Bigtoad

Quoting Harps: "For a Trico spinner, go much smaller and thinner. One way to tie is to have 2 black balls of dubbing with the front having spent wings. This imitates a cluster of Tricos. I also tye mine with a dubbing ball in the middle with the wings sticking out the front and back on a larger hook or just a dubbing ball in the center of the shaft and wings sticking out the sides." What would you suggest for dubbing material? Do you have any picks of the flies? Cheers.

I tied it on a mustad 2X size 14. Probably too big for a trico but I wanted to get it right before going smaller. Looks pretty freaking small to me already. Thanks for the input.

I've been on a fly tying binge lately and have been trying out some new ideas (at least for me). I'm not a great tier by any means but I impressed myself with these ones. This is a stimmie but I thought why not add some sweet legs to these things? Body is fuzzy foam wrapped around. Should I be copyrighting this thing or am I so far behind the times that I think I'm ahead? Does anyone have a favorite adult golden stone imitation that they prefer on the Bow? I love the Chernobyl ant but I'm trying to find some other options for when they want something a bit different. This one is my first attempt at a Trico spinner. I added the post for visibility. Any suggestions? Cheers.

You guys are all wrong. OBVIOUSLY, a big brown was trying to eat it. Must have had one of its legs in its mouth and was trying to drown it. Anyone have a good goose pattern???? Cheers

It's interesting, but probably 3 out of my biggest 5 browns from Stauffer (20 inch range) have been caught within 30 yards of either bridges or easy access points that we see an incredible amount of fishing pressure. At least for C & R waters, I think this little piece of anecdotal evidence at least makes me start to rethink my ideas that heavy fishing pressure = smaller/less fish. I definitely agree that in catch and keep this would be different but I'm not convinced it's true on C & R one's. Also, how will any of us know if we are giving away a secret spot or stepping on someone's toes? I recommend that we use this thread to list ALL of the secret spots that people have, and that way, people will know that they shouldn't mention anything about waters on the list? My $0.02 Cheers.

Here's my vote for 4x4ing: My wife and I went on an extended vacation last year for 5 months; 4 in NZ and 1 in Australia. One of the many adventures we had was a 4x4 trip on Fraser Island where 10 people you don't know get together and rent a Land Cruiser and gear and drive/camp around an island with no roads. We would just drive down the beaches (speed limit 80 by the way) until high tide and then drive the 4x4 trails inland through rainforest. It was a great trip until the last night when a huge storm rolled through. We headed out early the next morning to make it back on time to the ferry. It was low tide but what we didn't realize was that the storm had washed most of the beach away further down. It also made stream crossings tricky. I eased up to one stream and dropped the front tires down the bank and the water was close to the top of the wheels. I crawled forward and dropped the back in as well. So far so good. I waited for a wave from the beach to go back downstream and then I punched it. I realized I was in a bit of trouble midway across when the top of the hood disappeared under the water!!!! (luckily we had a snorkel). The next wave was also bearing down on us and was going to hit us at the top of the cabin. With all of our gear up top, we probably would have flipped over in the river if the tide had hit us. However, I pinned it when the hood disappeared and we made it out the other side unscathed, but a little shaky. The beach was another matter. The swells were so large that there were times when there was nowhere to go but straight through. There would be a berm of sand on one side and waves coming right up to the berm. The only thing to do was drive through the water. There were times that the water rushing out was pulling the back end sideways. Basically, for about 8 kms, it was a game of cat and mouse with the ocean. I would stay as high as I could on the beach dodging pieces of driftwood the size of a VW that the storm had deposited the night before. Then, when a wave would open up some beach, I would dart out and start shifting gears and make up as much real estate as I could until the next one came back up and forced me up into the driftwood minefield again. The sand was saturated with all of the rain and was just like mud. If I had stopped, we would have gotten stuck and if we had gotten stuck, I think we would have been really screwed. What we went through with that Land Cruiser was ridiculous. When you shift them down to 4 low, they are like a Sherman Tank. Land Cruiser with a snorkel would be my pick (if I could afford one) hands down. Cheers.

I want to catch a monster brown on a mouse pattern either from the Bow, Stauffer, or Prairie. Anyone done this before??? Cheers.

In Barry Mitchell's "Fishing the Forestry Trunk Road" he explains in one of the first chapters about a study done in a lake with various types of trout. If memory serves me correctly, Bulls and Cutts were the statistically the easiest to catch. All things being equal, for every five of those you catch, you could expect to catch one Rainbow. For every five rainbows you catch, you can expect to catch one brown. Soooooo for every brown, you should expect to catch 25 cutts. I'm not sure how reliable the "scientific" data for these findings are but if they are even remotely accurate (and I'll assume there is some truth here) then catching a brown is statistically more rewarding. I would also have to say that for me, there is just something about a brown that I love. Can't put my finger quite on it but brown's are really what get my heart pumping. Cheers.

I've had my fair share of missing big ones. Murphy's law just kicks in and I miss the take, or I screw up the set, or if everything goes really well and I get the beast on, I'll end up getting the line wrapped around my reel, or whatever. I'm a disgrace... Anyway, the one that haunts me the most was on a camping trip my dad and I took down the bow 2 years ago. We had tented the night before and I was up early fishing the inside of a beautiful riffle on a corner. I was in the shallow, still water when I saw a golden stone fall into the water 15 feet upstream of me, splash across the top of the calm water and then Gulp, it was gone. I got excited, gave the fish a few seconds to swallow the stone, and then cast a Chernobyl Ant 3 feet above it, twitched it, and Gulp, it was gone, just like the real one. I set the hook and after a couple minutes I landed a beautiful 21" rainbow. I proceeded to fish the inside of riffle and caught a couple more of similar size. I had made it to the head of the riffle and decided I would throw one out to the outside seam, which was a bit of a reach for me but it hit the seam perfectly. I twitched it, and then what looked like a log floated up from the bottom and stopped 6 inches from my ant. I had made a reach cast upstream and had twitched it upstream but the faster moving middle section of the riffle was eating up my slack line quickly. The monster just floated downstream staying 6 inches from my fly for probably 6 feet and I was desperately trying to keep it drag free for as long as possible. Finally, just as my slack line ran out, it closed the distance and put it's ginormous lips around my fly. He was just closing his trap when the slack went out of the line and the fly popped out of his mouth. I just felt a light tap and he was gone. I got a really good look at him... too good. He was an absolute monster of a brown, easily over 25" and the biggest thing outside of NZ that I've ever seen. When I close my eyes, I can still see that monster mouth closing in on my fly. Another millisecond of drag-free drift and I would have had it... of course, once on, who knows what I would do with something that big??? But that fish (and the others like him) are definitely what keep me going. It's the what-could-have-been that keeps me coming back.

I was the youngest grandchild and growing up my grandparents lived only a few hundred yards away, so I was pretty spoiled. We had a pond and every summer my grandpa would put in 100 stocked rainbows and every winter they would winter kill. In desperation to catch fish, as young boys will often do, I resorted to a number of "techniques" to catch these said fish before winter beat me to it. 1. When I would catch one, I would immediately turn and run the other direction until I beached them, then run back and grab them before they slithered back into the water (I was having trouble landing them). 2. I had heard about people making their own flies so I made my own with my mom's sewing thread, a bait hook I found in my dad's tackle box, a pussy willow, and a feather I found on the ground. No glue, just a bunch of granny knots. And I actually caught a fish with it! But then it was wrecked. 3. We fed them fish pellets so in late fall, I would throw out a bunch of pellets and then toss out a piece of dog food with a hook in it. Worked like a charm. 4. In the winter my grandpa and I would snare them through the ice. Then we discovered that if we used fish pellets as bait, they would launch themselves up through the hole in the ice to get the floating pellets and land on the ice.... No more need for the snare! 5. Before ice-up, to get the last few fish out of the pond, my dad had heard that a shotgun shot in the water would stun them and they would float to the surface. So of course, we row out into the pond with the 12 gauge, and grandpa aims the gun into the water while sitting in the boat. He had to pull the trigger with his thumb because of the positioning of the gun. When he shot, the gun almost ripped his thumb off, he almost dropped the gun into the pond, and we both got absolutely soaked with the water spray from the gun. All of this would have been worth it if it had worked, but alas... no fish came to the surface. When my dad and grandpa started discussing the use of pop bottles filled with lime and there being an "explosion" my mom and grandma put an instant stop to the scheming for that year. The fish had won.

I have a macbook that I bought about 3 years ago. I LOVE it! iDVD and iMovie are also really fun to play with. Making a little DVD of a holiday or fishing expedition are incredibly user-friendly but also very powerful. Once you go Mac you'll never go back. Seriously. Cheers.

First one is not fishing related but still one of my favorite pics. It's on a hiking trip on the Franz Joseph glacier in New Zealand back toward what we had already climbed through. It was a pretty fantastic day. Second one is a pic I took on a Blackstone tributary of a really nice cuttie that wasn't in a hurry to swim away. Cheers.

I did make it out. I caught a couple of whities, saw a ton of Redds with some bruisers on them (my first time seeing Redds. I tried to keep my distance). Had a nice Rainbow on but long-released him and caught this nice brown. There weren't any Redds around and it was directly below a riffle. I was trying to be as respectful as possible. Released it quickly. Was pretty slow but a fantastic day to be out. Also saw this fantastic whitetail at about 20 yards. Beautiful day. Cheers.

I've asked before on this forum for general locations on the Bow because I am from out of town. I don't have the time to spend every waking moment on the river. I get there 4 or 5 times a year. I've appreciated the advice that people have offered me. However, I totally agree, if people want to get specific, then they should send a PM. Most of the time I'm just interesting in knowing where the fish are in the river... ex. what KIND of water will they be found in? Not WHICH pool or run. Being from out of town, its humbling to go the Bow one day and stumble on a few fish, make a mental note where and what they are eating and go back there a week or even a day later and not find them where they are at. Again, I just want info on what kind of water to start fishing. There's a lot out there and I can waste a lot of time fishing the wrong water in the right way with the right stuff. Last thought... I think it needs to go both ways. I fish Prairie and Stauffer quite a few times in the spring and early summer and am totally willing to give people that haven't fished there at least a start in the right direction. I'm not going to give them the exact locations of every sweet spot, but I want them to have enough info to be successful. Cheers.

I'm thinking about coming down to Calgary on Sunday and doing a little nymphing. I was thinking about somewhere fishcreekish? What areas are open and what areas are closed??? I find that the fishing regs aren't really clear. For instance, on the far upstream side of fishcreek park on the west side of the river, you can't cross that side channel/creek and fish off of the island can you? It's a reserve or something? Is that in the regs? Where is a good place to start for this time of year? Anyway, if someone could even PM me and let me know a general area that I could at least start from that would be swell. Something a bit more specific than "in the water," but not necessarily as specific as "after the last tree, take 5 large steps 30 degrees north, 15 smaller steps due South, tie on a # 20 prince-nymph with one white biot and the other a light tan. Cast upstream at a 40 degree angle with 15 feet of line and hold on," although I wouldn't be complaining about exact location either. I'm just looking for a little help. Also, I've been seeing on here that most are catching fish on snow-cones, and other small nymphs? Is this where I should start? Do you guys put the weight at the bottom of your 2 fly rigs or above the flies? Cheers.

Ok, so I know ice fishing isn't fly fishing and no-one really wants to start thinking about the ice and snow but this one's been on my mind. There are a lot of wire-worms and stuff out there for ice-fishing but there's got to be something better that guys are tieing up? There also has to be some guys on this forum that understand the entomology of stillwater in the winter right? For instance, do waterboatmen run around during the winter? Is there a pattern out there people have used in the winter? What about leeches? Or caddis? What about dragonflies and damsels? So, as you can see, lot of questions with little answers. Let's pool all of our knowledge together so that I can reap all of the benefits this winter. Win/Win right? Cheers

Yes!

I went with Joe last year. He is worth the trip just for the entertainment. You could go and not catch a fish (although unlikely) and it would still be worth the money. Cheers.

I haven't done it myself but I have a couple cousins that have done it the past 2 or 3 years. They usually do it right at ice off but before run-off...there is a pretty good sized river to cross that can be pretty tricky if water levels are too high. They go in one day and camp for 2 or 3 nights. This year they made little carts to push in front of them with all the gear. Seemed to work well. Before they just humped the bellyboats and gear in with backpacks. Pictures they bring back make it all seem worth it to me. I just haven't been able to time when they go with my time off or I would be up there in a heartbeat. Cheers.

I don't think that was the reason.... I tie my knots the same way I do other things; lots of lubrication and I take my time. However; like other things, sometimes even though I think I'm doing something right, doesn't necessarily mean that I am. Cheers!

What kind do you use?

Went on a float trip with my dad at the beginning of this week. Was using a Bow-River-Buggar when this guy hit. Immediately was airborn and then took me way into my backing. Finally landed the hog. He was shorter than I had expected at 22 inches but his shoulders were like a linebackers. Best brown by far for me. Had lots of action on big foam dries in the evening and early morning as well. Caught lots in the 17-19 range. I purchased some "climax" 10 lb tippet before going out and it seemed to keep breaking at the knot on me. It didn't seem rotten or anything but my line broke way too often right at the knot when there didn't even seem to be much pressure. Is the brand crap or what? Cheers.

You had me at hello.... you had me at hello. I freaking love your videos. Some of the best I've seen. Cheers.