slingshotz

Thanks for the info on the swivel. Trolling motor is awesome for getting around on a bigger lake, the only thing I've found is that you need to figure out some kind of steering system as pontoons don't really go straight naturally with a trolling motor pushing it.

Grats on an awesome gift, I have a Fish Cat as well and you won't be disappointed. I've heard about people upgrading their seat with a swivel but I have never seen it before. Where did you get the swivel and does it replace the entire seat or just mounts underneath the existing one?

Good to see that you had some luck there. Mine looked very similar, I only managed to get a photo of the tail of mine, those big brooders are sure a handful. Did the other Brian have any luck? Those are some big slabs eh!

This is what I use http://www.amazon.com/Heater-F276172-1-Pou...e/dp/B000AMC5WO. So far I've had no issues fitting it to any 20lb bottle, my 20lb tanks are new from last year so unless they very very recently changed the design, there should be no problems. I use a lot of these little tanks in the hard water season and I've refilled probably 30 of the 1lb bottles. My collection of bottles grow every year as others give me the empties as I hate seeing them thrown out after one use, it's such a waste and I could never figure out where to recycle them. Takes one minute to refill a little bottle, it's awesome. Maybe I should start a service.....

I fish a lot of that part of the river as it's close to work. There's LOTS of good spots in that stretch and it's actually pretty easy to access all of those spots with a car except maybe the west bank just below Peigan bridge, that spot involves a bit more walking. When I was younger, I used to bike and fish all down the bow pathway, it's amazing how much water you can hit with a bike. Next time you should take a rod with you and give yourself 4 hours to bike home

I probably won't be back this year (unless I win the lottery!) but maybe next year I can time a trip during the good fly fishing times. Those rapids look awesome.

Nice shots, the water sure looks muddy compared to last year when I was there. Where is that, it looks very familiar. I was just in Helsinki a few months ago but didn't really get out on the hard water.

I have and use a Tenkara and it definitely has it's place in spots where there's next to no room to cast and you can sneak up on the fish. It's quite a different fishing style and is very suited for small streams (Cataract is a perfect example). Wife caught a nice sea-trout in Iceland with it and it was definitely an experience as she had to run up and downstream with the fish since there's only about 16 feet of line to play with. The really nice thing about it is that it is really getting back to the basics and purest form of fishing IMHO.

Not really related to fishing in Alberta but I'd like to see if we can get a few more supporters for Hugh's fish fight in Europe. If things continue the way they are, fishermen in the North Sea could experience what happened in the Martines with a collapse. If anyone wants to see the episodes of Fish Fish on Channel 4 in the UK, you can download episodes via torrent or if you are really interested pm me and I'll see what I can do. http://www.fishfight.net/

All season tires perform well for 12 months of the year where there is no snow. However here in Canada other than places along the coast, all season tires only perform well in Spring Summer and Fall. (hence 3 seasons). There are way too many people here that don't realize all season does not actually include our winters here. I used to believe that all seasons were fine for here until I experienced a real winter tire, it is really night and day in braking and control. People with 4x4s think they are invincible too but 4x4 only helps for pulling away and a little better control, does really nothing for braking unless you engine brake (I do have a 4x4 btw). If I had my way I would make it a law to have winter tires here, the amount of accidents that it could prevent would be staggering. I know what the next comment will be and the answer is, yes the tires still won't fix stupid....

Too bad we still get raped on the shipping charges up here. I love how it "costs" more to ship to Canada than to Alaska or Hawaii for some US retailers. It's been at almost par for quite some time now, until our economy tanks (ie oil price drops or people discover an alternative to the oil addiction) it'll probably hold for a while. I can't see any real long term recovery in the USA until people start learning that you can't live on debt forever.

Best ever bill. Eat your heart out Monopoly.

Champion lakes, it's about 45min from Calgary south from Bragg Creek down the gravel road from Allen Bill Pond. It's a short but steep hike up there but doable with a float tube. Ideally you should drag it over to the second pothole "lake" as it's better fishing there.

He was a managing director and founder of the Ascend Group (deals with Gap, Banana Republic) which is a consulting firm and worked at McKinsey & Co who deal with retail and oil/gas companies. Please don't jump to assumptions unless you have all the facts. And I do fully agree that education does not always equal intelligence but what it does show is some commitment in finishing things. I have a university degree and to be honest all it represents to me is that I was committed enough to finish something I started and gives a good background in how things "should" work in the world. If you combine it with real world experience then it's useful. I'm glad there's some new different blood in city hall. It should be a interesting next couple of years I hope.

I got in and out of our Bonavista voting school in like 5 minutes after work Yeah I'm glad too that Linda didn't make it back in. I think Parkland got hit hard with voters as there were rumors they ran very low on ballots.

X3 on the Panasonic. I have the original TS-1 and it's been awesome. I used it to do night video during the hard water season down in 15 feet of water, no issues whatsoever.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010...anic_go_organic One of the highlights of the story: "In one of the largest studies to analyze how agroecological practices affect productivity in the developing world, researchers at the University of Essex in England analyzed 286 projects in 57 countries. Among the 12.6 million farmers followed, who were transitioning toward sustainable agriculture, researchers found an average yield increase of 79 percent across a wide variety of crop types. Even the United Nations backs those claims. A 2008 U.N. Conference on Trade and Development report concluded that "organic agriculture can be more conducive to food security in Africa than most conventional production systems, and ... is more likely to be sustainable in the long term." I'd bet someone is going to follow up now with a scientific study which is completely opposite of this statement. It seems in this time and age there's always scientific proof of both sides of a story. I believe in local and organic farming because I've spent time working in both industries to make up my own mind. Not everyone has that ability to do so, so I hope that everyone can just keep a open mind. I fully understand the monoculture industrial farming reasoning when oil was dirt cheap and labour was not available, it's just that times change and unfortunately the only thing that is not growing is land.

As a general rule, most people never post all the skunked days or 1-2 fish days they have, otherwise the board would probably get flooded with posts . It's just like the reverse of the news, the ratio of bad news compared to good news is extremely high as a newspaper full of only good news probably wouldn't sell as well. If I'd posted all the bad days I had, I'd probably have 4x the number of posts....on second thought, probably closer to 95% of my posts......

Welcome to the Crossroads market and the CFM That's one of the reasons why I dislike Crossroads, there are actual farmers at both markets but I find that there are also a lot of vendors selling the same crap as in the supermarket. It's frustrating to try and sort out the legitimate farmers from the commercial vendors, hence why Kingsland market started up. Of all the markets I've been to so far Kingsland, Hillhurst and Millarville have been the most authentic. You really have to ask a lot of tricky questions sometimes to sort out the real farmers from the fakes. I can't wait till next year, gonna tear out the entire backyard of all the useless grass and put in stuff thats edible.

By that reasoning then we shouldn't harvest anything from the seas and then grow all fish in the farms and ignore things like sea lice and escaped fish problems. And it's the labour that in involved in organic that raises the prices, unfortunately labour costs more than machinery in first world countries. However, since consumer demand for organic is growing exponentially, you have places like Walmart getting on board and that only drives the economies of scale better to lower prices, simple economics. In places where there's a ton of organic growers (like near Nelson, NZ) the cost of organic apples were pretty much the same as normal as there was little freight costs and a huge supply.

Rocky's burger bus is the best burger in town imho. I go to DJ's a lot since I work nearby and they are actually open through out the winter but only once a week and it's not technically a public opening but if you call them and tell them you want something they'll have it available. They keep open through the winter to supply restaurants, etc. They get so many different varieties of apples from BC, even new varieties that don't even have a name yet and most of them are awesome. If you build up a relationship with the lady owner, she'll tell you want is good and not, it's awesome. They have so many customers they know by first name they definitely are doing something right.

I guess I'm a little too dense to understand if that was a slag against organic or giving it a thumbs up. I'm probably going to get slammed but organic hits quite close to home for me as I'm a strong supporter for organic. I've known a lot of people committed to organic ways and not one of them believe it's an anticonsumerist movement, it's just what they choose, just like religion. Just because you worship a certain religion doesn't mean someone else can slam it cause they don't believe/understand. I do have issues with hippies that get in people's faces when they don't recycle or are not vegans but to me it's the same when a religious zealot gets preaching about you're all going to hell if you don't worship god. The organic movement is not a craze or a fad, it's just plain makes common sense to a lot of people. There's a crapload of hidden costs in regular conventional food that the consumer does not pay up front but may pay for in other ways. When the excess fertilizer leaches into the ground and pollutes the rivers, governments may spend money to clean them up or the help of volunteers may have to step up when the government doesn't do anything about it. The amount of fuel required to transport apples from New Zealand is enormous compared to just getting apples from BC. Things like that matter in the long run but it does keep lots of people employed in Alberta too when that much fuel gets used..... I never really thought or cared about any of these things before except the final cost of the food to me until I spent some time working on regular farms and organic farms and saw the difference. When I worked on a conventional strawberry farm in the UK (so not some third world country where things are even worse) they would spray this pesticide on the aisles between the strawberries. Now these isles are only 2 feet wide so it's not like none of the spray would gets on the berries. Now they told me that it's perfectly fine and safe but when I started using some of the dirt from the isles to fill in the berry plant holes, they told me that that dirt is not good for the plants. Something really didn't add up when they said this. This wasn't a dodgy farm, it was just the way they did things. I do have to say that organic isn't always the best, organic apples that have spent weeks being shipped from Chile do not taste as good as freshly picked regular apples from BC. Having local produce and supporting our local farmers I believe should be the foremost importance, being organic to me is a bonus when I have to choose. When people demand cheaper food, someone will supply cheaper food and that's the reason food grown in places like China seem to have a never ending problem with food safety. Things like bleaching garlic to make them look whiter, growing plants with human manure (cause it's dirt cheap), etc. I only single out China cause I've been there and seen it firsthand so I can't comment on other places.

Try Kingsland market next time. They got kinda sick of the BS that is Calgary Farmers Market with the "local" produce and started their own market that requires the vendor or product to be local. Now what concerns me is that it is not both the vendor and product needs to be local but so far everything I've seen there is pretty local. I'm quite into food and I can tell the BS from working on farms so I inquire and question a lot of the vendors to make sure that it's good products. Another great market is the one on Wednesdays in Hillhurst as it is even more local. There's some vendors there that grow stuff from their little plots in Calgary and close around. Here's a little plug for one of our great local vendors to support them: Pork - hands down Ravenwood Farms. They raise heritage Berkshires that have the flavours that existed 30 years ago. If you buy half a pig or a full one it is actually very affordable. Tomatoes/peppers - Can't remember the name off hand but there's a Biodynamic grower at the Hillhurst market that produces these little cherry tomatoes that are addictive as hell. Lamb - There is a little vendor in the CFM that raises small quantities of local lamb which is way better than any imported stuff from NZ or OZ. They are located in the right side of the market in front of the Indian or Cuban fast food vendor. Another good local producer is the one found in Millarville. Can't remember their name either as their business card is at home. Mead/Wine - Chinook Arch Meadery in Okotoks. Local mead from local bees. Support the bees and you can support all the farmers in Alberta. Very good varieties of mead. If you've never tried mead and are a wine drinker you are missing out. Another good vendor is En Sante that actually has an organic fruit winery in Alberta. I was shocked too to hear of a fruit winery that can survive the Alberta winters but so far all their products that I've tried have been good. Unfortunately there's not a one stop shop yet for good local produce but they are there if you look for them. I'm not affiliated with any of them, I just want them to be supported so they don't disappear. Our food culture is finally getting better in Calgary and I'd like to see it keep improving.

Well actually the first thing I caught from the sea in Iceland with the fly rod was a clump of mussels but it sure took some coaxing to get that hook out of it's mouth . But after a hour of two I managed a one little guy but still accomplished my goal of finally catching something from the sea on a fly rod. Still trying to figure out what kind of fish it was.

Even in Iceland! Found a little beached sea flounder stranded near some weed bed and hopefully saved it in time, it was flopping around but going the wrong way. Must have been out of the water for a while and at least 20 feet from the water so not sure how the hell it was still able to flop. It did swim away once we got it back in a tidal pool. The river Varma from our hotel balcony which we would be fishing the next day (yes those are geysers in the background not grass fires). It was just like some of the rivers/streams in Alberta, thousands of tiny fish everywhere jumping. The first resident brown that wife got on a Tenkara. It was a very comedic fight as she's never fought anything that large on a Tenkara (it's like a 13 foot fly rod with no reel, just about 16 feet of line and leader attached to the end). After directing her to run upstream and downstream with the brown so the line wouldn't snap, it finally tired out after about 5 minutes. We landed lots of little fish up to 10 inches but unfortunately couldn't get into any sea trout or arctic char and I was skunked for anything large until right at the end of fishing permit when it ran out at 8 pm when I hooked into another resident brown. http://i677.photobucket.com/albums/vv137/l...nd/P1000658.jpg Hopefully the next set of photos will be something from the sea, couldn't get anymore freshwater fishing permits for tomorrow.