short order. "Be right back buddy! Gotta grab the rig rags!" he shouted as he waddled towards his truck. Jeff was a veteran of the rigs - he knew better than to go ANYWHERE without an extra change of crappy clothes and extra winter gear. He waddled his way back to the truck, stripped down to the birthday suit and got changed. I'm still fishing wondering WTF I just witnessed. 10 minutes later here comes Jeff with new, warm clothes and 2 beer. "Hell, I think that deserves a beer, don't you?" he says. "Rig rags buddy, never leave home without em!". We fished the entire rest of the day and caught fish hand over fist. I'll never forget that day as long as I live, and I'm laughing out loud even as I type it. I can remember ever last detail of it like it just happened. Just one of many great stories I have from my dear friend.

Keep a strain on er, my friend. We'll cast together again some day. If anybody has any stories or pictures to share, please do! I'll share some good ones in a bit.

Another thing some friends of mine do is to put a very, very light coat of Loon UV Flow over top of things they build up using the Thick because the Flow dries without tackiness.

Man alive, Gary - that thing is just on another level. Deserves to be framed and displayed!

Disappointed that I was out of town - It would have been an absolute joy to watch Davie tie. He is, by far, my favorite tier.

Agreed. We're going through the same thing in the hunting community now - people lobbying to have opportunity reduced. I'm not going to pretend to have any idea about the waters in question, but people need to realize then when our hunting/fishing opportunities are reduced or taken away, they rarely ever come back. Once this section is closed, it will be on to the next one, and so on, and so forth.

It seems harder and harder to run into fishermen who understand, or, even care about, ettiquette. Yesterday during the Bullshead opener, beedhead and I had encountered a ridiculous amount of @***hole fishermen. When we first arrived at the lake, we noticed that the spot we were hoping to fish was empty. Within 20 minutes of casting out, a spin fisherman (we will get to the fly guy later) came over and started casting his huge bobber literally within 10 feet of me. Not only did this guy park himself right on top of me, but he then began to "educate" me on how to fish the lake, etc. Anyways, I got tired of this guy casting his line over top of mine and moved closer to Jeff. Shortly after the above incident we moved to the big point east of Golden Pond. After about 5 minutes of fishing, a boat with 3 spin fisherman watched Jeff pull a trout in, and then proceeded to drop anchor directly in front of us, approximately 40 feet off shore. Not willing to give up our spot for a group of @sshole boat fisherman who could have fished anywhere in the entire lake, we proceeded to have a rather loud conversation back and forth stating exactly what we thought of them, followed by tossing double nymph rigs "slightly" close to their position. After about 20 minutes of this, the boaters still hadn't had so much as a bite and decided to move on. Not long after the first boat left, another one with 2 spinners came by and watched us land a fish. Immediately upon us releasing the fish, the boat made a big U-turn and began to repeatedly troll back and forth not 25 feet in front of us. After the 3rd or 4th pass through our casting zone, Jeff loudly commented that we could probably land our rigs right in their boat if we wanted to. Not being one to pass up a challenge I waited for the boat to come back for the next pass and laid out a number of false casts directly in their line of travel (Obviously I wasn't about to try and intentionally hit anybody with my rig, they were 60 feet away and approaching - the point was to make it clear to them that we were tired of having a freaking boat repeatedly motor directly through our cast zone). Again, this boat got the hint and moved on. The final and, perhaps, most obnoxious hole roach came an hour or so after the second boat left. Jeff and I were fishing approximately 50 feet down from another pair of fisherman. We had been fishing near this group all morning, and each pair was leapfrogging over eachother throughout the morning. Any time one of the pairs passed the other one, we always made sure to give a good distance so as to not interfere with the stationary group's fishing. After a while, the guys we had been leapfrogging had moved to about 40 feet or so away from us when @***hole #3 came strutting over the otherwise barren area and parked himself right in between Jeff and the other group. @***hole #3 was a fly fisherman with the worst casting skills imaginable and a real inflated sense of himself as best I could tell. Both our group and the other pair immediately looked at this guy as if to way "wtf?", yet he just kept casting into each of Jeff and the other guy's cast areas. Not only did this guy think it was a fantastic idea to interfere with two fisherman, but he also thought it would be a great idea to stare at Jeff and I with dirty looks the entire time he was there. After a 20 minute staring match between us and the new guy, we decided to go back to the parking lot where we met up with adc and his friends. I honestly do not understand how people rationalize that they should jump directly on top of other people and cross lines with them. I, as well as Jeff and the others from this board that we routinely fish with, go out of our way, to the point of fishing in less than ideal locations, to avoid interfering with the enjoyment of others. As was stated above, when somebody approaches and shoots the breeze a bit, builds a rapport, etc we are more than happy to share what we are using and scoot over so they can join us; however, when people like those described in my above rant decide to try and push us out of our holes without so much as a hello, we don't typically respond as kindly. In any event, the situations described throughout this thread are all to common and it wont be the first, nor the last, time that any of us experience them.