monger

Be very careful Badger, it's full of leeches and minnows. They might try to sink the Pac 9000.

When nymphing, treat the river like a bowling alley, and put a drift through each "lane" beside you. Then move up ten feet and do it again. Look for spots where the water is transitioning from a riffle to a pool and along current edges.

Happy Birthday cranky old fart. Hope you have an excellent year playing outside.

No problem Yugo. I only fight over spots with Rick. I wouldn't hassle visitors. Hopefully your tendon calms down. I ruptured mine a while ago and it takes a long time to get back to wading. My calf muscle never did recovery fully. Hopefully you get a chance to exercise some of Rick's private trout again soon.

Glad you guys had fun. Looks like you made it down to the area with the spruce trees. I was the guy you talked to at the parking lot.

Second pic is great. Looked like me this afternoon

Soon Troutlover, we filled up the memory card on Thursday. We need a new camera

Those will never work. OK, maybe they look awesome.

Troutlover, the reason Bullshead can maintain it's water levels now is because water is sent downstream in a pipe as opposed to the open creek bed. The amount of evaporation from the creek was huge, and therefore a vast amount of water was removed from the reservoir. Today, there is actually more people being served with less water loss. The effeciency of this water transfer leaves us with year round fishing. The irrigation districts are now looking at piping water in a lot of areas that used to run open ditches. It makes sense, but there will be quite a bit of "man-made" habitat lost along these areas where water used to flow through the Alberta "desert".

You guys down there in the tropics get to see everything first. The Bow is just polluted with Mallards waiting for the ice on the ponds to melt. It was nice to see a Killdeer today as well. He better be careful along the shore because giant pieces of ice were calving off today and exploding into the water.

There was lots of Pintails on the Bow today. Even saw some Gadwalls and the all impressive Shoveler. A lot of new birds have returned home this week.

Awesome shots Max. We live in an awesome area!

Now I'm really confused about this thread. The last time I took Sundancefisher fishing he yelled at me at least a dozen times, "YOU SUCK!". Now this is REALY how he feels about my fishing ability and not all this other flattery crap (trying to find out some more fishing spots that Rickr showed me). I'm sure Pseudo knows some real pro fishermen that I could learn tons from. I like the idea of someone trying to pass on info gained from experience, that is a great quality. Hopefully this thread will die before it gets any stranger.

Something else to read: Rapid recovery of exhausted adult coho salmon after commercial capture by troll fishing Anthony P. Farrell, Patricia E. Gallaugher, and Richard Routledge Abstract: To reduce mortality in the by-catch of commercial salmon fisheries, techniques are being explored to revive fish before live release and improve survival. By measuring blood and muscle variables, we demonstrated that capture of coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) by commercial trolling methods resulted in severe exhaustion and stress, e.g., muscle lactate reached 46.1 mmol·kg–1 while muscle phosphocreatine (PCr) decreased to 6.1 mmol·kg–1. Nevertheless, coho salmon recovered rapidly by swimming in a cage alongside the vessel while fishing activity continued. In particular, there were significant increases in muscle glycogen and PCr levels, and a decrease in muscle lactate after two hours. Notably, and in contrast to when exhausted fish are held stationary during recovery, plasma lactate remained low (<4 mmol·L–1) during recovery, a phenomenon observed in earlier laboratory studies with rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss). There was no postcapture delayed mortality after 24 h. Therefore, we have established that postexhaustion activity promotes a rapid recovery in wild salmon and this result might find application in nonretention commercial and recreational fishing. Thanks for your input Pseudonym. Perhaps long playing times are not as detrimental as prevously thought. I'll still fight the fish quickly, because I like to catch lots , but will hold my tongue when I watch others opting for the long battle.

I think Max has it. If you find you are getting lots of foul hook ups, spread your flies out a bit more.

OK then. For me I will still fight them as fast as possible. It seems to be in their best interests to fight them quickly. It is very rare that I fight a fish for more than 4 min, then I'm off for the next one. I guess it depends on where you derive your pleasure from. For me it's the first 10-20 seconds of the fight. To each his own... I'm also one of those guys who plants his feet, well maybe walks straight back to the shoreline to land fish. There is very few fish in the Bow over 5lb, even 4lb. They are not that hard to fight once you turn them into some slower water. I guess everyone has to find a way that works for them. Here's a simple read for everyone: http://www.gofishbc.com/tips_articles/catch_release.htm

Pseudonym, do you have any concerns about the amount of lactic acid that builds up in the fishes muscles after a 20 minute fight? Is this an issue or just folklore?

They flip over to loose altitude when coming in to land some times. Pintails do it at greater speeds and makes for a great show.

Clive I'm not afraid of the ice. It makes for good cover (undercut ice bank). Your feet freeze whether there is ice on or off at this time of the year. I never said I was smart, just willing...

South of Cardston, then west, then south. Stop before you cross the border

Open water! Where's my tube??????????? I wonder how many replacement signs you'll need? Thanks for all your work guys.

There is quite a bit of instream spawning in the Bow above the Elbow by rainbows. They don't seem to use the Elbow that much but I have talked to some people who have seen them there.

Are you going to start a netting school for Texans Rick?

Awesome Tim! I love it. Snowcones, Wild berry rod and reel and a great guide (papa Tim). Those BH fish are in for a whuppin'. I'll be showing my daughter tomorrow.

That looks like a great little creek. Every adventure makes you a better angler.