danhunt

That looks interesting bcubed and I’ll try and to watch it tonight, but I’ll take a stab at where it’s going - the offspring of hatchery raised fish are less reproductively fit than their wild counterparts? True, but very little research has been done on the reproductive fitness of subsequent generations. Again, Bow River rainbows originally come from Northern California, but have naturalized and formed (until recently) a self sustaining population, so it would seem possible to wean off the hatchery teat. The only reason I suggest adding hatchery fish to the mix (with some different genetics) is to try and get more adult fish to the redds and to have more of their offspring make it to adulthood to eventually do the same.

An ever-increasing number of anglers – Not sure this is true. I couldn’t find older data, but the total number of licenses sold in AB seem to be trending the same way as the resource economy in the province and have gone from 280425 in 2014, 318106 in 2015, 312064 in 2016, 309006 in 2017 to 281568 in 2018. I would agree that these numbers don’t necessarily give an accurate measure of how many anglers use the Bow. The AEP Bow River Fish Population Survey suggests that recruitment of trout stocks is adequate in the Bow River to sustain the population – Fair enough, but this doesn’t reflect the experience of myself and other anglers who have noticed a distinct lack of smaller fish in the river in recent years. It also ties in with the next point; Unknown fish population and reproduction dynamics – Don’t mean to nitpick, but if the fish population and reproduction dynamics are unknown then how can the AEP Bow River Fish Population Survey suggest that recruitment of trout stocks is adequate in the Bow River to sustain the population? Seems like a chicken/egg debate? What I would like to know is how closely does the decline of the Bow River’s trout populations resemble the decline of other well known trout rivers in the US that have been exposed to the parasite that causes whirling disease? I doubt the data exists to make a real comparison, but anecdotally it seems all too similar. My $0.02 Charge a conservation fee/stamp/license to fish the Bow, say $50 a year. Double that for alien/non-resident anglers just for giggles. Put the money directly back in to managing and enhancing the Bow River fishery so that the powers that be can obtain meaningful data and develop targeted solutions. Some rough data can be obtained just from the license sales, but with this stamp/fee/license include a link to a website (or a paper form, for the technologically challenged) that can be used to voluntarily report how many anglers are using the river, when, where and what the results were with idea of using this data in future management. As part of the management plan start stocking a strain of Rainbows in the Bow that are naturally resistant to the parasite that causes whirling disease (e.g. Hofer X Harrison strain rainbows) with the goal of augmenting natural recruitment until populations stabilize. The rainbow trout in the Bow were originally from a river in northern California, so maintaining the genetics of the existing stock are kind of a moot point, and the cutties aren’t likely to make a comeback below the Ghost anyway. Colorado hatcheries are raising these rainbows, so obtaining brood stock may be possible without having to reinvent the wheel.

Black posts are more visible in low light? Never tried that, thanks for the tip.

I remember a situation I came across once at about this time of year where I found a nice cuttie rising in a pool in a side channel of a good sized river. Very similar sounding circumstances - I tried matching the naturals in dry form, switched to emergers, then to a greased nymph, and finally to terrestrials. All the while it continued to rise, and a couple of times it even bumped my leader taking a natural and it never balked in the least. In the end, I had to lay on my side about 40 feet from the water and make a cast where I more line on a gravel bar than in the water before it finally came up. It rose on the first cast and I missed it, but it came back for the same emerger it had previously refused twice more with confidence before I finally hooked it (its not easy to set the hook lying on your side). That fish never seemed spooked in the normal sense, but when I could see it it could see me and it wasn't happy.

I know what you mean - I took the boy there for the first time last summer with the same result. Its a shame as its a nice little stream, but..

Historically, there would have been griz all across the prairies, but they would have been killed and/or retreated to the mountains to avoid human contact. I wonder now if the population has expanded significantly (as some think) or if the bears are being pushed out of the non-park mountainous areas due to the amount of human activity in terms of logging, O&G, recreation, etc. Thinking back to where I grew up, it wasn't unusual to have bears come down out of the hills in the fall to eat silage corn, or oats, or what ever, but it was more of transient thing.

https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/calgary-family-has-close-encounter-when-grizzly-charges-truck-1.4528545

Can anyone recommend a good glue for attaching canvas patches to a tent trailer? I tried some 3m super 77 spray adhesive based on some recommendations I read online, but it doesn't seem to be holding up.

I sat down at the vise last night to tie up some damsels and as I was picking through my marabou looking for the "right shade of green" it occurred to me that in lakes where I've seen a damsel migration I've often seen the nymphs in various shades from dark olive to almost chartreuse during the same event. Has anyone else noticed this and/or has anyone noticed an appreciable difference in effectiveness using different colors? I think Dave Whitlock had a two tone light & dark olive pattern, maybe this is the way to go and save some space in the fly box instead of having multiple patterns?

Terrible! I would like organize some sort of brown trout relief effort, if you could just PM me the GPS co-ordinates of where that fish was caught I'll go on an immediate fact fishing... er, I mean fact finding mission... lol Nice catch!

Nice work!

Last year I found some indicators by an outfit out of Maple Ridge called Top Shelf floats - they have a hard-ish rubber insert in the middle and a hollow plastic peg that secures the line in same manner as the Rowley style indicator. They aren't cheap, but I've been using the same one for more than a season now and it's still going strong and doesn't have the issue of the leader wearing groves in the foam of the indicator body.

That's chunky lass, nice work!

No worries - beautiful pram, BTW. FWIW, I bought the Marlon to fish two adults comfortably or one adult and 1-2 kids and it does that very well, and it's very manageable with two people. That said, I found it too awkward to load and unload by myself (my kids are too young to help) and so I ended up trailering it. Had I known I was going to go the trailer route, I would have probably looked harder at a 14' boat, as I think it would have been a little more versatile. Just a thought, and YMMV...

Can't help you with the Spratley, but I have a 12' Marlon if you're looking at that option.

I like the intent of the idea Flyfisher, but that would be a tough one to enforce. The first illegally stocked perch I ever caught was in Gardom Lake on a snow cone chroni pattern.

Saw my first road killed skunk this morning... lol

I drove past Dogpound yesterday afternoon and there was about 4"-6" of melt water flowing over the ice. There were a few thin looking spots on the little Red, but the big Red and FT both looked to be fairly locked up still. With double digit temps forecast for next week spring might finally be here!

This line in the report stuck out to me; "The pattern of decline in adult abundance in the LBR appears similar to declines in other high-profile Rainbow Trout fisheries caused by Whirling Disease." My understanding is that the parasite and the resulting whirling disease mostly affect young fish of a size that aren't often targeted, or even caught by most anglers. Limiting angler effort could, in some measure, protect the adult fish and possibly allow more to spawn but would this have an appreciable impact on the number of young trout that survive the disease and live to produce the next generation? Also, if the rainbows in the Bow aren't native (but naturalized) could introducing a strain like the Hofer rainbows that have shown a higher level of resistance to the parasite be possible, and if so would this help the population recover faster?

Without knowing precisely who is responsible its hard to know what their motivation is, but an illegal restocking is definitely possible. My experience is anecdotal, but from what I've seen there is a lag time between when perch are introduced and start showing up as "bycatch" and when they truly dominate the lake. If it is something as simple as "gee, wouldn't it be nice if we only had to drive to XYZ lake instead of ABC lake to catch some perch" then by never letting them get established and provide a fishery to the people looking to catch them it could discourage them from attempting future illegal stockings.

My comment about crowd sourcing a rotenone treatment was intended to be somewhat tongue in cheek. My point is I don't think trying to use an invasive species as a food source for a more piscivorous strain or species of cold water game fish is going to work. I've seen this happen in BC with red sided shiners and perch and it is nearly impossible to achieve, let alone maintain, a large population of mature fish that will have an appreciable impact on the invasives. At best, what will likely happen is that it will create a "head hunter" fishery where a few very large trout exist, but the sheer persistence required to catch them makes the reward not worth the effort to many anglers. I've heard the comment before about certain groups targeting invasive species once they are established, and I have to suspect that it is small percentage of these same folks that are responsible for introducing them in the first place. I tend to agree with Don, why do we then let them benefit from these illegal stockings? I think when the first invasive species is detected the lake (I'm only talking lakes) I think it should be treated rotenone ASAP, and then there should be a follow-up treatment. Once to kill the juveniles and adults, and then a second time after the usual gestation period (not sure if that is the appropriate word in this context) for the invasive species in question. Then close the lake to fishing for 5 years to allow the invertebrate populations to rebuild before restocking with trout. I know this proposed action is drastic, but why in the name of all that is holy do we as a province have to ignore the work done by other fisheries managers in other jurisdictions that have faced similar issues and wait for the situation to explode before coming up with plan of action? * sorry sparkplug, that wasn't directed at you - I was going to respond to your post and then do a general post after, but it didn't end up that way.

Not to hijack the thread, but maybe we should have a go fund me campaign to purchase some rotenone for these lakes. These are really rough numbers, but it takes about a gallon of rotenone to treat an acre foot of water, and Blood Indian is about 255 acres with an average depth of 15 feet, so approximately 3825 gallons would be needed. The best estimate (and I don't know how old this information is) that I could find was that a gallon of rotenone goes for $50-$80 USD, so it would probably cost in the neighborhood of $400,000 CAD to do one treatment.

The nice thing about Winchell is if you have a pair of rubber boots you can access pretty much the entire lake - there is a ring of muskeg that is solid enough to walk on that goes around the whole thing. The launch is pretty much just a swath cut out of the muskeg and as FF mentioned it is muddy. Launching the boat would probably be OK, but I'd be worried about getting the loaded trailer back out of that loon sh!t.

I haven't used Solarez, but I have had the same problem with Loon UV resin. That said, what are you using for a light source? I just picked up a better quality UV lamp this past week and it makes a world of difference. Specifically, I found in the past that the outside was mostly hard, but still had a bit of tackiness to it and the underside of the resin didn't seem fully cured. Now the tackiness is gone and the resin seems hard all the way through. I need to see how the new flies actually perform, but its something to keep in mind.

If you want to fish the Bow, Fish Creek Park is a good place to start.