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Everything posted by dryfly
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Go here to check historic flows on the Bow. https://wateroffice.ec.gc.ca/report/historical_e.html?stn=05BH004 Years going back to well before TerryH was even a twinkle in his dad's eye. Current flow data is here. http://www.environment.alberta.ca/apps/basins/DisplayData.aspx?Type=Table&BasinID=8&DataType=1&StationID=RBOWCALG You can get lost in this data stuff very easily. Too bad more people don't pay attention to the past...most things we read about being "unprecedented" rarely are. Clive
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More Cases Of Whirling Disease Found
dryfly replied to fishjunkie's topic in General Chat - Fishing Related
The wide area where it has been confirmed proves that it has been here for years and years. And THAT is good news because it means the incidence and severity are limited. (This does not mean all of the posted precautions etc etc should not be taken. i.e. we can't be flippant.) For those who think it is "new," it takes little logic to know that it did not get from the upper Bow system to the OM system in a few months. As many others have noted, I saw the first (highly probable) case between 1995 and 2000...,was unable to net it although I "reported" it. As for jailing the perps. Good luck with that. These are as likely as anglers. By 2006, the disease was <100 km from the Crowsnest. About a 90-minute flight by geese. Hypothetical scenario: goose waddles about the muddy banks/waters of a MT stream. Is sick of Bush or especially Obama and decides to cross the border. It lands on the stream bank in Canadia one or two hours later with the mud still on its feet. Probability? Pretty low, but with time..... Bet that has happened given the widespread distribution of geese. Wait there is more. Canada geese were not common along the Eastern Slopes 40 years ago. Their population and range have spread far and wide in the past few decades. -
Barry Mitchell Has Passed Away
dryfly replied to DonAndersen's topic in General Chat - Not Fishing Related (NFR)
He was one of the good ones. -
Taco Was dry in 2015. Water comes from Chain Lakes via Willow Creek??? Gonna be runoff this spring. Maybe letting flows run downstream to protect the 13-spine-spotted-dace-darter which someone had decided is a "species of concern...so I can get a job studying it for 30 years." Such a cynical ***hole I am. Clive
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In 2016, Pine Coulee wx station rec'd same rain as YYC and both a titch above average. http://agriculture.alberta.ca/acis/weather-data-viewer/graph.jsp?stations=2049,11715&elements=PRA,PRL&startdate=20160401&enddate=20161031&interval=DAILY&precipunit=mm PC drier in 2015. http://agriculture.alberta.ca/acis/weather-data-viewer/graph.jsp?stations=2049,11715&elements=PRA,PRL&startdate=20150401&enddate=20151031&interval=DAILY&precipunit=mm Some mgt thing going with the the levels.
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The current low water levels do not bode well for a sustaining trout fishery. Neighbour said they dropped very low last year after going down a bit the years before. The reasons and long-term status are unknown. http://www.environment.alberta.ca/apps/basins/DisplayData.aspx?Type=Figure&BasinID=10&DataType=3&StationID=RPINERES
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Here is what my neighbour wrote this morning. He makes great points. Seems hard to believe the walleye fishery isn't working? During the summer the walleye catch is phenomenal, catch and release, which makes it difficult to understand. The walleye caught are all about 14 to 18 inches long. Perhaps that is an indication of something I am unaware of. It's been a great place or hot spot to go to have some fun and to take kids or adults that have not fished, as one was almost guaranteed to catch. Have never experienced trout fishing with such 'frenzy'. Not sure what is involved in letting a walleye fishery go, or how long a trout fishery would take to mature to the point of allowing any angling. Over the last couple of years the water level in the reservoir has become very low. It is reported to be about 20-feet down from it's usual level at around 50% capacity. If there isn't more run off and rain, and possibly less demand on the reservoir water, a fishery of any type might be difficult.
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Neighbour wrote: We have caught a few pike over the years at PC but have mostly caught walleyes and a few burbot.
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Good point. Wonder how many pike are there. Hard to get rid of them all. If a few remained and ate a few hundred trout annually, there'd be a few monster pike in there. Not a bad thing. I recall John next door using pike lures in there and the never caught any or one or two. I'll ask him.
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My comments. Hard for a mouthy bugger like me to stick to 255 characters. This is a HUGE opportunity and must NOT be lost! As there is no "trout" history here (with locals to complain about their right to kill trout), MAKE THIS A QSF FISHERY with regs similar to Bullshead and Police Outpost. We have few opportunities. Use it!! One of THE huge issues with creating QSFs is their "history." The old farts who have killed trout in XYZ Pond since the last ice age, feel it is their god-given right. If the walleye are not working out, then trout are a great option to at least attempt. With no walleye stocking and appropriate trout stocking, trout would be the only species within 3 to 5 years. Our neighbours camp there 2 or 3 times every summer. They like to take younger kids and their "grandkids" because they could always catch a lot of fish and they did not care about size and let 'em all go anyway. They really would not care whether they were walleyes or trout. They whack a few trout every summer, but they also love to catch big fish. This is such a huge opportunity. Clive
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The white silica pellets work great for big dryflies. POUND the pellets w a hammer on a hard surface outside...the fine dust should not be inhaled. A coffee grinder makes it too fine. Clive
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A very good read. The mayor of Fort St. John posted this letter in a Vancouver newspaper...addressed to BC residents. ALL Canadians should read this. http://www.fortstjohn.ca/sites/default/files/public_notice/Mayors%20letter%20VancouverSun.pdf Clive
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More Cases Of Whirling Disease Found
dryfly replied to fishjunkie's topic in General Chat - Fishing Related
Taco said that WD has been here for a while and I agreed. Seems so incredibly improbable that it would not be here given the links between our waters and those in Montana. Those links being anglers and birds. Way back in 1999, I wrote an article about WD on FOAL, here: http://flyanglersonline.com/features/canada/can42.php In that I wrote Whirling disease thrives in streams just hours away in southern Montana. I could fish in southern Montana in the morning, and wade into the Crowsnest River in southern Alberta for the evening rise. If I had been fishing in a Montana stream infested with whirling disease I would almost certainly infect the Crowsnest with this dreaded pest that was carried in the mud on my waders! It's that simple folks. At least it's reportedly that simple, but some argue that it is not spread so easily. They claim that it should have spread to our rivers by Canada Geese or other birds that are common inhabitants of both sides of the USA-Canada border. Perhaps. Can geese (that wade the shores of southern Montana streams) fly non-stop to southern Alberta? Surely they would rarely do this without resting along the way and presumably rinsing mud off in ponds and sloughs. The majority of southern birds (that could carry the disease) would end up on the Great Plains of Alberta where there are few trout. But I admit there are a lot of geese and other birds, and this has to be a real possibility, if not highly probable. Perhaps spread by birds was/is not highly probable but still a possibility and with time the probability simply increased. Just read that birds like gulls readily spread the disease as they eat dead fish on shore. If it flares up, then it might be new. If it remains at low levels in the next few years, then perhaps it has been here a while. Who knows? Clive -
More Cases Of Whirling Disease Found
dryfly replied to fishjunkie's topic in General Chat - Fishing Related
What Taco said. "IMO whirling disease has been present in Alberta waters for at least 20 yrs." Agreed 100%. -
Aeration At Police Outpost To Resume Next Winter
dryfly replied to dryfly's topic in General Chat - Fishing Related
"So maybe by the time I'm there, they've buggered off. " No kidding eh? "Psst, Clive's coming, time to head deeper." Regarding shore cruisers, Don, I was referring to fall cruisers chasing food in the shallows vs horny spring fish. Gonna make one last trip to POL this morning. Fingers crossed. -
Over the years, some of us have openly complained about service at Wholesale Sports in Lethbridge. Some of it was probably “after taste” from the holdover days of Hoyt’s that morphed into WSS. Experiences were generally not great but we still shopped there because it was the only game in town. Last spring, I purchased a pair of Streamside waders at WSS Lethbridge. I never used them much this year and when I went to Bullshead on Monday both legs leaked … the inside and outside seams on both legs were seeping. Not good and I was not happy. On Tuesday, I took them back to WSS but I never had a receipt. (My wife and I keep all receipts and they are sorted and stored in accordion folders for 7 years. But this receipt was MIA perhpas because the waders were purchased with a gift card vs VISA. Dunno. No receipt.) Brian, one of the managers, said not having a receipt was a problem and he’d talk to the store manager and could I please come back. So yesterday, I returned, ready for a dust up and Brian opened the conversation by saying, “We will refund the purchase price.” Naturally, I used the refund to buy another pair of waders. Anyway, I’d thought I’d share that pleasant experience at Lethbridge WSS. The staff were pleasant and helpful and the outcome good. Clive
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Aeration At Police Outpost To Resume Next Winter
dryfly replied to dryfly's topic in General Chat - Fishing Related
Hey Bron..good question and I do not know. "In cooler water, intuition tells me that fish would be more likely to be in shallow feeding. " Agree 100%, but in both BH and Whitetail the Pennask trips seem to stay away from the shoreline. No idea why. Having said that, last last October, I fished the north banks for about 90 minutes (in wet waders and before hypothermia set in ) and caught (what??) 9 or 10 large fish from shore. We went to whitetail specifically to sight fish on the marl flats at the north end. We stopped going after 2012 because there were no longer any fish on the flats...and it seems there were less and less every year after they started with the trips. What we have found surprising is at times there are thousands (thousands) of minnows cruising the shorelines and yet we never see cruisers feeding on them. Might be simply the Curse of Clive and perhaps I am simply not getting out enough to bump into the occasional hot day. It is odd and I don't know. -
Aeration At Police Outpost To Resume Next Winter
dryfly replied to dryfly's topic in General Chat - Fishing Related
Update October 26 Today we (OM TU pres and I) met with Brad and Trevor from the ACA Lethbridge district. ACA will install two aerators on November 2. OM TU will help pay for the power costs. If all goes according to plan the fencing and signage will be installed as soon as the ice is safe. It will be monitored on occasion in winter. Regarding Criminal Code 263, the ACA's and AEP's legal advice is that such aeration is "for the good of the public" and reasonable safeguards adequate. Apparently, BC went though this law and that was how they settled. In addition, ACA plans to continue monitoring of O2 and nutrients with a view to explaining the fish size. We looked into windmills when concerns were raised about Henninger's as there is no power there. As I recall, it takes a lot of mechanical windmills. "Weeds are worse on every lake I fished in Alberta this year." Interesting comment since weeds are the food factories of lakes and an integral and essential part of the aquatic ecosystem. We complain about them in lakes like Bullshead, but still they serve a function. BH seemed a bit worse this year which is likely the result of low water the past year and warm temps in May and June. After that it was cooler and wetter than long-term average. POL weeds seems "normal" to me. A side note that will stir the pot. Casual observation leads me to think that triploids are probably not the answer in Alberta's cooler lakes (cooler then BC). Since BH went triploid we no longer see the numbers of fish near the shore lines and catch rates from shore and boats are down over 4 or 5 years back. We also saw that at Whitetail Lake (BC). It seemed that when stocking switched from diploid Pennasks to triplod Pennasks they no longer used the north end flats and stayed in deeper water. Seems so. Who knows? Anyway, POL will be aerated and the water condition will be monitored. Clive -
Today, I rec'd an email from Brad Hurkett, ACA fisheries bio. He wrote: ACA has adopted Police Outpost Lake to our Lake Aeration Program and will start winter aeration activities this October. Aeration operations will include running two surface aerators at existing aeration sites in POL and monitor DO and ice conditions regularly throughout the winter. As a component to all new ACA aerated lakes, we will initiate a two year water quality (Nitrites, Nitrites, NH4, Chlorophyll A, conductivity, etc.) sampling series during the summer months for two years to establish a baseline. We had asked that nutrients be measured and they will do so. BTW, chlorophyll is measured to to assess P concentrations. ACA will be working with Oldman TU regarding electricity costs. Great news. Clive
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Hope they get on this stat. Not good. Some opinions: It is higher than the valley and water flows downhill.... Unless there is a definitive barrier, the water will connect to the Bow drainage one way or another. Origin? Who knows? But probably a tourist angler...just a few hours from MT. Or something else. Totally agree with Bron. Nuke the lake ASAP with rotenone and federal eco regs be damned. No time for committee meetings and budget approvals. OMG, I fished Johnson from circa 1957 to ~1961 .... used Black Gnats and McGiintys with a torpedo bubble and spinning rod. We used to drool at the occasional pig trout that would leap clear of the water out in the middle ... no craft allowed then.
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Looking For A Pfleuger Trion 5/6 Reel.....
dryfly replied to bigalcal's topic in General Chat - Fishing Related
I bought a Pflueger President in WSS at their UFA outlet in Pincher last fall for $107. Think they still have some but prob not in 5/6...not sure if the President comes that small. Great reels...have two. -
Shannon Phillips is just getting going. She will force Albertans to spend between $30 and $50 billion (billion) on JUST the phasing out of coal power generation!! She and cabinet will spend countless billions of carbon tax money on pretending to change the earth's climate. Yet REAL environmental protection and mitigation will suffer badly. (Perhaps your example is the start.) For every billion we waste on ideological non solutions there is one billion less to spend on environmental protection. Phillips was named one of Alberta's most influential persons. Unfortunately that accolade is akin to Time Magazine naming ISIS as "news maker of the year"! She is influential indeed, but her ideological plans are inane. (And don't get me going about she is lying about coal plants affecting your health. She refuses to supply me with data supporting that claim because the data refute her false claims. The U of A refute her claim based on hard environmental monitoring data. And not one person on this board breaths emissions from coal plants. She is lying and will stop at nothing to hurt fossil fuels!) Anyway, Phillips' legacy will be the waste of billions of dollars and the environment will suffer because of her ideological hate of ALL fossil fuels. She is just getting going and has three more years to lay waste to Alberta and Albertan's bank accounts. Clive
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Hwy 40 Squatters
dryfly replied to BurningChrome's topic in General Chat - Not Fishing Related (NFR)
Check the area for trail cams and then toss an open jar of honey or jam inside the tent. (Bacon is far too valuable to waste as bear bait.) If there is a trail camera nearby, make a print of this and hold it in front of the lens.