dryfly

rickr... That's very funny. No mention of Elbonia ... which you Dilbert fans with recognize. Clive

The next Oldman TU meeting will feature a presentation by Jeff Cox (the SW officer this year) and by Andrew Gustavson, F&W Officer from Blairmore who worked with Jeff. To quote Andrew, "Lots of war stories we can tell though. I'm sure the guys would like to hear stories of a few bad guys getting tickets." Wednesday, October 15, 2008 ATCO Gas Building 410 Stafford Drive North, Lethbridge MAP 7:30 to 9:30 PM The full meeting notice is here... This is a great opportunity for you to learn about what really is happening with Stream Watch in the field. We will also be discussing plans for 2009. Cheers! Clive

A few days ago there was a sow BB and twin cubs at the falls in the Gap....from the Stream Watch officer. Now maybe I can fish in peace! KIDDING..won't see me there.

There is a book on pike and I can't remember the name..just Google it. Here are some pages on FF for pike here in Southern Alberta..most of what you need to know is here. http://members.shaw.ca/clives/pikeflyfish.html I am gone now for one week. Clive

Thanks jksnijders! Very cool rattler shot. I want to find one of these for pictures. Next year now. HA HA. I walked down to that old house last spring to take pics...too early for snakes..still ice about. Clive

Sooo? Those bulls snakes? I have trouble distinguishing them from rattlers. Where's snakeman when need him? jksnijders...what were those two doing? Making whoopee or one eating the other? I looked for rattlers a few weeks ago and could not find any and then got a call when I was away. One day..maybe. Thanks guys.

Taco! That was more difficult to read than maxwell's. :lol: Had a swell day did we? And twernt it you what sed, "Yeah I know...I like totally hate old people with talent and time" Old? OLD? Me? Never heard me say anything about naps, young feller! ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Plop!

From a couple of weeks back ... interesting stuff... was walking about one evening looking for dragonflies to shoot...they were too hyper.... instead I saw one damsel and as I focused with the macro realized it was eating another insect. (Type unknown. Thought was a small mayfly, but no tail. Prob a small diptera of sorts.) The damsel moved twice while I was shooting so there are three venues here. (Good thing it did not fly away vs just move and I could track it.) 1) When I first saw the damsel with the insect. 2) Closeup ... while most of the insect's abdomen was whole. Its head is not being eaten but hidden behind the damsel thorax. 3) Abdomen half gone. Yum! 4) New location. Not much left. 5) Another location. Nearly gone. 6) Done. BURP! Perhaps the head and most of the thorax are not too nutritious or tasty. The damsel released the insect and one of the expired insect's legs caught on the damsel's leg and hung there. Oh BTW..the insect struggled most of the time and was still alive (or at least protesting) until the very end. Hardly lions-eating-gazelles stuff, but still fun. Well ... maybe not if you are dinner.

rusty makes some good points...getting a new camera cam be like getting into fly tying... worse than drugs... "The D40x doesn't have it automatically onboard and I sorta wish I'd stepped it up a notch." HDR is getting a tad technical, but can save some pix in a few instances--and make for cool images as well. My A700 has a DRO (HDR) feature built in ... won't go into details here... rusty's main point is that it does not stop at the camera and lens....." ... bag, UV filter, lenspen, and a good memory card. It will add up on you in a hurry..." Another thing lost an folks...all of a sudden the file sizes are huge. My BIL's D80 files are only about 3 to 6 MB each off his D80 ... the files off my 12mp A700 camera with good lenses (lenses make a diff to file size believe it or not..sharper the lens the more detail the more data to record) range from 8 to 13MB per XF JPEG image and RAW are 18MB per image...RAW + jpeg ar 23-25 MB per image........ Point being? Your computer has to be able to handle this stuff... you need a minimum of 2 GB RAM and preferably 3 or more....hard drive space starts to fill fast ... I am on the verge of getting a new terabyte HD and I already have close to a TB in HD storage. Card -- at least a 2GB ..if you take a lot you'll need way more..I am currently using (what??) 12 GB of cards (2 by 4 Gb and a some 1 and 2GB cards..I dunno) and one week away can pressure that space if I don't have a means of dumping files, i.e. no travel laptop. Cover the lens with a UV filter... If you are into artsy scenics a polarizing filter is a must have too. Sexy dark blue skies and dramatic clouds--if you are into that. They run about $100 for a good one .. get a "thin" one ... Good telephoto .. good macro ... a second job ... good divorce lawyer .....

Conor, All of the four major DSLR companies (Nikon, Sony, Canon and Pentax) make good gear. I am now a Sony person as I was a Minolta guy for 40 years and stayed with the lens mount when Sony bought Minolta. However, were I starting out, I'd go Nikon. Period. Canon is most popular (and I'll take some heat here), but you want to check into the ease (or difficulty) of their menus before deciding on Canon. My Sony A700 has wonderful controls and I rarely have to go into the camera's menu. The ISO, WB, and drive modes are changed with external dials/switches and the entire setting system is displayed on a large color LCD screen on the back. IMHO it is superior to the equivalent Nikon bodies in ease of use. Sony is short of lenses (and they are expensive), although they'd released some new ones this year and I bought two of them--and sold two older ones. At that budget you are looking at something like the Nikon D40 .. or equivalent. Kit lenses are never great, but for general photography, they are fine. Lose your head inside here for a while... Good luck, Clive

Thanks. Was most fun. Confession time gang! How many of us have seen this happen and managed to pull the fly away about the same time its nose comes up? :P Never happened to me personally. Well not today anyway.

Class act GreenPeter. Thanks for the "thanks." Glad it work well for you. Cheers! Clive

Great fishing and other pictures guys. Great memories for everyone. I love looking at pictures. Thanks. Clive

Very nice. Thanks for the post. Clive

Thanks for that Cheeler. And thanks to all. cdock...send me an email and I'll email you a PDF flier .. clives AT shaw.ca Stay tuned.

Thanks all. Was a hoot to watch. Was glad I was lugging the telephoto lens. RE: Did I catch it? No I did not catch it as I did not have my fishing gear with me ... I took these while with the Stream Watch officer. RE: Classes. Yeah I do classes now and then, to whomever asked. RE: Polarizer. A polarizer takes the glare off the water. The filter was back up at the truck and was too far away to get...these pix had to be taken as you never know when it will be over. And it was over soon enough as another trout came over and they did not like each other and sort of scrapped and left. We watched this fish feed for perhaps 5 minutes. RE: Camera. A Sony A700 12 MP DSLR with G Series 70-300 telephoto and a monopod. (I was a Minolta guy for 40 years and Sony bought Minolta two years ago. They are carrying on the high-quality Minolta tradition. Coming out with some good glass. This month they will release a 24 MP full-frame DSLR. I will pass unless I win 649.)

I use the Optio W20. It takes good pix but I REALLY despite its lack of eye piece view finder. I don't know if anyone makes a WP with an eyepiece viewer. Taken on Sunday ...

Series three and four.... Didn't have the polarizer so the glare is a but much...check the shadow in the top series....fun stuff.

Found a riser on the OM last week in the Gap...was most cooperative and ate bugs from about 6 m away. Way cool. Thought you'd like to see them. Oh yeah, it ate a TWIG--and spit it out!! Why won't they eat our flies sometimes? Second series is here. All the same fish. Cheers! Clive Second

(Dave or ___ ... can you perhaps pin this post? Thanks.) Hi all...been a while. Last Friday I was privileged to accompany the Stream Watch Seasonal Enforcement Officer, Jeff Cox, on one of his routine stream patrols. We were on the Racehorse, upper OM, Livingstone and OM at the Gap. Most enlightening .. so I am sharing. Below is a letter I wrote to Kevin Stalker an enforcement manger with SRD--it describes what we did and what happened. This is a gallery of some pictures taken that day. Sorry no captions. Photo gallery of random pictures..click View Show once there ... This is one helluva program gang and we hope you wil pony up next year! Thanks to all who supported this program for SW Alberta this year. l Here is the letter I wrote to Kevin Stalker. Clive Kevin Stalker Fish and Wildlife Enforcement Manager Fish and Wildlife Sustainable Resource Development 2nd fl Provincial Building 4919 - 51 Street Rocky Mountain House, AB T4T 1B3 August 19, 2008 Dear Kevin: RE: Stream Watch in Southwestern Alberta On Friday, August 15, I accompanied Jeff Cox, Seasonal Enforcement Officer, based out of Blairmore. I had asked to do a ride-along so I could take pictures and get a feel for a typical Stream Watch patrol day. Jeff and I left the Blairmore office at approximately 9 AM and headed north up the FTR toward Racehorse. During the day, we scanned stretches of rivers and walked parts of the Racehorse, Oldman River in the Gap and downstream of the Gap, the Oldman up toward Dutch Creek, the Livingstone River near the confluence with the Oldman and the Northwest branch of the Oldman. Throughout the day, we stopped to walk parts of the rivers where vehicles were parked and where Jeff knew good places to go in for a closer look. In the course of the day, Jeff watched several anglers from the security of the woods or cliff tops. Jeff used a combination of walking and cruising to do his investigations. As he noted, there is little sense in walking 3 km of stream when there are no vehicles parked along several km of stream. On the other hand, when a vehicle is parked near a pool, Jeff always stops for a look. Jeff chooses not to approach the angler/s directly at first but prefers to watch for a while without anglers knowing. This might include driving past for 200 m and then walking back to where the anglers are or are likely to be. He said he was getting a feel for where the good “beats” where and where the good vantage points were. In 2007, Andrew Gustavson had an opportunity to fly over most of the Oldman drainage with a fire patrol helicopter. Andrew marked all of the good fishing and potential poaching holes on a GPS. These data were subsequently downloaded to Jeff’s GPS which was donated. The combination of the GPS data and Jeff’s ground patrols has given him detailed knowledge of the drainage. In all, he spoke with approximately 20 anglers throughout the day. Everyone who was actively fishing or had been fishing was asked to show a license and hooks were checked for barbs or bait. Even when infractions were not observed (most of the time), Jeff always asked if the anglers knew the regulations for that particular stream. Several anglers offered that they were pleased to be checked and thanked Jeff. Two incidents required issuance of tickets. One person was issued a $200 ticket for using barbed hooks and a warning ticket. Another received a warning ticket. (The warning ticket versus a verbal warning ensures that the person’s name and infraction are registered in the database. Should they re-offend, the officer will know their history.) The first incident exemplified the effectiveness of the combination of enforcement and education. It also showed Jeff’s sensible handling of the situation and good working rapport with the anglers involved. The first incident involved four anglers fishing in the Oldman River in the Gap adjacent to the road. The anglers included a father with two teenagers (from north of Edmonton) and another adult male from Calgary. The father was fishing with a barbed, treble-hook (Mepps-type) lure to which a piece of dried worm was attached. It was apparent that the worm had not been attached to the lure that day. There was no evidence of bait containers. Both of the teenagers were using lures with barbed hooks. The fourth person was fishing with legal tackle. All were properly licensed. There were technically four infractions to be dealt with, and all four could have resulted in $200 fines. Jeff considered that the two teenagers were fishing with their father and that giving them tickets might affect their angling futures and general attitude toward enforcement. Jeff decided to give the father a $200 ticket for angling with a barbed hook and also gave him a ticketed warning (meaning it is in the database) regarding the use of bait. Instead of ticketing the two teenagers, he had a chat with the young lady and gave her a “barbless” information package that included a barbless jig-head lure. While Jeff was writing the tickets, the father spent the time debarbing all of the lures in his tackle box. Jeff also gave the group a copy of the Alberta Guide to Sportfishing Regulations—which they did not have. After being handed the tickets and chatting with Jeff, the father thanked Jeff and shook his hand. This group apparently had no idea about regulations where they were fishing. Jeff and I felt that had they caught any fish in that catch-and-release stretch they would have killed the fish. We also speculated that they probably did not know how to identify a bull trout—and they were fishing adjacent to a hole where there are known to be bull trout. It seemed to me that the situation was handled perfectly. The issuance of tickets was necessary because three people were fishing with barbed hooks. Yet it was not heavy-handed in any way. If four, $200-dollar tickets had been issued, that would have been excessive and no real learning would have happened. Everyone walked away happy. The one $200 ticket made a strong point and got their attention. More importantly, a lot of education happened in a mere 20 minutes. The second incident involved an angler who had just walked up from the Livingstone and was not actually fishing at the time. Jeff asked to see his fly and it had a barb on it. He was given a warning ticket. Many other anglers were asked for licenses and Jeff asked them about their knowledge of the regulations where they were fishing. Jeff certainly seems to have the right attitude, approach and philosophy toward Stream Watch and angling regulations in general. The experience makes me feel that the time, effort and money of everyone involved with Stream Watch in Southwestern Alberta were well worth it. ... Special thanks to Jeff and Andrew for giving me permission to ride along. It was a pleasure to spend the day with Jeff. I had a great day and have a better feel for the role of the Stream Watch officers and about enforcement and education in general. I also want to thank Jeff for his dedication and wish him every success in the future. This is program is effective in educating and anglers while ensuring regulations are adhered to. Members of the Stream Watch committee in Southwestern look forward to working with you and others in SRD to carry the Stream Watch program forward for the next several years. Best wishes, Clive Schaupmeyer Coaldale, Alberta

Otay taco, taeke, taco .... :P (TAKO) (TACO aka Taeke) "There ain't room for both of us in this one-horse town, sonny boy. So what will it be? Go ahead ... make my day!" Y'all take care!

Thanks again to all who participated in the Stream Watch auction...especially Toolman. adc and I guided the pike trip winner, TG, to Crawling Valley two weeks ago and it was a terrible bust. TG landed one small pike, adc caught a walleye and I got skunked. We blamed it in the foul east wind that annoyed us all day...BTW I had ONE hit in five hours. It was slow. So we offered to take TG to another place and last Thursday we went to Badger Reservoir--known for large pike. (I managed two big pike from Badger the three times I'd fished it previously.) Well Badger was better than CV, but it was not crazy. We caught quite a few pike including a couple of half decent fish like this one landed by TG. Thanks to TG for buying the trip and supporting SW. Was a good day. I also got to try out my new G series 70-300 lens on some ring-billed gulls....got a couple of decent shots.

"You guys HAVE been getting a lot of rain down there!!!" 280 mm at Spoinkop Creek! Click here. "cant wait for the days to start getting shorter. thanks clive..." LS.. yer welcome. We always aim to make people happy. It's the same every year, eh? We all lust for spring and it is good--well it is "okay." But we ALL secretly know the very best is in July through October--when the days are seriously shorter. I've never fished so little thru winter and spring in maybe 20 years. Other than Cuba I doubt if I've fished 6 or 8 days days since November. Gonna find some pike piggies this week -- or not. (However, I have taken 12,000 photographs since November. Always something to occupy my simple brain. Went the the Birds of Prey Center today...)

Cosmic beed ... you are a great man! Days to cherish and pictures to remember always! Well done.

Examples Beauvais Lake past 2 days....6 inches.... |=============|=======================|=========|========|========| | Station | Data and Time (MST) | Value | 3 Hour | 6 Hour | |=============|=======================|=========|========|========| BEAU 2008-05-22 03:00:00 3.3 0.0 ... BEAU 2008-05-24 12:00:00 149.1 16.0 30.7 Spionkop Creek ... 9 (nine ) inches in 2 days... (515-284mm) |=============|=======================|=========|========|========| | Station | Data and Time (MST) | Value | 3 Hour | 6 Hour | |=============|=======================|=========|========|========| SPIO 2008-05-22 03:00:00 283.9 0.6 ... SPIO 2008-05-24 12:00:00 515.1 10.0 21.4