bcubed

us trolls gotta stick together

personally, i like the engagement of a hookset. At least then i know that it's my fault if the hook pulls away..the slow pull and no hookset has lead to too many falling off for me to continue that. I have had a LOT of steelhead that don't grab, turn and go. Lots of them come up, grab, and then sit on it. No hookset = no hookup on those fish

Sounds to me that the medium king is what you should be wearing, but that's hard to tell without looking at you (used to size waders daily for people.). That extra material in the crotch that im sure you have now is destined to wear out a lot faster then a properly fit wader. Medium kings are in between the Medium and Large for width, which sounds like what you need. Take them back, support a LOCAL fly shop, and try on a medium king. Better to be sure before you get committed to a large, and have them prematurely wear cause the size is off

That was no hook set... he gently lifted the rod up (between runs too). I let fish take a pull of line but then I hit them hard, low and to the bank. I've lost way too many when doing the just a raised tip as it doesn't get the hook in there. Watched it again, the next fish he does the same thing and same result...I'd way rather miss a fish on a hard hookset, then that! Here's a hook set..

Setting the hook tends to help

ya the self-amalgamating tape works well. I'm still surprised the number of guys that pinch their running line to their cork when swinging (even more so for when fighting fish). I run the line through my trigger finger, that is off the cork so you can feel everything. The tension between that and the reel gives me really good sense of what's happening down under

Slickshooter or bust. Seems like the same idea as this..Justin Miller is no hack, so i'd take his word on it I've got 55 lb slickshooter on all my spey rigs. Never cut a finger, easy to manage, great feel for grabs. I'd never go back to a traditional shooting line, despite being ever so slightly easier to handle. If you're replacing shooting lines yearly, that should be pretty telling. I think i still have my original 55 lb slickshooter from like 4 or 5 years ago on there. And really, if it gets funky, just cut off a chunk and you're down to 100 feet instead

uhhh.. wut?

those'll work all day long....though Orange and I dont get along while steelheading...

Not surprised bout the Elbow, since it was in Lott Creek (hrmm...wonder where that came from..) Could they get multiple DNA samples, and be able to figure out the time and relationship between them (from my very limited genetics course)? I suspect its now everywhere in southern alberta, if it was in the Bow.. No way it's not being transferred by humans and animals by this point.

You haven't lived, until you've lived through the steely-mindf**k... 11 days into one really starts to make you wonder why the hell you're bothering with it

Definitely the Lays chips of fly fishing... bet ya can't stop at just one

Rob, I know you weren't... Pipes on the other hand.

I dont disagree with you when it comes to Caribou and development (though, dealing with the wolves and the wolves alone is not going to bring caribou back..there are a lot bigger issues at play). But if the end goal of wolf management is to make it so hunting is 'better', then where does that end? I'm all for hunting, but removing apex predators to make hunting better for people...nope. Seems pretty equivalent to the 'otters are ruining my fishing' argument to me.. If the last 30 years of wolves increasing is actually getting the elk/sheep/moose/whatever population back to a more appropriate equilibrium, at the cost of hunting, then so be it... Ya hunting was probably "better" 50 years ago, but was that due to an unnatural lack of predators that was originally caused by man the 50 years previous to that?

Better get those damn otters too while we're at it

So a daily occurrence is less impactful then a theoretical one?...

The odds of it being in Banff, and Lott creek and not in the Bow in Calgary.. I'd say 1 in a million. Already in the Bow below Exshaw, no way it's not down here..

Outdoors,I also make sure it can drain (aka tilt back), so you don't fill the front with melt and then freeze... can trash a boat quick doing that

Considering it used to close on October 1 just a couple years ago. Thanks though

Thompson was open until Nov 1...

I suspect the main issue is that they're only reporting the 'finds', and not the negatives. May well have tested Minnewanka and just havent published it yet?

I cut my streamer express back to 15. 15 is plenty. I like the streamer express as it has the intermediate running line, keeps your fly down longer. Only issue is the mono core tends to tangle a bunch

Ya, fishing a loop-on sink tip system out of a boat is going to suck, as typically you should be stripping almost to the leader. If you're using a loop-on, you're going to be super annoyed when that loop hangs up on the tip-top (and it will, even the best ones do..). A dedicated sink tip is worth it's weight... Particularly since the bow river fish seem to be adverse to eating anything but streamers the last two years (well, or those nymph things). A 250 gr would work on both your rods

And really, we could float the mallard side channel and find zero redds this year. Way too many variables every year to be able to pinpoint where fish will be going. The Highwood confluence is a little more obvious, as all fish headed up to the Highwood drainage have to pass through that point.

Still room on the two days..be good to see some FFC folks get involved