dryfly

Welcome home Wes.

Sweet pix.

The Pincher Creek library has a wireless router that can usually be accessed 24 hours from the picnic table on the from lawn. (Once I could not connect from the front lawn--usually works though.) As others have noted, all of the local libraries all have computers to check webmail, but unless they have 24-hour wireless you can only use when they are open. Anglers Ridge bed and breakfast at Burmis has a 24-hour wireless--as the two owners both have "office" jobs and work from home. You could contact them...would help if you stayed there for one or two nights. Owners are Wendy and Malcolm--both fly anglers. Here is their website. http://www.anglersridge.com/contact.htm Good luck. Clive

chidders ... I am surprised that Timmy's is not a major sponsor at this site! "...a bucket of KFC at Jenny Craig party." Ooooo ... now Kirstie and Valerie would love that. Heck a guy could get trampled in the rush.

My wife has fancy computerized embroidery machine and we have design software. rickr is correct "... a rainbow will be much easier to embroider than a brown." Done them both. Too much detail in a brown.

Was kidding above .. but then again this is a CALGARY board... Regarding brownstones suggestion. Whereas it is nice, remember the details have to be very limited because of restrictions for embroidery. Schematics of fish are okay. Small flies and details in trout are difficult...they need to be stylized. Just a suggestion.

As of 3:04 PM today... I called "forestry" in Blairmore. I was told that the closure will be lifted N of Hwy #3 as Harps noted. The Fire Ban website does not reflect this because the minister has yet to sign the order in council. Personally I think it is nutso. Some moron pistonhead or irresponsible camper will start a bloody fire and we'll be on the hook for $28 million -- once again. I can't believe they will allow random camping and use of quads. Crazy. Nuts. Insane. Stay tuned.

I totally agree with your thinking Lynn...was shocked when the lady told this to me....just passing along a story..shall see how it shakes out. Hate to see the sky full of forest fire smoke again. Was sure purdy last week.

Check back here after 1 PM today (Tuesday August 28) ... http://gateway.cd.gov.ab.ca/firebans.aspx Lady at Parks told me this morning that there is to be an announcement at 1 PM today regarding possible opening of some campgrounds on the FTR. I'd be surprise .. but nothing surprises me any more.

George Carlin's Views on Aging Do you realize that the only time in our lives when we like to get old is when we're kids? If you're less than 10 years old, you're so excited about aging that you think in fractions. "How old are you?" "I'm four and a half!" You're never thirty-six and a half. You're four and a half, going on five! That's the key. You get into your teens, now they can't hold you back. You jump to the next number, or even a few ahead. "How old are you?" "I'm gonna be 16!" You could be 13, but hey, you're gonna be 16! And then the greatest day of your life . . . you become 21. Even the words sound like a ceremony YOU BECOME 21. YESSSS!!! But then you turn 30. Oooohh, what happened there? Makes you sound like bad milk! He TURNED ; we had to throw him out. There's no fun now, you're Just a sour-dumpling. What's wrong? What's changed? You BECOME 21, you TURN 30, then you're PUSHING 40. Whoa! Put on the brakes, it's all slipping away. Before you know it, you REACH 50 and your dreams are gone . But wait!!! You MAKE it to 60. You didn't think you would! So you BECOME 21, TURN 30, PUSH 40, REACH 50 and MAKE it to 60. You've built up so much speed that you HIT 70! After that it's a day-by-day thing; you HIT ! You get into your 80s and every day is a complete cycle; you HIT lunch; you TURN 4:30; you REACH bedtime. And it doesn't end there. Into the 90s, you start going backward; "I Was JUST 92." Then a strange thing happens. If you make it over 100, you become a little kid again. "I'm 100 and a half!" May you all make it to a healthy 100 and a half!! HOW TO STAY YOUNG 1. Throw out nonessential numbers. This includes age, weight and height. Let the doctors worry about them. That is why you pay "them." 2. Keep only cheerful friends . The grouches pull you down. 3. Keep learning. Learn more about the computer , crafts, gardening, whatever. Never let the brain idle. "An idle mind is the devil's workshop." And the devil's name is Alzheimer's. 4. Enjoy the simple things. 5. Laugh often, long and loud . Laugh until you gasp for breath. 6. The tears happen. Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person, who is with us our entire life, is ourselves. Be ALIVE while you are alive. 7. Surround yourself with what you love, whether it's family, pets, keepsakes, music , plants, hobbies , whatever. Your home is your refuge. 8. Cherish your health: If it is good, preserve it . If it is unstable,improve it. If it is beyond what you can improve, get help. 9 Don't take guilt trips . Take a trip to the mall , even to the next county; to a foreign country but NOT to where the guilt is. 10.Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity. AND ALWAYS REMEMBER : Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

Speaking for Andersen, myself and other OFs ... Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art. Eleanor Roosevelt I am 60!

Lundvike: I'll take one dozen of those. Clive

Ha ha. And then we'd have to ask each guy/gal to provide 4 references so we could rate his/he ability to actually catch fish. So we'd have: Angler index = dpy X years X ability X "nice guy factor" - (minus) dork factor + "brings nice lunches" factor + "always drives factor"+ "ties flies for me" factor - "mooches flies" factor Seriously: Don does make a good point. But as Birchy said, it then gets complicated. Might as well go fishing instead. Cheers! Clive

Lundvike: Looks pretty decent to me--I'm not really a bugger user..just a bugger. You can pack the spun deer hair tighter and add two clumps of hair. After spinning the first clump pack it with your fingers and the head of a Bic ball point pen--remove the ink cart first. Push the tapered open end over the eye and pack the hair. Then add another clump and do the same...this packs the hair quite tightly. See step #5 here. This just shows fingers. But the open end of a Bic pen works well. Pack hair My decent tying stuff is at the trailer...fast and dirty..you'll get the idea. Push the pen end over the eye and pack the hair...you will have to backstop the hair with your fingers. (I suppose another brand of pen would work. ) Cheers! Clive

If you've ever driven to Badger Lake "the back way," you might have espied these N of Lomond. Sorry ... no crop circles spotted.

"...ship via USPS (postal) as opposed to FedEx or UPS." A loud ditto for pikebreath's comment!! Good point pikebreath. ONLY USPS/Canada Post if coming from the USA. Bloody Fed Ex and UPS will charge up to 20 percent brokerage fees. Criminal bastards. Side note rant: I live in a small town and UPS or Fed Ex are useless. We are often away and if we miss either they take the package back to Lethbridge (or ???) and may not come back for several days--UPS comes through on Fridays and Tuesdays! Utter nonsense for rip-off high-priced "courier" services. Whereas if an American company ships via USPS it arrives just as fast (or faster) and if we are away I get a notice on my door or mail box and can go down the next day and pick it up at the PO. Not so with either UPS or Fed Ex. A package just from Calgary via Canada Post/Express Post will arrive in 1 to 2 days. Via Fed Ex it is no faster if I am home and if I am away and miss the first call, I can wait one week--just from Calgary! People rag in the PO, but private courier services to small towns is a joke. End of private courier rant. Feels better. Ahhhhhhhhhh. Good luck with the waders. Clive

" A few years back I got a cannister of flower drying dust at a craft store and now have a lifetime supply of desiccant for flies as well." Whoa! Even better yet. Saves messing perhaps. NOW I need to find what carpet manufacturer makes the cool fibre stuff that make Ice Dubbing and I am set.

Rob: Assuming the bossman lightens up some, and you get away.... Not sure if mentioned....Always good to have some spent wing Olives in your kit--sizes 18 to 22. Also some small dark brown spent mayflies. A spent Olive is my go-to pattern during a hatch on the Crowsnest and has worked for me well on the Bow as well--way back. A spent seems to cover a hatch as the fish seem to know what spent olives are and I suspect they take the spent patterns for cripples too. Good luck! Clive PS: Pack your long underwear. It is -2°C this morning in the Pass.

Any store that carries furniture should have the larger pouches. Today, I got two large pouches at Costco. Furniture buddy was a fly fisherman so he was all over helping me and thanked me for telling him. (They had some sofas on the floor and they were still in the plastic coverings. I could see the desi-paks inside the plastic. ) I left my card with the warehouse guy at The Brick as well--they toss them as soon as they open new cartons. I'd imagine that Visions should have some as they should be in the large TV shipping crates. Schmooze over someone who shows a bit of interest and leave your name. I've enough for at least two years right now so won't be looking any more. (I feel like a cheap bugger, but have spent several thousand dollars in Alberta fly shops in the past couple of decades--I've no reason to feel guilty. ) This is what they look like. This pouch is small.

The homemade stuff attaches to the fly--until you flick it off. Therefore the wet silica is being removed from the container anyway and the supply depletes. Probably just as easy to pound up a new batch every year. Quoting http://www.deltaadsorbents.com/silica_gel.asp Once saturated with water, the gel can be regenerated (dried) by heating it to 150°C (300°F) for 1.5 hours per liter (about 1 dry quart measure or about 30oz weight) in a thick-walled Pyrex dish. Silica gel is non-toxic, non-flammable and chemically un reactive.

Sweet Ben. Thanks. Oh so pretty grayling.

Okay .. I will start with: 1) Apologies to fly shop owners and to whomever figured out the dry fly desiccant stuff in the first place. 2) Thanks to whomever figured it out 3) Admitting that I like figuring out stuff on my own, and 4) I am a cheap SOB. Ass covered. I was introduced to the crystalline dry fly desiccant last summer and think it is simply great. You treat a fly with Gink at the start of a day and after it gets waterlogged you just dry off the fly in a desiccant bottle. Bingo....floats like a charm again--slick as snot--swell stuff. So I get to thinking, "This stuff is really the same stuff that comes in pill bottles and assorted electronics equipment. It is just ground up. Hummmmmm. " Last month my son gets two new armchairs and inside the boxes are large (3-inch) pouches of sodium silicate (or whatever it is) beads. So I ground them up in an old coffee grinder that I use to mix dubbing -- versus Blondie's kitchen model. Looks the same methinks. A kitchen sink test confirmed it to be effective. Yesterday, we conducted serious field trials and it IS the same stuff. So I picked up some more pouches in the city today and since my grinder is at the trailer I devised a way to smash the silica beads with a hammer...folded a couple of tablespoons of beads in a heavy-duty shop towel and pounded them inside a large plastic lid. Voilà. I sifted the crystals with a metal mesh kitchen strainer and repounded the larger chunks. So ... if you like dry fly desiccant like I do and don't like paying $12 for a few grams of the stuff, you can make our own with silica gel beads. Very cool. Caveat: There may be different types of silica gel beads. You take your chances. The ones I used work just fine--every bit as good as the $12 vials. FYI.. Silica gel is a granular, porous form of silica made synthetically from sodium silicate. Despite the name, silica gel is a solid. It is usually distributed in the form of beads, which are packaged in a semi-permeable packet. Silica Gel is a highly activated adsorbent, furnished in a wide range of mesh sizes to suit various industrial applications. It is non-corrosive, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, and chemically inert. It is a highly porous form of silica, with an extremely large internal surface area. The silica gel does not undergo any chemical reaction during adsorption and does not form any by products. It is non-deliquescent and will not change its size or shape. Even when the silica gel is water saturated, it remains dry and free-flowing.

Fishing for 50 years since ten ... FF for 37 years ... More or less "exclusively" FF for 20 years.

Nothing wrong with boot foot waders--perhaps not quite as much ankle support for tough hiking. They are WARMER in winter than neo sock foots. Bootfoots with polyprop long underwear or polar fleece pants on a winter's day are just fine for warmth. That's an "interesting" wader format...wonder if anyone here has tried them. I wonder what the boots are and how they are attached to the wader itself. Price looks good.