birchy

Great pics esleech! I've been busy the last couple weeks and having got out much. I'm itching pretty bad now.

That baby deserves to go up on the wall!!

What's the difference between a bad golfer and a bad skydiver? A bad golfer goes, whack, damn! A bad skydiver goes damn, whack!

Right on chidders!! Another 2 months for me!

hahaha!! Awesome.

I was.. yes. About 10-15 feet from shore and the water was up to my chest! haha. Climbed up on a big boulder and was casting from there.

Excellent pics for your first time rickr!

I really like this pic of C's rainbow on the Crow earlier this year: And my first ever bully..

My biggest to date:

I could always try the famous line from Days of Thunder (slightly modified of course): "This isn't possesion officer.. this is comsumption!" haha. Nah.. I think we better play it on the safe side.

For this work event we're having this summer, I've been asked "What's the policy on drinking on the river?" They're thinking of supplying some beer as part of the beverages portion of the lunch. We'll be on the upper Bow somewhere out by Banff or Canmore. Not 100% sure about this one. As long as noone's getting drunk are there any issues with this? Thoughts?

You probably created a Favorite when it was still the old cpanel55 somethingorother URL.. You just need to create a new Favorite now that it's flyfishcalgary.com and it should be good again.

What do you call a boomerang that doesn't work? .... .... .... A stick. And since I missed last week.. a second one: Why did Snoop Dogg need an umbrella? .... .... .... Fo Drizzle

Is it common knowledge WHY they're taking out the weir? Cause I have no idea... Can someone enlighten me?

Awesome!

Right. Dimestore Fisherman. I remembered hearing the guy say the website name when they were filming, but for the life of me I couldn't remember it when I was posting.

Got back at 1am this morning. Thanks everybody for the great comments!

WOOHOO!! Got out to the D Bar D early this morning on the Columbia.. it was a beautiful day. Starting fishing around 6:30am and the Pros were out again filming. LOTS of fish rising but for the life of me I couldn't figure out what they were rising for. I had a fly on that looked similar to the ones that were landing on me but it didn't seem to be working. After about an hour and a half or so the pros left empty handed.. so I didn't feel so bad. If you look close.. you can see one boat is fishing.. the other is filming. Decided to stay and keep trying.. tried streamers and nymphs too.. but nothing was working. Finally at around 8:15am another boat showed up with a couple guys.. asked me how it was going and I said "pretty good.. well, tonnes of fish rising here but I can't figure out what they're taking." The guys says "try a sedge pupae (which means nothing to me at this point) .. dark body, hackle, maybe even purple.." so I'm like "okay" and tie on a fly I was using earlier that didn't work.. but it was as close to that description as I had. Well.. finally got the casting somewhat figured out.. a few times the fish were rising close to my fly which led to a few tense moments.. but then finally I managed a good cast.. in front of a rising trout.. he starts to come up towards it (I'm thinking.. PLEASE be looking at MY fly this time) and he takes it. At this point I'm SO excited but I remember all you guys saying you have to wait a second before setting the hook with dry flies.. so it takes every ounce of patience in me but I wait until he starts to go under again and set the hook... BAM.. FISH ON!!! Fought pretty good.. finally landed him.. a beautiful 22" rainbow. Picture isn't that great.. (hard by yourself) but you'll notice he takes up the entire bottom of my net.. which I measured at 22". The guys that gave me the tip happened to be close by and heard me reel buzzing and were like "YEEAAAH!" and when I landed him "Oh man.. great fish, congrats!!" and I was like "THANK YOU!" haha.. So awesome. Moral of the story.. 3 hours fishing.. only one hit.. but the pros went home empty handed today while the Fly Fish Calgary Joe stuck it out and landed a hawg rainbow!!

You pretty much nailed it thefisherking.. the spot is called "D Bar D" and is just south of Castlegar in Ooteshenia. Very cool. Found it tonight and there was a couple drift boats out actually filming a fly fishing show! One guy nailed a 23" rainbow about 2 minutes after I arrived.. very cool! LOTS of fish rising here and the hatch was insane.. I think I took it like a man though.. pretty crazy standing in the middle of literally thousands of bugs with probably 15-20 on you at any given time. Bottom line.. I suck at casting dries. Didn't even get a hit.. (although there was a couple other dudes around me that didn't get anything either). And I'm pretty sure it's because I don't have a proper tapered leader.. AND was too lazy to tie one up while standing there watching everyone else fish. I'll have to start tying up some tapered leaders while I'm sitting around home.. guess I should get a leader wallet too.

That bully looks like he's been around the block a few times.. looks like he has some war wounds around his mouth!

Thanks for the comments everyone. As CDock said, my rod, reel, and line are all balanced properly. I think it's the fact that - like a few of you said - I learned casting with nymphs first, then streamers.. so I'm used to having that extra weight on there. I'll keep practicing. C - I only got out once so far.. last night for about an hour and a half. Couldn't cast to the rising fish so switched to a streamer and had one on.. couldn't get the line tight fast enough so he got off. I'll probably get out again tonight. My mouth feels pretty good except for the lower left where they had trouble with that one tooth. It's been aching pretty bad the last couple days!

Tried casting dries for the first time today with my 6 weight.. boy was that interesting.. I could only cast like 25 feet in front of me. Any farther than that and the line just all piled up in the same spot with the fly somewhere in the middle! Part of the learning process?

Went out tonight for about an hour and a half. Man it gets dark quick here in the middle of the mountains!! Tried the dry flies at first because there were some fish rising.. but I couldn't cast out to them. Put my waders on but I was already up to my belly like 20 feet out! Couldn't cast to the fish without getting hooked in the trees behind me. Pretty frustrating. Switched to a streamer and had one on my third cast.. but he came directly at me and I couldn't get the line tight quick enough and he got off. Felt like he was a decent size. I'll be back for sure.

Talked to Rod at the Fly Shop today and he said it's all Caddis right now. So he set me up with a couple of each style that have been working. Also told me that I shouldn't have any problem at all fishing from shore on the Columbia right in front of my mom's place. Just find some fish that are rising and try to cast in front of them. When I first went in I told him I was visiting and wanted to get in to some Steelhead.. he proceeds to tell me "there are no steelhead around here" because the river is all dammed up in different places. Kind of weird since I was reading an article about Steelhead in the Columbia. But then he said, but there's lots of rainbows around.. so that was a relief. I asked him what the "average" size was and he was like "ohh.. probably 4-6 pounds".. Oh yeh boys and girls.. I'll be on the river in like T minus 10 minutes!

Whacked myself in the back of the neck for the first time ever the other night! LOL.. Fortunately it was with a 2 nymph rig and not a big streamer! Still stung pretty good though!