Pipestoneflyguy

We've had some good dog related discussions, might as well see what they look like... I just shaved my dog (Oreo) for the first time - can't believe how different she looks here's before; And of course here she is after the groom,.. actually took me three years of contemplating before doing this - I was afraid it would permanently change her colours but amazingly her natural colour is already starting to fill back in. It is phenominal, she has been acting like a puppy all over again, hard to believe she is 9 years old now. (PS I am loving the redneck "faux-hawk" on her back, as the wife calls it LOL)

If were flashin our junk,.. here's a few more toys ...

I use a adjustable ski pole too - works great. I share the fear that a shock corded unit that doesn't lock could bind and pop too easily. Last year a local shop gave me a couple adjustable poles (Leki) to product test and they work excellent, they come with rubber tips for stealth mode and also have built in shock absorbers (I also bought winter baskets for snowshoeing and X country skiing) - the shock absorbers make a real difference on long downhills.- they adjust pretty short so once you hike to where you want to fish you can put them both, or just one on the pack instead. (and you can turn the shock absorber part off too) After we all ooed and awed at the weighted version (which is awesome) I tried filling the lower section of a adj ski pole with sand (sealed in with a bit of epoxy poured in) but it wasn't heavy enough to work properly so I tried stuffing a piece of round stock (steel bar) in the lower section, that worked great but in the end I decided I do too much hiking and being light for the hike was more important than the benefit of a weighted staff in my case anyway. My creativity and ingenuity aside (ha ha ha - who am I kidding, I am cheap and I steal other peoples good ideas if it saves me a buck LOL) I would buy the same staff as Silver Doctor in a second !

Kootenay R. will be pretty dirty - Simpson R. is partialy spring fed so it may be your only flowing water worth trying this time of year. Many lakes in the area are fishing well right now.

Scary ! glad it worked out safely - glad you posted the occurance too, a great reminder for everyone here to stay diligent with safety measures.

Beauty rainbow Birchy - That is an awesome fish for a first on dry !

Its stampede week- if you ever needed an excuse to wear a cowboy hat there it is LOL- they do work great for protecting the melon and neck. Had to plier out a nymph with a barb out of a buddies bum last year. The look on my face when he walked up the bank (at Hector) and asked if I could pull something out of his ass ! Does anyone else suffer from pike-fly-paranoia-syndrome - it when I am pike fishing and I randomly (seemingly to those around anyway) dive for cover right after a forward haul in a crosswind - everyone is like,.. WTF Rob ? - yeah - thought that one was gonna get me, sorry- LOL

Not much I could add but be sure your letting that line roll all the way out on backcast - timing/feeling the forward cast can be much harder without that big tug you get from streamers and nymphs -= listen for whipping sound behind you, a definate indicator of starting the forward cast to early (something I am learning all about again with overhead casts on the spey rod) - sorry if what I offered is completely obvious and already considered..

I would hold a grudge to the point that 4 sequels have to be made. Even if I have to chase those Brodies to the Bahamas Mrs. Brodie must die !!!!!

Never fails to amaze me how many people veiw a river as nothing but a "free" grocery store to be emptied

I use a canadian tire inflation station - was about 40 bucks, comes with two handheld pumps plus all the adaptors (high vol / low pres + high pres / low vol) comes with 2 batteries. I've had mine for 3 years and the batts are starting to get tired but 1 will still fill the tube. (also comes with a DC adapter for the car/truck) - for your tube use the low pres / high volume pump, it gets you 90% there - I usually bring it up to full pressure with a few puffs but with your auto type valve you will have to carry both pumps (but you could prolly get by with one batt which keeps your pack light) or - use just the high pres pump only, takes longer but less to carry. The CO2 cartridge sounds like a good idea.... I find that myself, and a few buds arounds here all got sick of blowing up our tubes and we all just haul them full now - a little creativity and you can rig it up to fit perfectly as a big U over your backpack - it is surprisingly nimble if you get it right - I don't bother de-airing for anything less than 5 km Also - I have seen some mountain bike pumps that are pretty tiny - that might be a way to go too

I never found losing a fish all that upsetting - maybe thats a side effect of fishing alone most of the time. I find that letting a fish, especially little dudes, shake out a hook is something I do often .I find myself doing this lately when I am wearing my crocs, only takes a few seconds for the feet to numb up so avoiding stepping into the water if possible is nice for the feet sometimes. For me angling is about disconnecting from everyday life and enjoying myself in a stress-free environment, getting angry would defeat the purpose of being out there in so many ways. Like most anglers, I imagine a few things will always get my goat to some degree - windknotting the snot out of a brand new leader on the first cast - forgetting the box which has the only fly fish are taking - catching part of my spey line under a rock in the friggin middle of a swollen and fast river - the kinda stuff that makes you swear at yourself LOL but doesn't mean anything more than a muttered curse and a shake of the head before getting back at er. Hey Bob - isn't catching a whitey kind of like dancing with ugly girls LOL - I say life is too short NOT to dance with the ugly girls ! - hell if I only fished for Golden trout I'd barely ever catch a fish

I have a outcast disco 9 - love it - comes with aluminum deck, alu frame, rod holder, anchor lock/pulley, stripping skirt, saddlebags, - only things on the wish list are 1) casting platform, and 2) offset motor mount. - I looked at a PAC at the time and couldn't really figure out what would justify the extra cost other than the two bladders per pontoon and even with that I figure if one pops you'll probably still end up in the drink huggin your boat and kicking to shore anyway - Nothing against the PAC seems like an awesome boat, I just found all the features I was seeking in the discovery thats all I built my own tiller extension (similar to a sailboat type) to deal with the center motor mount issues. I am working on a design for a casting deck - plan to do a write up if I come up with a simple enough build. You can get by without flippers in most circumstances - I've forgotten or not bothered with em many times - put one foot in the water - rotate - the boat will rotate the other way - I'm pretty sure I caught no less fish on the days I forgot flippers LOL At the time I bought mine a casting deck doubled the cost but looking at all the new catalogues I would have to say I would buy one with a deck if I had to replace mine for any reason now.

If all else fails - and you really don't want to risk cracking the ferrule, and you have a vise and a couple friends on hand... Same as dryfly but try it with an adjustable wrench snugged to the diameter of the male blank - secure the rods cork firmly in a vise (rod horizontal) - the adj wrench will give contact on 3 sides of the female as opposed to 1 (as with a knife) - zap the connection with compressed air (you'll see frost forming all over) once your satisfied it is frozen all the way through have a bud support and apply light but firm pull (away from vise) while another friend heats the female side with a hairdryer while you LIGHTLY tap the adjustable wrench with a finishing nail hammer (light and small) making sure you are applying force equally to the 3 edges contacted by the wrench. use only thin cloth between the rod and wrench - you don't want the fabric absorbing any of the force in this case - Do not apply twist if you try it You may wanna just start and finish this way if it is an expensive rod. advantage is you are not applying any single force at any given time signifigant enough to split the ferrule

Gets me places the dodge can't get anywhere near..

On the cheapy side I used a dragonfly 555 with a cork drag for about 10 years problem free. wouldn't want to hook too big a fish on that one though (I did rebuild it every season too) Also have a Trion for the spey rod - awesome reel well worth the money - would definately buy again (About 160 for a 12 WT) On my 5wt I use a Okuma 5/6 SLV (was about 110) which is a bombproof reel so far. only thing is I occaisonally catch the line in between the drag dial and the body (at least I did when I first got it, used to it now)

So True ! - great read ! Reminds me of the time I have arrived at a lake miles away with the pontoon, but no oars (and then put a hole in a pontoon fishing from shore !) could have kicked a kitten into a fan that day LOL I have learned to enjoy fishing without catching fish - you have to with some of the exploring I like to do. that said, it all pays off many times over when you find a honey hole in a place where no self respecting angler would ever think of looking.

When "off work" the wife complains I tend to be a little too "assertive" (her nice word for assh***) My favorite questions to tourists are; 1) What is wrong with you !!! is there not single effing 4-way in all of America ? 2) Next time, please forget your passport, instead of your brain (interchangeable with manners) 3) How would you like if I drove to California and stopped my friggin truck smack-dab in the middle of the Santa Monica freeway at rush hour to take a picture.......(followed by a predicatable string of obsenities) Most "bang for the buck" in the area of tourist revenge (when I operated a truck) hit the air horn for 20-30 seconds at a bear jam - shocked wide open mouths at a bear smoking into the woods followed by the utmost look of utter disdain directed at me from hundreds of tourist who jsut nissed a great bear picture (yeah right)- at that point I politely suggest that they please move their parked cars off the highway LOL Missus says I wouldn't last a day in a front desk type job - As I am writing this I am listening to a report on my radio of 30 tourists following a bear into the woods with cameras - apparently they have shut down the road by parking in the middle of it - too funny happens like 50 times a day

When I was a ski bum working on the hill over 10 years ago - just before opening day, a couple friends and I had the fishin bug bad so we rigged up baskets made out of hangers with a chunks of bread tied in the middle - voila - gopher fishing became a sport. It was hilarious, the gohers would fight very well to keep the bread - this went on for about 20 minutes and ended with me and two friends "donating"our rods to the Warden Service. Till this day new locals bitch "Rob, I can't catch any fish" my response " you need more gohper pratice" - what ? "nevermind try this...."

That griz (72) and cubs in town have been hazed so many times now that the other night I found myself about a 100m away - all I did was raise my rod up like a shot gun and all three of em smoked it into the woods. They recognize the motion as something that will hurt their ears. (ha the applications for spey just keep rolling in LOL) I agree on the spray, by last resort I mean already on the ground - fact is that half of it will end up in your own face anyway - oh yeah and keep in mind it will also burn the hell out of your armpits and acorns too. Blind, with a burning bean bag, is not the ideal way to deal with an angry bear LOL I saw mention of the bangers - really they are best for scaring your friends - they have quite a range and if you pop it on the other side of the bear guess which way it is going to run.

Ha - don't even try using the word "Blacktop"

One of my fav's,... how come everyone speaks American and not Canadian

What the white stuff is on the mountains ? - would shock you to know how often that one gets asked.

Nice one ! The wife has worked at the Bank, the Photoshop, and now at the post office and the things she gets asked in a typical day would spin your head man ! Bout the time I started here, one of our plow drivers hated the stress of plowing so he started working for brewster bus lines instead - he was picking up his group at the icefields center as they departed the glacier bus for the ride back to Banff. This large Texan starts climbing up the stairs with a chunck of ice as big as a pillow - Driver says "Whoa, you can't bring that on here !" - the guy (with a real texas drawl apparently) asks the driver "why not ?" - "ahhh because it will melt" - well the Texan Booms back "It aint melted in 40 million years, what the hell makes you think it will melt now !" - so the driver says "fine go sit down then" - I guess he watched this chunck of ice melt down to the size of a loaf of bread in the texans lap all the way to Banff - said he almost broke out laughing as the clearly upset man walked off the bus with his tiny bit of ice in his hands and his clothes soaked completely from the waist down. Couldn't let anyone use his seat for a day it was so wet. There is a pretty good one about a Chateau Lake Louise staff member getting fired for telling a couple tourists from Germany (when asked where Bears hibernate) that they keep them in the Tom Wilson Ballroom of the Chateau over the winter - story goes that the tourists flew back in the winter expecting and asking to see the bears the next winter indoors - story goes on further to say the staff member was fired and the Germans had their trip comped - like most of these stories though there is nothing in history to suggest its anything more than a creative urban legend (Just like the lakes being drained and painted blue, it has been re-told thousands and thousands of times) When I was a garbageman many many moons back a fella with his family gathered around me at the crowfoot veiwpoint and asked the infamous "How much does a mountain weigh ?" to me that always seemed like an urban legend as I had never actually heard anyone ask, even though all locals proclaimed it to be a common question. Well I had thought of a way to answer that one just in case anyone ever asked so I thought I would have some fun with this fella. I told him that it is a very little known fact that a mountain has so much mass that it creates its own gravitational pull - as a result the gravity pulling up is so great at the point where the mountain meets the ground that if you were to weigh it it would only show a couple thousand pounds, well this poor guy and his family all stood there amazed, jaws dropped wide open, as I explained that because of this effect we can actually push the mountains around with a couple bull dozers, and if it wasn't for that, we could have never built this road in such a straight line. (I went on to further expain that the mountains look so wonderful becasue we lined them up that way) - anyway as I walked away I heard the father start talking to his kids about how amazing it was to learn something like that and guilt got the better of me, I turned around and tried to cover my butt by saying I was just testing the kids and told him and his family the truth, and that I was only joking - the Kids thought it was hilarious (especially since I totally fooled their dad) but the father was clearly preturbed - spent the next couple weeks waiting to get fired LOL but never heard anything about it again. The whole "do unto others thing" and karma kept me from messing with tourists ever since.

Good job Dave (Toecutter - LOL)- it does get easier as time goes on - I just passed 6 mos myself - put Golden trout on your list this year, you'll appreciate not smoking if you take on one of those monster hikes....PS I miss my YZF600R soooooo much this time of year...