dryfly

Weedy1? A feed bag for an anteater..... ?? Oooooooooooohhhhhh ..........

I am a Luddite ...

Who's she?

Hwy #3 at Cowley at 9:30 AM Friday.

Four comments: 1) WOW! A simple (or not) question turns into an X-treme, knock-down, full-contact "debate." 2) Weedy said, "I am being forced to reassess the hypothesis of intelligent life on Earth." Funniest line ever here. 3) Can't wait till February. 4) Speaking of "currents and eddies" ... Has anyone heard of the current status of Loyal Eddie lately? Cheers! Clive

Hawgstoppah, if yer not in Alabama (or ??) next week give me a call as I'll be down from Sunday to about Wed or so. We could go test some #24s on 7X ... OR #4 BAWs on 8-pound Vanish.

Don, Up to about 6 or 8 years ago I looked forward to the autumn morning midge hatch..about 90 minutes between about 8 AM and 11 AM. Then again every (every) evening without fail. It was the best poart of the annual Sept week on the Crow. My bro and I killed a (what?) 16-inch rainbow back in about 1990 or so--was all very legal. The stomach "plug" was composed of the odd large insect part but was 95% midge pupae/larvae. There were over 2000 midge bodies in that stomach mass. I've not seen a good midge hatch there in years. There are still midges. You can still catch trout on midge pupa patterns, but my #20 - #24 midge dries rarely get used anymore. Like you, I believe that the sewage treatment has a lot to do with it. Ha ha. You can catch the larger ones. They can still be seen in evenings sipping along the banks here and there. They are there and you can still find them in evenings. My success rate is bloody low, but it is most enjoyable. Lots of downstream casts, 7X tippets..stuff like that. Hook ups are low, but it is rather fun. Cheers! Clive PS: Getting white on the ground here in Coaldale this morning. Heavy snow warning for the SW.

That's by Milk River... http://216.250.97.196/map.cfm?PN_ID=238 Not exactly next door to Bow Island or wherever you are staying. Where ARE you going exactly? I'd guess Bullshead is closer and fishing well....last Monday.

Take your snow shovel. No streams at all except in Cypress Hills. See here.... http://www.gowalleye.com/sa-reservoirs.htm Sherburne/Grassy and 40 Mile reservoirs ...walleye and pike. Bullshead reservoir (trout) is just ~ 45 minutes away. Good luck! Clive

Yeah. just getting primed for winter fissin' 15 cm of snow would be welcome moisture. Rain a few weeks back would have been preferred. Sort of a bummer. We were heading back to Bullshead tomorrow and TODAY was the day to go. NO WIND and we missed it. Sure as hell not going there tomorrow even if the forecast for Cypress is only half correct. Sunday will be prime though. A westerly flow.

I used to hate fluoro . Now it's my new best friend. I tie fluoro tippets to mono leaders and use fluoro tippets extensively. My experience and practice is different than TM's. I like fluoro a lot and have learned to make it work for me. Initially, I had trouble with knots and breakage. It seems that fluoro has a high "coefficient of friction" (Terry??) and that knots better be tied right--or they break. Here's what I have learned to do: Never drop more than two X diameters when connecting two tippets or leader to tippet (i.e. 2X to 4X, but not 2X to 5X..bad idea anyway) and a drop of one of better. i.e. 3X to 4X. Wet the knot loops very well to the point of dripping when closing and tightening the knot Here's where TM and I differ....I never tied more than a double surgeon's knot with fluoro...3 loops were breaking on me. My clinch knots were 7 wraps for years and years..with fluoro I limit the twists to five...seven is too many and the knots seem weaker. Maybe. Maybe not. Seems so. I still use fancy tippet material in mono and have one $12, 30-m spool of 5X fluoro tippet. But using Vanish fluoro fishing line works very well--and thanks to the guys here or at FFA who put me on to this! A 100-m spool of Vanish fishing line is about $6 compared to about 12 bucks for a 30-m spool of fluoro tippet. The "real" tippet seems more flexible. BUT for most uses the Vanish is just fine. And because the fluoro is more or less invisible in the water you can tippet up a size or two. We were using 10-pound fluoro Vanish on Bullshead the other day. It is something like 2 X or so. Works fine for leeches and backswimmers. Kinda like Bass Masters...ya can yard the trout through the weeds. That actually is not very accurate--nor good practice. BUT you can force the trout a bit and keep them OUT of the weeds in the first place.) Cheers! Clive

No sense in writing at this time. The proposal is "in the system." Letters are likely to piss people off. It will be considered with the minister on Oct. 20. adc and I plan to attend the RT meeting in Edmonton on Oct 20. adc is the "chairman" of the effort and has a recent letter from the minister who says he will give the Police proposal utmost consideration. If the proposal gets short changed on Oct 20 ... THEN let's get active. K?

"Have silt levels increased over the years?" Certainly not above the falls. The lower reaches toward the reservoir are reported to be more silty.

Geez ... wonder how long it took Rancher Bob to teach ol' Trigger THAT trick. "Trigger ... behead bird" I was sort of thinking .22 shorts. Well, you know...were I a rancher and the damn birds were harassing my cattle.

This was a REAL ad in SK a few years ago. Not a spoof. Some ad agency guru knew how to get people's attention. Too funny.

Nice find. Yum! And close to Turkey weekend too. Free range. Organic. Fed on native wild berries. (And maybe Cheezee crumbs dropped out of passing cars.) They are really neat to watch. We saw several on the Maycroft road 12 days ago. I've counted 60 in the "Burmis flock" at one time. They are usually split up.

eBAY TRION 3/4 REEL

Run 'em through a tire shredder and get some lightweights and polar fleece underwear or sweat pants. (A joke. I hate neos. Yeah. Yeah ... lotsa folks like 'em.)

The Oldman River TU meeting will be on Oct 17. Featured speaker will be Barry Mitchell, publisher of the Alberta Fishing Guide and author of Fishing the Forestry Trunk Road. Barry will talk about various things of interest. Barry is donating a copy of his book for the main door prize! Barry is a long-time TU supporter and advocate for sensible science-based fishing regulations. Fly tying starts at 6 PM with the meeting to follow at 7:30 PM. OLDMAN RIVER T.U. OCT 17 MEETING notice here...

"I read from Barry Mitchell’s book that all trout streams in Alberta have the bug populations to support way more trout (practically). If bug populations have declined in the last few years wouldn’t the crow still have plenty of bugs to feed trout? " Your thinking seems to be correct, but it is a matter of degree. There are plenty of trout in the Crow and they are generally healthy. Few fish are killed on the Crow and pops are high. I'd guess 99 percent are released successfully and damn few are killed intentionally. Rainbow pops are pretty decent. But as Don noted, they are less fat (I won't say they are actually thin) than say lake rainbows and even fish in our high streams. Don's point was that if there were more bugs the fish that are there would be fatter. I agree. What Mitchell says is correct too. If we had less liberal catch rules on the high streams we would have higher populations. Many of us feel that far too many cutts and rainbows are killed in our high streams. I've no idea what the trout/km differences are between the Crow and say the middle Oldman. Let's casually (subjectively) compare the pops 1) on the Crow 2) the middle OM above the confluence with Racehorse and 3) The OM in the zero-kill zone below racehorse, between the Gap and 22. Here's my SWAG (Schaupmeyer wild ass guess.) If the Crow population is 100 (over some given length), I'd guess the middle OM pop is 10 to 20 and the OM Gap section is 20 to 30. Way fewer fish on the OM per stretch of water. So the OM holds fewer fish and could hold more--but kill rates are too damn high. The girth-length ratio on the OM is higher (they are fatter) because they have relatively more food and possibly because the oxygen and water temps are more amenable. This is all highly speculative, caffeine-induced babble. Don said, "Fishing was great. Now - I don't even bother going." I still enjoy the Crow and its challenges. The fish are damned fussy and often tricky to catch. (It is also 90 minutes from my house and 20 minutes from my trailer at Cowley.) Yeah, you can still pound 'em up in summer on Stimmies if that turns your crank. But add in a hatch of small insects and they they can be a challenge. When you hang one it is often well deserved. I plan to do extensive population studies on the Crow starting Sunday. All in the name of science. Fun stuff. Cheers! Clive

That was taken u/s of the silver bridge on the TU lease... Oldman River TU lease project info here...

Nice tie. Thanks. Clive

You're just a trendy guy rickr.

I think Hardy spelled it wrong .. "Zane Ti Reel" Should be more like In-Zan-e-Ti reel. Well .. folks buy Piaget watches for twice as much. Not me.

Yes, Terry. Been thinking about it again. Always a good time.