slingshotz

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.

Has anyone tried these in Calgary? They used a lot of them in Iceland for the salmon and sea-trout and I forgot to pick up some before I left. They look interesting as there's so many combinations possible.

The LL Bean has pretty much a lifetime warranty and are basically the same as the Orvis. Only problem is that you'll probably have to return broken rods to LL Bean instead of dealing with a local Orvis rep.

I put the LL Bean 7wt 8 piece rod though it's paces all day today and I have to say it's a mighty fine rod and it casted much better than my 6/7. It's a little on the faster side but it's also very light surprisingly (better than my 2 pc 6/7). It packs down extremely small so it's real easy to take anywhere. I landed small fish with it and it was no issues other than the hooksets launched them over my shoulder

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.

I just bought a 8 piece 7wt from LL Bean and I'm hoping it will arrive this week. I think the LL Bean uses the Orvis blanks. I'll try and report how it is when I'm in Iceland/Finland.

I've been seeing that a lot on the bow lately, fish rising to either size 50 noseeum flies or splashing to £%#@% me off. That's a cool camera shot though, hard to get photos without a harsh reflection off the water.

Actually doing a trip that like costs a lot less than you think except for the flights. When we lived in Australia and NZ, we took 6 months in each country living out of a station wagon and van driving around the country from one fishing spot to another. I basically fished non-stop for an entire year (spin casting back then) for the price of gas, the occasional campground and food. It helped catching your own lunch and dinner of fish, crabs and prawns too They didn't have as restrictive overnight rules like here but since we were not in a trailer, it was basically finding a parking spot at a boat launch to setup for the night. In those countries it helped that you never needed a permit for fishing in the sea and the freshwater fishing licence in NZ that covered the ENTIRE country was dirt cheap. We probably spent about $10k for the entire trip for the year but about $3k was for flights and maybe $3k for the vehicle "rental" and gas. Didn't lose that much money buying and selling the vehicles for the trip. However, if you are going to hire guides, fish expensive permit waters, etc then yeah you do need more money. I think for a lot of people the time is more of a factor than the money. It seems you either have excess time or excess money in life but they don't occur at the same time.... But after fishing in many parts of the world, we do indeed have awesome waters for fly fishing but I still miss fishing the sea as you really have no idea what you might catch there due to the numerous species. The only other place I'd say is as good would be NZ, only fly fished it a handful of times while living there and now really regret not doing it more.

That is awesome to hear, we too often hear of stories of COs not getting back to people and not showing up. Hope you get your reward too!

I love my Panasonic TS-1 which has been replaced by the even better TS-2. It doesn't say freezeproof but I've used it ice fishing as a underwater camera without any issues. The new TS-2 is officially freezeproof though.

I've done the smaller fly on top and then 6" to the hopper but never put a dropper on yet but I don't see why it wouldn't work. I've had no issues with fish snatching either the hopper or the smaller fly, they'll eat what they want to. I've seen it many times where there's a couple different insects on the top of the water but the fish will key in on one bug and leave the other right beside it alone. Jim McLennan also told me in a class that the fish don't care about dries being close to each other and I respect the experience he's built up. Almost every time I put two dries on and think to myself that one of them will scare the fish, I'm usually pleasantly surprised. The only issue with this setup of course is if you get broken off or snagged you'll have a chance to lose all three hooks.

Well so far my hunt for a used +5 piece fly rod have been unsuccessful so I've got a few questions for all those out there that travel by plane and fish. I'm needing a 5wt or 5/6wt packable fly rod and got it roughly narrowed down (it's still a large list...) to: 6-piece Greys G-Tec Travel 8-piece L.L. Bean Travel Series 6-piece Snowbee Prestige travel 7-piece Orvis Frequent Flyer 6-piece TFO Lefty Professional 5-piece Albright A-5NS Ideally I'd like it to be a faster action rod. Anyone here ever used any of these rods or their close cousins (I think some of these use the same blanks as the 4-piece) ? I know that generally you need to cast the rod yourself to see how it feels but in this case it's next to impossible as no one generally keeps these types of rods in stock. Thanks.

Caught a good size pike from the third pond, the floods actually help the pond as it flushes it out and adds new fish and food. There's a buffet of fish in there lol

I personally love the Sheep river. It's pretty close, nice scenery considering how near it is to Calgary, great holes and seams everywhere. A easy place to start is right at the west edge of Okotoks. I'm headed to a new spot upstream (unless theres thunder and lightning again ) tomorrow after work. If you don't head out to the Livingstone, PM me. Can't guarantee any fish as I'll be exploring new waters but it's pretty nice scenery nonetheless.

Wife and I are planning to visit Iceland for a few days and hopefully get in one or two days of fly fishing (since it's Sept it'll be probably sea-trout and browns). I'd appreciate anyone's recommendations for guides or outfits there since it'll be the first time there as well as any other tips you can share. Their government also needs all equipment disinfected for diseases and need a certificate to be presented. Anyone ever had this done before for visiting other countries and if so which veterinary does it in Calgary? Thanks.

I didn't really understand how they would either until I talked to a few different good tire shops as I thought the first guy was trying to upsell me. The way they explained it is that 10 ply tires can handle a lot of load on the side walls which you want for full size trucks, especially if you are towing or hauling stuff. I have a Frontier so unless I was going to load it up to the max payload all the time, the stiffer tires basically transmit all the road bumps right into the suspension instead of letting the tires take some of the sting out of bumps. There's nothing technically wrong with putting 10 ply tires if they are the right size on a medium/light truck but it just means that over the life of your truck, the suspension it will wear out faster. Just imagine putting on an old fashion wooden wagon wheel style tire on a truck that has no give, it would be brutal on the suspension. However, if you do 99% driving on smooth pavement it's not really that much of a big deal as the suspension barely has to work in the first place. And I'd have to agree on the Nokian tires too, I run the full Hakkas for the winters and they are awesome, it's just their offroad ability for their AT tires weren't that fantastic that directed me to the more aggressive Revos.

Was in the same boat as you last year, we do lots of driving on gravel roads and gashed my oem stock AT tires. Read hundreds of reviews before I settled on Bridgestone Dueler Revos. They are a more aggressive AT tire that is not 10 ply. If you do not have a full size truck, do not go with 10 ply tires as they will wreck your suspension as the tires are too stiff. If you do not need decent offroad abilities and the majority of your driving is not offroad then the Pirelli Scorpions would be my second pick.

SEA! And no I would never want to live in the hell hole of Vancouver..... On the topic of culture in Calgary...mmmmm . The cowboy culture (aka entrepreneurs) is definitely strong here but everyone has a different definition of culture. Personally having lived in many other countries, I can say Calgary is clean, pretty surroundings, boring and safe. Lots of people love that and lots hate it so it can be viewed as either a positive or negative. It really all depends on where you come from. The foodie culture is something that is really lacking here compared to other places but it's finally starting to ramp up so I have some hopes for that.

I got mine at the Deerfoot Meadows Walmart in the camping section. It's in a very small box so it's hard to spot.

I've used it once now but only for a half day, didn't see a ton of mosquitos around but I never got bit either. There were hordes of them out around the Bow tonight, I forgot to bring a patch, it would have been a perfect test.

I've made fresh pasta while camping, I'm a little on the extreme cuisine side of things in the bush