Smitty
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Posts posted by Smitty
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I always make a blanket generalization that virtually everything - except designated natural areas - is private land east of QE2, and crown land - especially crown land available to randomly camp on - is virtually non-existent. True?
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Cross posted in the AO forum as well. Would like to help this guy get his reel back:
Hi:
Asking for an older gentleman while fishing the Livingstone. We happened to park at the same pullout; it's the last pullout before the road turns west away from the Livingstone river to go to the Oldman North group campground.
This older gent seemed distressed as he was clearly looking for something. I struck up a conversation. He left his antique fly-reel - it belonged to his dad - on top of his car and drove off.
I told him I would post on the forums on his behalf. Please, if you find it, pm me, and I'll ensure it gets back to him. It has no real re-sale value, it is an aluminum reel, possible black rim or frame, and has no brand name stamped on it.
Reward offered based solely on sentimental value.
Keep an eye open please if fishing that area.
Cheers,
Mike-
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Hi Everyone:
I'm not trying to horn in on anyone's secret spots, but can someone tell me if there is non-classified water near Sparwood? The only thing I can find is the Flathead river.
I ask, because my nephew has a summer job down there. He bought his annual non-res license and wants to fish. Trouble is, $21 per day does add up when you are a student trying to save money.
Anyways. if anyone has suggestions, I'd appreciate them. I used to know the area somewhat well, but now, not so much. Plus, I've noticed formerly unclassified systems are now classified, as you drive north from Cranbrook. So...I don't know!
Pm me if you prefer.
Cheers,Smitty
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Hi:
Well, I noticed this the other day on Facebook:
I can't make this. I'm in Edmonton, and June is stupendously, insanely busy for teachers. I think I am losing my mind. Lol
Anyways, if anyone here in Calgary wouldn't mind volunteering for use to do some shopping, my students and I would be eternally grateful. If this is anything like the April tackle swap, which my dad and I were at, there are some decent prices for tackle and fly tying supplies.I am looking for leaders, tippet, and fly tying tools and materials.
Really appreciate any help. PM me or text 780-970-7886Thanks!
Mike
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9 hours ago, ÜberFly said:
Mike
Does your school board require youth hire a guide (or have a minimum of an OCC Field Leader cert) for this type of thing (some do)?
Peter
Nope.
6 hours ago, matt1984 said:2)Keep in mind this is 2 days after the general rifle season opens in the oldman/livingstone area. Expect it to be VERY busy and expect lots of gunshots. Take a look at the hike up to plateau mountain though, it remained unglaciated so the top of the mountain has unique frost polygon features. Also, I believe this lies just into WMU 404 so it is out of the general hunting zone.
Dammit.3) Westwood restaurant in Black diamond is a great spot, local ingredients and great food.
Thanks!
Thanks, both of you. Keep the suggestions coming!
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Add to the above:
3) Good place to eat in Black Diamond on the way back?
Thanks bcubed. Keep the replies coming, friends!-Smitty
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Hey everyone:
Planning a camping trip down south Sept-19-21 with a group of 20+ students. Looking for a few recommendations.
1) Any nice day-use picnic areas between Okotoks and around Black Diamond / Longview? Wanted a nice spot for a quick (30 minutes) lunch2) Wanted to take the students on a short, easy hike along the Whaleback Ridge. Any recommendations here? Anything related to the science curriculum would be great; unique geology, fauna, plants, trees, animals, etc. Also, if this short hike could gain some modest elevation so some scenic pictures could be taken, that would be awesome.
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$200 bid on item #3
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Just to clarify, all the official bids are on Facebook, right?
I found round 1 confusing; just seemed people were bidding here and on Facebook... -
Hello everyone:
My father and I are coming down to Calgary (from Edmonton) tomorrow to run a booth and sell some excess fly-fishing equipment we have.
I am also keeping an eye out for any half decent, used, cheaply priced equipment. I have a class of 25 wildlife students in my class and I am taking them flyfishing 3-4 times. I could use some 4/5/6 rod and reel outfits, I figure one per 2 students. So 10 to 12 outfits would be ideal, as I have some already but I am looking to upgrade.
If you have any used equipment lying around not being used, we could sure use the donation and/or be happy to pay a modest price for them. TFO, Redington, Superfly come to mind.
Cheers.
Mike
P.S. You may certainly text me if you want to meet up; 780-970-7886Info on the TU Tackle Swap tomorrow:
- Location - Crescent Heights Community Association (same as last year)
- Date - April 13th, 2018
- Approximate Time - 1-4 PM
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1 hour ago, DonAndersen said:
Smitty,
Perch are invasive as are trout in lakes where they did not occur naturally.
The question that should be asked, which lake stocking species draws the most Anglers?
All of the lakes with the exception of Burnstick and Swan in the Rocky area were fish free.
When trout were in Cow Lake you couldn’t find a place to park. Last year, opening day with illegally stocked perch and Govt stocked pike, there were a whole two of us fishing.
Cow Lake raised trout to 15 lbs.
Sad - what a waste of Fishing opportunity.
Don
Don, as usual, despite your impression, on a basic, fundamental level, we agree.
For invasives, you say puhtata, I say poe-tay-toe! (Anyone catch the LOTR reference there?) Therefore, by your logic, Brown and Brook trout are invasives as well, as you well know. Lots of native fish in Red Deer / Clearwater - North Sask water basins before the Europeans showed up. The minnows, whitefish, bull trout, suckers, walleye and pike weren't stocked, to my knowledge (by all means clarify the facts if I am wrong...). Funny how you'll tolerate brown and brook, but you have your hackles raised for native-yet-invasive cutts in nearly vacant niche like the Upper Ram...
And I know of Cow lake's potential. Another example; Crawling Valley was predicted to have the next rainbow trout record; but according to Kyle McNeilly it was always intended to be a transitional fishery before pike-walleye-perch-whitefish took hold. Yes, I know it was a different intent than Cow, I am simply pointing out that I am well aware of the fertility levels and potential of many of our pothole fisheries. It is sad indeed.Wasn't it Mr. McNeilly also promoting the stabilization of lake levels of Upper and Lower Kananaskis lakes as well? That those 2 lakes have / had the potential to grow huge trout if TransAlta could just stop messing with the littoral zone? Again, correct me if I am wrong on that account. But that was told to me as well from Jim Stelfox.
Lots of pothole fisheries going to waste. And, to completely circle back to the original point, zero retention on perch ain't solving nothing until someone cites me some studies or evidence of this much ballyhooed "deterrent effect" improving the quality of our stocked fisheries. Otherwise it's just game of regulatory one-upmanship of "oh yeah, you did that, so we'll do this to show you!" My take anyways...
I'll say no more on this dead horse; topic officially beaten to death!
-Mike
P.S. Anyone know what happened to Kyle McNeilly? After he stopped writing for the AFG, he kinda fell off the face of the earth...P.P.S. No brainer that trophy stillwater trout fisheries attract alot of attention. 20 boats on Muir mid-week by my count last spring...too bad the province isn't quite dialed into this yet in an "all-in" basis...
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Whats the date of the story? There are several when you do a search.
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In regards to Perch, they are not truly invasive though. Obviously, native to the province.
They just happen to be undesirable in our artificial, stocked lakes.
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59 minutes ago, Sparkplug said:
I think Trailhead hit it on the, er, head here with this comment - the catch-and-keep group (of whatever - trout, perch) is (very?) large. Thus I wonder, might our quality trout fisheries objectives be better served by concentrating only on a small number of lakes (at least at first), as showcase projects, and leave the rest for the catch and keep crowd, if they so love their stunted perch or heavily stocked trout?
Essentially, supply and demand - keep up the supply of the put-and-take fisheries (as hard as it is to write that), while working to transition some waters to QF trout status.
Others on this forum know better than I do (and will I'm sure correct me, if what I'm about to write is wrong), but our experience to date with lakes such as Muir, Beaver, etc. that have seen more effort towards the development of QF's there have not been subject to illegal perch stocking (yet). So maybe QF trout waters will continue to be respected, if there is still a supply of put-and-take fisheries (including some with perch).
Perhaps the only blanket regulation change should be a significant increase in penalty for being caught/convicted of transporting live fish.
Both sides of the perch zero retention/liberal retention debate discussed here have merit. But maybe a doable "win" for us is to at least get some increased focus on creating a few more higher quality trout fisheries first, with tighter regs, stepped-up enforcement, etc., rather than try to come up with a province-wide magic bullet change.
I agree with much of what you say here Sparkplug; yet much of what you are advocating for; isn't that already happening? Aren't we already concentrating on a small # of lakes?
Based on my anecdotal observations of fishing Muir lake, and what many here have to say about Beaver (I'm relying on Don's comments alot) is that QSF fisheries are in heavy demand. And QSF's are relatively few compared to the total amount of put and take fisheries; so wouldn't that already qualify them as being a showcase fishery?
And yeah, you said the magic work - 'yet'. And let's hope many of the beloved QSF's stay uninfected with perch. Could be a matter of time, unfortunately.
The bios / gov't are reluctant to "convert" long-existing, traditional keep 5 trout a day lakes over to QSF's. Lots of pushback from the keep and eat crowd. Very tough to "transition" them. Lots of QSF's are "new" lakes such as the cluster of Pit lakes south of Robb. Those are much easier, politically speaking. And, absolutely, there will always have to be put and take fisheries. The problem with including perch is the (relatively) incompatible species issue. We already have plenty of cool-water lakes that sustain pike-perch-walleye-whitefish. What needs to happen here is education. Anglers should not be associating our trout stillwater fisheries as a source of "good" perch fishing. It's that simple. You might as well capitulate then and stock the pike, and have a Cow lake situation. Culturally speaking, that's the transition I'd like Alberta to go to over succeeding generations; keep the damn perch out of our trout lakes and accept it! lol
Might take an existing QSF to get "ruined" by perch before the gov't takes drastic action and truly rehab lakes. So ya, step up enforcement, toughen fines, and concentrate on creating new fisheries into QSF's.
Anyways, tough issue with gov't complacency and angler apathy (true for the vast majority of the 270,000+ licensed anglers).
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1 hour ago, northfork said:
I don't mean to come across as attacking you - this is a good debate.
No no...no worries. It's a good debate. I wrote a reply to someone else, it was too defensive in tone. I invited people to set me straight on facts, someone did (though they were half right). There ya go. Whatever. Doesn't change my mind one bit about how I feel about a particular policy (the nonsensical zero perch limit). However, I have had ample forum time and space to repeat my point several times, so I'll say no more on it.
Bottom line from my point of view is that the government should be all in, and we, as anglers, should spend more time trying to convince the government (bios, etc) the tourism and economic merits of having a trout mecca like the Parklands. Or just manage our fisheries better!-
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... Didnt like my reply. Deleted it.
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27 minutes ago, Bron said:
Access as in non-retention. I probably could have chosen better wording.
As for not getting caught, that’s what I’m saying. You’re never going to get caught illegally stocking something. So the only way to disincentivize the act is to make it pointless. “As soon as my illegally stocked perch are established and fishable, they will make it non-retention/close the lake/kill the lake, so what’s the point of bothering to do so?”
IMO non-retention does nothing because if these guys are willing to illegally stock perch, they are also pretty likely to “poach” perch. They are making rules for themselves.
closing a lake makes it much more observable someone is breaking the rules.
Ah! Now I see. Yes, 100%. I could closing a lake as a viable alternative, but that also punishes the anglers targeting trout.
And, the biggest downside to closing lakes is that makes alot of lakes right now eligible for closure. Can you imagine closing, what ten to 2 dozen lakes? I don't even know how many infestations there are, province wide.
Yeah, I totally agree; these guys already are doing something illegal, we're not going to prevent them from poaching.
Seems like the best course would be (1) close the lake (2) rehab the lake rotenone, turn off aerators (3) signage and educational campaign blitz (4) toughen the laws for the live transport of fish, dumping goldfish, koi, perch etc where-ever. Education is a big component here.
Too bad there aren't reverse aerators where they "suck" the oxygen out of the lakes...though I am sure PETA would have something to say about that..-
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Just now, Bron said:
Of course it makes sense to limit access To someone’s illegal stocking fishery. That’s the ONLY way to shift cost/benefit of them taking the risk to transplant perch in the first place. They’re never going to get caught in the act.
I don't understand what you're saying here... there is no issues with "access". If a lake is publicly accessible, it's accessible. As for getting caught, no one - to my knowledge, someone else can chime in here and correct me - that no one has been charged, brought before a judge, and prosecuted for stocking perch illegally. Again, if we're talking about disincentives, a law should be effective and enforced. Anyways,...like I said...not sure what point you're making here...
As for angling, yes, sadly, you are mostly correct. Would take alot of angling effort to make a dent in the populations. So where does that leave us? Better to try, than to leave an infested lake to its own devices? Having a zero retention limit on perch has done nothing, has produced zero results, and a pure status quo policy.
So, circling around on this carousel, we've come to the conclusion that rehab is the way to go?
Or, maybe it's easier to target and create "new" fisheries. Yay! More mine pit lakes!!
Just remember, many lakes - Hasse, Cow come to mind - were originally pike / perch lakes. Only in severe winterkills did the bios decades and decades ago experiment with filling temporary niches with stocked, non-native species like rainbow trout.Anyways, I'm all for trying something different.
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12 hours ago, northfork said:
We've been at the "might as well try this now" stage for quite some time in a few lakes here. I understand Don's frustration and agree with him wholeheartedly. Above and beyond rewarding these idiots, it leaves more places for them to get perch to transplant to more lakes. Enough is enough, might as well poison all the lakes. The sooner we can start rectifying this problem the sooner we can get our trout lakes back.
Right. Exactly my point. We've tried different policies, none seem to work. So you try something different. I'm all for the poison, except (a) that the government won't ante up the funds and (b) they don't have the political stomach.
I have more practical viewpoint on this (sorry, but it is more practical): since no one has cited any evidence that a zero perch retention has done anything, why not try the opposite? Forget the "philosphy" of it rewarding the idiots, isn't the bottom line that we want better trout fisheries? So, short of rotenone, isn't the best way to do that is to reduce perch numbers? Additionally, you could turn off aerators, hope for a complete and total winterkill? I'm saying we've stuck to the principle of "let's not reward the idiots". Great. Awesome. And it's got us a whole lotta nothing except perch infested lakes where (until the regs changed back this year), I wasn't allowed to kill the little buggers. So... do you draw your sword on a hill of principles and rant about it....or do something practical?
We're all frustrated. Again, if anyone has some actual evidence to support the policy of zero retention perch, great. I suspect it is non-existent. So...back to chasing our tails.
Maybe a new gov't will do something... (yeah right). So sure, let's go for the poison. That is the practical solution actually: if Alberta could even come close to replicating the Manitoba parkland experience, like Don says, anglers will vote with their feet. The increased angler related tourism revenue could help offset the costs of poison.
Seriously, what else is there to do? You gotta kill the perch or kill the lake. Having a zero limit makes no sense in lakes already infested.-
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That's one way to look at it.
Another way is to also say that not allowing retention of perch hasn't done anything to improve those trout lakes as well. Furthermore, I don't believe the zero retention was working as a deterrent. You're dialed into the bios and conversations Don, can you cite some evidence of any upside to that policy? It was, what, in place the past 5 - 7 - 10 years?
So if leaving the perch alone didn't help trout, and it's not preventing the bucket biologists from acting selfishly, maybe it is time to reverse the policy. Maybe they should allow unlimited retention and a must kill policy for perch. What could it hurt at this point?
If the lakes aren't going to be properly re-habbed with rotenone and/or the aerators shut down in the winter, I am the "might as well try this now" stage.
Clearly, you see it differently. Fair enough. -
9 hours ago, bcubed said:
I agree, it takes over the feed. Not that there is a whole heck of a lot going on in this forum anymore.. seems like a lot of the effort has moved over to a few FB groups/pages. Seems pretty typical on most forums these days
Yeah, I agree with this as well. Maybe forums have peaked.
Have to say, when this forum was at its peak it was very good. Sure, there some issues, personality conflicts etc - what online platform / forum doesn't? - but overall, this was one of the best forums going for info / chat / talk.
Anyways, I digress. Carry on... -
7 hours ago, bcubed said:
I’m pretty positive it’s an automatic post that Darren setup when he was still a moderator here..
Undoubtedly I suspect that's entirely correct. Nevertheless, it needs to be modified. But, on the other hand, I did find the alternative solution, so less bothersome now...
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On 1/3/2019 at 8:58 AM, angler said:
Sorry guys.
when I search unread content about all I see is whole bunch of blogs from pacres.
i don’t give a damn about anybodies blog and having to scroll past them all is a pita.
How do I select to ignore ALL of these so they never show up.
I did find a solution angler; the best thing to do is to go to the blog feed itself and then there is an option to click "mark forum as read". Then it asks to confirm, and you say yes. Then click your unread content again, nothing from the blog should show up.
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Hate to pile on, but I agree. Is there a way to filter these out? Just curious.
First impression of Waiparous...
in General Chat - Fishing Related
Posted
Did some exploring on my way back to Edmonton from the Okotoks wedding I attended this past weekend.
Followed Barry Mitchell's advice from his Trout Highway book. Not sure I did end up following it that well.
But nothing. Nada. Went up Johnson's creek as well, same result. And I fished some pretty fishy water. I'm no pro fisherman, but I know how to get 6-9 inch fish to bite from a small stream!! As in, not even a sign of a fish. As in, chuck a rock into a pool, see what you spook. z.e.ro. Maybe I was in the wrong stretch...
Maybe its a hidden gem for some of the Calgary crowd who might know it better than me.
But I won't be back anytime soon; too many other places I can fish, and that location doesn't work at all for an Edmonton angler.
Not to mention the quad brigade and the rifle shooting (is there a range?).
I'll pass, thanks. lol. Too bad, it is pretty country, and I got to drive one of the few remaining blank spots on the map for the Forestry Trunk road. All that's left is the portion south of the Red Deer River / Panther river confluence...and I will have driven it all from Grande Prairie down to the Crownest Pass. Only took me 21 years...