slingshotz

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I love my Panasonic TS-1 which has been replaced by the even better TS-2.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.

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

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

Potjiekos (pronounced POI-KEY) is a traditional South African stew cooked a long time over the fire in a cast iron pot. It's a little insane to carry a cast iron pot but it's doable with light weight pots. If you pre-chop all the ingredients it makes it really easy to put together. Sample recipe (tweaked from another website): Oxtail Potjie INGREDIENTS 500g Oxtails cut 2 inches thick pieces ½ cup Flour seasoned with salt and pepper 10 slices Bacon cut in 1 inch pieces 1 litre beef stock (water can work too) 1 can tomato paste 6 large leeks, chopped coarsely 2 large onions, chopped coarsely 6 large carrots, chopped coarsely 20 button mushrooms 1 Bay leaf 6 black peppercorns 1 bouquet garni 1 cup red wine ½ cup sherry ½ cup cream 2 tablespoons butter 2 tablespoons olive oil 2 tablespoons crushed garlic If you want to cheat and get a close imitation, you can exclude the ingredients from the mushrooms down with one-two cans of Campbell's cream of mushroom. If oxtails are not your thing, bone in chicken will do fine. The alcohol might be difficult to carry but you can use a can of beer too for a different flavour. 1. Dry oxtails with paper towel. 2. Put seasoned flour in a Ziplock bag, then add the Oxtail and shake to coat with flour. 3. Sauté bacon pieces. 4. Remove bacon and brown Oxtail in resulting fat, remove and drain. 5. Finely dice 4 of the carrots. Coarsely chop the onions and the leeks. 6. Add the finely diced carrots, leeks, onions and sauté until softened 7. Add Oxtail, bacon, bouquet garni, bay leaf, peppercorns, garlic, tomato sauce, red wine, sherry. (or the cans of creamed mushroom) 8. Bring slowly to a boil and cook slowly for 3 - 4 hours. 9. 1 hour before serving cut the remaining carrots into 1 inch pieces, add them and mushrooms and continue cooking slowly. 10. Just prior to serving, add cream and stir in. 11. If you want to thicken the sauce mix some cornstarch with the cream before adding. And before any South Africans here yell at the can of mushroom cheat, I learned that trick from fellow South Africans that immigrated here The real secret to the recipe is letting it cook for a long time so that the meat flavours infuse into the liquid. And it's even better reheated the next day if you actually have any left, although you have to somehow chill it overnight if it gets real cold or keep it warm on the fire overnight.

I assume you mean Dewitt's Pond near Airdrie. The coordinates is the "parking" lot at the pond. http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&source=...mp;t=h&z=16

If the Google map waypoints can be converted to GPS then there's already a list that hundreds have contributed to, just PM me. BTW I take offense on the "Redneck Forum" statement, if you were joking, then my mistake. I've met much more AO members than FFC members and everyone I've met shares the love of the outdoors and fishing. You'd get lots of nasty comments for posting a improper fish handling photo like you would if you did the same on this board, both boards have their share of idiots too. Hopefully you can sort out a GPS list Mpon, I know there's lots of common knowledge locations that others might not know so it's nice to be able to share for those that can't dedicate 4 days a week to exploring new locations....

If it's too big to ship with USPS, and you have to use UPS then get it international expedited as it includes all customs fees upfront so you don't get a nasty shock when it arrives at the door. Plus those fees are usually cheaper compared to paying them at your door.

Has anyone used this new product yet? http://www.insectdefendpatch.ca I'm getting sick of using DEET stuff and the alternative oils I've tried don't work for very long.

Well done, you just owned up for drunk driving (unless I guess the campground is within stumbling distance) Not sure I 100% agree with the ban but bad apples screw up everything. Imagine how simple our fishing regs would be without bad apples....

Vancouver and Toronto!

I would check out the lakes around Jaffray, they are not that secret but at the same time not that convenient to get to so you won't get large crowds. There's also a provincial park up at Norbury but I've never been there so have no comment other than it looks like a nice place.

I've been to the Koocanusa campgrounds near Fernie and they were pretty good and much better maintained than the Alberta campgrounds, even though they are a bit of a zoo during long weekends. There's a few more private campsites at the smaller lakes near Koocanausa too. Great bass fishing on the fly. I venture to the more remote campgrounds north of Kamloops and they are incredible and usually the fishing is good since there's so much more water to choose from. I've been to some small campsites in BC where you basically have a private lake at your disposal since there's only one camping site

As of right now there is nothing that comes close to the energy density of oil. That is the ultimate key for any alternative energy, the portability of something that energy dense. Until we discover something as dense and portable, we are unfortunately stuck with using oil. What a lot of people don't realize about the alternative technologies is that it takes oil to produce them. Solar panels/wind generators/nuclear uranium/hydro, something has to mine those minerals out of the ground to manufacture them and transport those materials. Don't get me wrong I'm a pretty diehard greenie but I also realize the realities/limitations of the current world. I do believe that oil reserves won't run out due to advances in technology for at least a century but all that means is we're as bad as the previous generation to leave all the crap for the future inhabitants to deal with.

Spend $50 in gas money to get to the nearest lake each week or walk down to the lake for a swim/fish... It's definitely a nice alternative, I can't wait to move into Lake Bonavista. Doesn't mean I still won't head out to fish but gives me an cheaper option. I know when gas prices were at the peak, it was getting tougher to swallow the cost of gas just to get out to camp/fish. The really scary part of high oil prices is the affect on transport, truckers had a hard time with the fuel costs and we pretty much rely on everything being transported in. If the high prices had continued for a few years we really would have seen an impact on our food and our beloved fishing gear. I wish Alberta would invest more into getting more refineries started in this province, it's annoying to see our raw product get shipped to the US to get refined only to have it shipped back up here. If we were more self sufficient, we would be partially insulated from any huge oil spike. Unfortunately that's how our country seems to operate, rape our raw resources for pennies to have a foreign country add huge value so we can buy it back.....

If you want quality and durability definitely go with the Panasonic. I have the original TS-1 and it's been through -40C (even though it's not rated for cold). I've even used it to film HD underwater by tying on an old fly line and lowering it down the ice hole into 30 feet of water. The photos are awesome but the HD recording is even better. When I bought mine, I went to the Camera Store and had them price match a online Best Buy sale.