danhunt

The upper lake existed before the dam. I wouldn't shed a lot of tears if the dam were removed tomorrow and the Kananaskis river turned back in to a quality cuttie fishery. But that's just me...

Fair point, bcube, YMMV. My experience has been that I tend to loose more big (for me) fish due to tangles in loose coils of line when they decide to make a sudden rush vs. loosing tension trying to get them on the reel.

Get them on the reel quick if you can, instead of pulling straight back try using side pressure to turn a fish and if you have a big one headed down stream faster than you can try loosening your drag (without giving it slack). Sometimes if they feel less pressure they'll slow down or even stop, giving you a chance to make your way down the bank and get below them. As others have said, check your leader often and if it looks the least bit cloudy or if it feels rough, change it out. Also, consider getting some fresh tippet material - sometimes material can look fine and feel fine when you test the knot, but it can be degraded just enough that it won't handle a sudden shock as well as it should (like when Walter starts shaking his head). Sometimes all you can do is accept that you gave it your best and hope for better luck on the next one.

I agree, I think annual or bi-annual population surveys would be a useful management tool going forward. From what I've read, the planned logging in the Highwood is a travesty. A BC logging contractor is cutting the timber and then shipping it to BC to be processed in one of their mills. Based on the current stumpage rates this is going to contribute approximately $94,000 to the provincial coffers. I don't usually take this stance, but it's hard to argue this plan benefits Alberta in any way, shape or form.

I've had luck with a chartreuse winged Kiwi muddler, but as others have said I think the key is to get the fly in the zone and keeping it there more than the patterns themselves.

I patched the bladder on my boat over the weekend and the Tear-Aid material works as advertised, which is to say very well. Literally, find the hole, dry the area, wipe it clean with an alcohol wipe (included in the kit), peel the patch off and stick it place and the repair is done. Nothing against any other product or having a professional repair done, but this is what the manufacturer recommends and it could be done as quickly and effectively on the banks of a river or lake as in your living room.

After suffering with a leaky pontoon this weekend I went online this morning to try and find a repair kit as the one that came with my boat has long since disappeared. As it happens, if you can't find one at your favorite fishing store Lee Valley has Tear-Aid kits, which is what Outcast sells on their website for their products. Type A for a urethane bladder (Outcast) and Type B for vinyl (Fishcat).

Based on the fact that they are talking about surface aeration vs diffuser aeration as though it's an unresolved issue, and the fact that there is no mention of WD leads me to believe that this report was actually drafted some time ago. It starts by mentioning a lack of aquatic resources and increased user demand, but then later mentions looking at the viability of a commercial fishery in Alberta? They want to introduce more of the slot sizes that lead to the collapse of several pike fisheries in the southern part of the province and add more limited harvest options based on a tag system like the one currently in place for Walleye. They want to look at the feasibility of adding more weirs and better maintaining the water levels in reservoirs, which would mean creating barriers to fish movement and diverting more water from the major river systems. Rather than closing the Pembina in a last ditch effort to save the fishery they would consider going barbless and a bait ban? Recycled ideas and dated thinking. BTW, is it me or does anyone else look at Brian Jean and immediately think of Fargo?

I like Bron's idea and I agree - I think it's kind of crappy for sage not to offer a replacement piece if you're willing to pay for it. It's a real long shot, but if you could find a section of blank that would fit in the top section of the broken piece you might be able to saw the lower section off flush and reinforce it with a thread wrap and finish to make a kind of spigot ferrule setup like you sometimes see on fiberglass rods. I was trying to fix a wiggly reel seat on a loop rod I have and I ended up breaking the blank underneath the handle. I used a piece of another butt section that I slid inside the blank and epoxied in place and it worked like a charm, but that's a lot different than a repair on a tip section.

If it broke an inch or two from the tip you can try adding a new tip top and repositioning the closest guide. It will change the action somewhat, but it may still be fishable. If its further down the section you might be SOL.

Looks like a fat and sassy brookie to me.

If you fish on weekends it might be perfect to find a spot on the Livy that isn't already occupied by another angler... lol.

Unfortunately it's also been found in whitetail and it was recently detected in the CFB Suffield elk herd as well. Going forward I'm thinking it wouldn't be a bad idea to submit the heads of any game taken anywhere in the province for testing.

Wow, that was a sobering read, thanks for the link. I knew CWD was a serious issue, but I had no idea it was that transmissible or that it persisted in the environment the way it does. And I had never considered the possibility of plants having the potential to take up the prions and transmit them as well.

Rotenone is toxic to aquatic invertebrates as well as fish, but it doesn't affect all fish or insects equally. In broad strokes, trout and perch are susceptible to a lower concentration than say catfish or carp, so the over-all effect on the ecosystem as a whole is going vary depending on the type of fish being managed. Mayflies are more sensitive than caddis, which are more sensitive than shrimp and dragonflies etc. That said, the rule of thumb is that it takes a concentration two orders of magnitude greater to kill all of the insects than it does all of the fish. There was a discussion on the flybc board some years ago when there was talk of using Rotenone as a management tool, and there was a lot of irrational fear about how it "nukes" a lake but consider this - aboriginal peoples living a subsistence lifestyle in South America commonly use Rotenone as a fishing method. The fact that it doesn't harm them, and the fact that they can continue to catch fish from the same waters generation after generation should tell us something. I think the real reason its not used more is likely because of the monetary cost. If the fisheries department decides a management plan isn't working and they want to stock different fish in a lake, as is being discussed with PCR, then I think that's fine. If a lake is illegally stocked I don't think the new fish should be included in the management plan from there on out. I think the lake should be closed to all fishing immediately until it can be killed off and restocked according to the original management plan.

Wow, those guys have nerves of steel to deal with some of those refusals. Great vid, thanks for posting!

I think we're on the same page, but I think we're maybe coming at it from different angles. In terms of transmitting the parasite, the "free love" era of water sports in Alberta is over. From now on, any time we get our gear wet we have to assume that we are carrying the parasite and take appropriate steps ("they won't get the spins if you wash your fins"). That's a given, otherwise there is no hope of stopping the spread, only slowing it. To my way of thinking, whether or not the water body has actually been shown to have the parasite only matters in how they manage the fishery from there on out. Fair point on the PKD, I didn't realize it was similar but different - thanks for the heads up. Sorry, meant to quote BurningChrome's post.

No I didn't, but I probably should have. To be honest, like a lot of people, anytime I'm shopping around the holidays the only thing on my mind is accomplishing my mission and getting the hell out. lol...

With respect to the DNA sampling, I could be wrong but I think it would depend on the rate of genetic mutation. If you knew the rate of mutation and you knew the average time it took for the organism to produce a new generation I think you could work backwards, but you would also need a "common ancestor" to determine where to start measuring the mutations from. That said, if they are hoping to trace the parasite back to it's point of origin then I would have to guess that the biologists involved aren't anticipating that there has been any significant changes. I think Bron has a point - knowing how long the parasite has been in a system could be beneficial in that old information could be reviewed to try and determine what impact it may have had in the past, how quickly it is spreading and how the impact changes over time. Using that kind of information we could better predict what impact there would be in the future and how to best manage the fishery going forward. That said, Pinkster has a point as well - consider Yellowstone. Whirling disease was first detected in that part of the world in 1998 and this summer there was a new outbreak that resulted in a fish kill and closed the river to all water sports.

I was wandering through the store recently, looking for supplies for my pooch, and I happened to swing by the koi pond and I heard a staff member giving a presentation to about 20 people who were there. She was explaining how long koi live and how big they get and she wound up by saying something to the effect of "...and that is why it is very important that if you can't care for your fish anymore you should bring them back to the store where you bought them rather than release them in to the wild where they can become an invasive species". And then she went further and discussed storm water ponds and how they connect to the river. The way she talked about the issue made me feel like it was more than just a boiler plate disclaimer, she really understood the issue and really seemed passionate about it. I think it really says something about the business when front line staff display that kind of corporate social responsibility. The also have a collapsible pond net that looks like it's going to be fantastic for catching insect samples next year... lol.

THE WALL JUST GOT TEN FOOT HIGHER! lol, no disrespect meant, Don.

My condolences to his friends and family. Kudos to the angler that put himself at risk to try and save a stranger! In addition to the PFD and wading staff, a set of ice picks that ice fishermen use are a good thing to carry as well. Once, I had been fishing on an ice shelf that was about a foot thick when it let go and dumped me in to the water. I had been there for some time and had since it hadn't let go earlier I though was safe and got complacent, but I'm guessing as the day warmed... Another time I was walking along the bank thinking about my next cast and I stepped on a spot that I thought was solid and I fell in to a hole between the bank an a root ball that was deep enough it almost came in over the top of my waders. In both cases I managed to get myself out, but an extra bit of a handhold would have helped immensely.

At the end of the season I burn my unused 2 stroke oil in my vehicles as well with no ill effects. My vehicle has a 70l tank, so 2 gallons of mix is going to be further diluted by a factor of about 10, and really all that can happen is you that you may get slightly more carbon buildup in your engine than you otherwise would. If you usually fill up with regular I'd say wait until you get down to a 1/4 tank, put the mix in and top it off with premium or use a container of injector cleaner and forget about it.

I realize it is a different parasite, but one of the contributing factors in the recent Yellowstone outbreak is believed to be the low flows and higher than normal water temperatures the river has been experiencing this year. Temperature and other environmental factors are known to play a role in Whirling disease outbreaks as well, so is it so far-fetched to think that it has been here for a while and the conditions were just never right for a larger scale outbreak? Doesn't the fact that biologists are now sampling other drainage lend some credence to that idea, or is there another reason why it might spread across the province in the space of days when it hasn't been able to cross an invisible border for 20+ years? It is all well and good to believe in the scientific method and to want empirical evidence before whole heartedly subscribing to an idea. That said, before dismissing the anecdotal observations of GrnDrake and others out of hand consider this - it is the Canadian food inspection agency that is credited with confirming the presence of Whiling Disease in Alberta. It is also the CFIA that refuses to acknowledge that there is any disease problem relating to net pen fish farms off the west coast that is causing wild pacific salmon stocks to be decimated. And this is despite evidence from an internationally recognized and accredited laboratory to the contrary. There is a really good post a little ways down in the forum, if anyone is interested. An open mind and a healthy sense of scepticism are two sides of the same coin, my friends. We are all on the same side here, let's keep it civil.

No words. I hate to ask, but does this lake connect to the Bow?