slingshotz

Nice bulls and rockies. Went fishing for some rockies for the smoker yesterday but I didn't bring my gear to target the bulls which I really should have. Found a pool with a bunch of big rockies and bulls, landed quite a few large rockies all 13-16 inches. I almost lost two of the rockies to bulls that had swallowed the entire fish but finally let go, I'd guess them to be 30+ inches, even had a bull try and take my entire stringer of rockies! Caught a few smaller cutts that I had to land asap as they were getting chewed up by the bulls, hopefully they survive. Those bulls are pretty damn aggressive now. Were some of the rockies you kept full of roe too? Tried targeting the bulls with the largest nymphs I had but they didn't care about them, guess I need to try and find some 12 inch streamers

I use the traditional 13ft but it's a bit too long for small streams. I've had the Tenkara for a few years now so the alternative Level or High Wind lines didn't exist back then so I've never actually tried them before. I wished I ordered a Level line when I ordered a replacement tip for my Ayu now, they look really interesting to cast.

The other setup that was working really well at Willow was a small dry fly like a caddis or something bright and a dropper prince nymph about 1-2 feet below. The pools are getting much shallower now. The fish usually take the nymph during the day and the dry at dusk or pools with good shade.

The 13' Ayu is pretty good for the larger streams, I've used it on the Highwood and Sheep. It's actually a bit annoying on the smaller streams because of the length. I don't understand this "hipster" feeling people get, I guess it's probably the same way spincasters think of the snobbish fly fishers. Tenkara fishing is old school fishing with modern materials, a line attached to the end of a pole, wow how radical and cool!

Maybe escaped bulls from Upper K if your creek was nearby? They also did clip the fins from a survey done in 2008 from Ram, North Saskatchewan and Bighorn rivers, and Fall Creek.

Elbow cuttie about 21" BC cuttie about 15" I know what you mean Rick, cutties are meant for the dry fly. I'm making a habit nowadays to carry two rods at all times, one dry and one nymph. It's too much of a pain in the ass changing rigs all the time. You sure those big fish at the bottom aren't big dollies/bulls? My wife caught a nice bull on the streamer in a big pool too:

I noticed the same thing these last couple of days, We fished a nice big pool this year that we fished last year about the same time in BC. I got a few on a dry but when I changed to a nymph I landed about a dozen in an hour, we didn't think there were that many fish in the pool. The nymph really didn't matter either, we tried about 6 different ones and they all equally caught fish. All three of the rivers we fished in the Kootenays behaved the same way, 80% of the cutties were on the nymph but the largest of them I did catch on the dry but it was on the most remote river. I know that's normal for other fish but I've had lots of cutties in the Elbow go for the standard dry stimmie.

I have managed a 20"+ cuttie from the Elbow last year but nothing like in BC. I just got back from three days of fly fishing in the Kootenays and the biggest difference I've noticed is the amount of waters available to fish vs the population. We fished in three classified fishing rivers (one was fly only) that are popular guided ones and I saw ONE float boat and no other walk and waders. There are TONS of places to random camp in BC with all the forestry roads, we did about 120km on the forestry roads and barely saw anyone random camping,. There's just too large a population in Calgary and too few places to go. Much as I hate the classified water licences for non-residents (I would totally pay extra for an annual one like residents can get), I think their regs do really help the quality of the fishery. Some of our rivers down south should be changed to one only or zero limit. And for reference I am not a strict C&R fisherman but I practice “limit your kill, don’t kill your limit" (except when it comes to brookies ).

Yes to the last question! As for the rest, this website is pretty decent describing the different dropper styles: http://blog.riverwoodfliesonline.com/?p=1453

Our group of 5 (including the leader) pulled out about 35 brookies in the day on the outing. One rainbow and two cutties were caught during the day. I stayed after everyone left at 6 until 10 and got 30 more brookies out of there including a LDR on a decent cuttie. I only fished a stretch of water maybe 300m long as there were some holes that I kept pulling brookie after brookie out, after about the 6 or 7th one, just when I thought there are no more, another one would come up and slam the fly . The amazing thing is that the average size I harvested was about 15cm long but lots of them were full of roe already. There are so many of those little buggers in there that any bug in the water doesn't stand a chance and the cutties definitely have a hard time competing. Gonna head up to Elbow or Meadow this Sunday and see what the brookie population is like.

I'm not sure how it's possible to mount the trolling motor piece in front of the standing platform without severely front weighting the boat. This is my boat http://www.flyfishusa.com/outcast/fc-10/fish-cat-10.htm I love standing on the platform with the trolling motor running and I can cast from it like a bass boat and cover a lot of ground.

Then I lose the standup platform which is by far the best part of the boat. I mostly use the motor to get around the lake and only troll with it maybe 20% of the time.

I have almost exactly the same boat as yours the 10-IR with the mesh in the back. I have a full size deep cycle motor (in a battery case) and the 30lb trolling motor mounted with no issues. The mesh is really strong and I've been using it for 2 years now. The mesh still looks like the day it came out of the box and I haven't baby'd it. The most annoying thing I have yet to figure out is how to easily steer the motor when it's behind me. The best I've figured out is to extend the handle far enough so that my back can touch it and steer it that way. I need to find a way to make a pulley system to steer the motor when seated.

Been in pretty much the exact situation before. Spent way too much in University on credit and had to work my ass off in the UK to pay it off. I was lucky (if you look at the bright side) that the Cdn dollar sucked really bad at that time vs the pound so I hammered down my debt to nothing in a few years. I don't know what I would have done if I had stayed in Canada but that debt might probably still be with me. The feeling of relief getting that black cloud of debt over your head is incredible and definitely a lesson that will stick with you. Your two options for sucking it up, moving north and hammer down that debt or staying here happier and pick away at the debt - BOTH OPTIONS involve a huge change of your spending habits to succeed. Either choice, force yourself to make a budget and maybe do some financial reading, (http://www.gailvazoxlade.com/resources.html) is a good place to start. You may discover way to hammer down that debt and stay in your happy job, Good Debt Tips. I'm also in IT but I have a finance background so if you want chat about it on the river let me know

I also ordered my AYU from TenkaraUSA as they didn't have any Canadian distributions a few years ago that I knew of. It is quite fun and different from regular fly fishing and is ideal on small stream and lakes. However, do not be mislead, it can catch bigger fish too. Sea run brown in Iceland that wife caught on the Tenkara

What is wrong with the Dell? If it's serious like a blown motherboard then it's probably not worth it to repair. Used Dells are quite cheap nowadays.

Maybe if some here told you to buy and you bought a million shares and the next day it went up 15% it might draw attention. Buying a few thousand shares compared to the massive daily volume is nothing. There's a big difference between saying the company is running well after the merger and the company is going to split up tomorrow. The amount of insider and shady trading I've seen ignored by the CSA is insane, that's pretty much how many brokerage houses operate to stay successful. One of the biggest public indicators of how well things are would be how many insiders bought in after the merger. There are many legitimate reasons for insiders to sell but really only one reason to buy. I don't work for Suncor but my company is quite involved with them in Fort Mac and from a business side of things they are crazy busy and have huge expansion plans on the horizon (which is public knowledge).

That's awesome to hear, Birchy and I encountered this guy last year (I think it's the same one) and he took off before we could call in a CO. We were going to stalk him this year if he shows up again.

We've used ours for two seasons now and while I do still prefer a lightweight fly rod, it really excels in small streams with dries, especially places with lots of rocks, riffles and small pools. We've used it nymphing in smaller streams and it works well too when you can wade right up to the drop offs. We have the AYU 13' and have have caught little 5" brookies up to a 14" sea run brown in Iceland, it's surprising how big a fish you can land with one. Any stiff breeze is definitely the drawback of a Tenkara, they just don't have the weight to punch through it.

Gravlax is super simple the way we do it. The tricky part is the amount of salt and there's no real exact recipe unfortunately as fish will absorb varying amounts of salt and sugar depending on thickness, type of fish and type of salt used. Typically we use wet normandy, coarse, kosher or the more pricy maldon sea salts, never use iodized salt (for anything for that matter!). The rough measurement is for every pound of fish fillet use: 1/8 cup (2 tablespoons) salt, we like it more saltier so we add another teaspoon after the first curing day usually but you need to taste the fish first 1/8 cup (2 tablespoons) sugar 2 teaspoons cracked black, white or red pepper, they all give a unique taste so try both to see which you prefer, whitefish is better for some reason with red peppercorns Handfuls of chopped fresh dill (stems and all), enough to cover generously the fillet the more the more intense the flavor Mix spices, cover fillet then stack dill on top. We usually use two equal sized fillets and make a sandwich with all the bits in between. Wrap in plastic wrap tightly. The salt will draw moisture out of the fish so make sure the fillet is in some kind of flat container. Typically you flip the fish over after the first day to redistribute the juices. After two days, you can take the dill off and rince the fillet, pat dry and slice thin. It is fine to leave it for 3-4 days if the fillet is especially thick or if you really want a more intense flavour. Works for pretty much any type of fish except for very oily fish like mackeral, sardines or anchovies. If you are really concerned with parasites, you can freeze it down to -23C and that will kill them (either before or after curing). Usually only commerically frozen or sashmi graded fish will have undergone this process. I have never bothered with this as I stay away from any dodgy looking fish or use my own fish that I catch. Or wait for a regular winter day in Calgary and stick the fish outside

In Finland we ate gravlax style lake whitefish, its very good and no one I've heard of has gotten sick. Any fish from cool clean water should be fine to eat raw, I've had raw steelhead and rainbow trout and it's as good as salmon sashmi.

Turn them inside out once in a while and put them in the sun, it's is a natural odor and bacteria killer. Also use the freshener spray that is used on hockey gear, only had to do it once a year but I rarely sweat much to stink the waders.

They still have both the Exodus I and II at Fishing Hole and they are 25% off with the Wall to Wall sale until Sat (regular price was $160 I think). I was very tempted to pick one up but I managed to control myself.

There were reports of the TS1 leaking but it's usually because something get caught in the rubber seals. You are supposed to replace them every year but I didn't bother and never had any issue but I made sure the seal was kept clean. As for the underwater mode, I had used the camera with and without the mode turned on and there wasn't a huge difference. I think the underwater mode adjusts camera settings to generally work better for underwater but I'm not sure excatly what it does.

I just picked up the TS3 and it seems like it's a bit better than the TS1 (which I lost a month ago). Right now Vistek is having a good sale so if you go to Bestbuy and get them to price beat them you can get it for about $323. My old TS1 was incredibly tough even though it wasn't officially freezeproof or waterproof past 10 feet, I pushed those limits badly without any issues. The only thing I wish the camera could do would be RAW images but its a small price to pay for the durability.