Pipestoneflyguy
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Posts posted by Pipestoneflyguy
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Hilarious cdock !
With squirts I prefer to leave em in the water, they normally shake off on their own but if they don't this is what I do - I like to hold the line snug in my left hand and with my right hand I pinch the line between my thumb and trigger finger, you'll see that despite their seemingly continous fight they usually have short little pauses every few seconds. Leaving about 6"-12" between my pinched fingers and the fish I wait for a pause, then quickly slide my fingers up the line to the eye of the fly/hook and just hold it still, as the fish begins his next set of head shakes it almost always pops off on the first movement (most of the time the hook pops out before the fish even gets moving again). I started doing this with both the pontoon and tube but now do it for nearly all smaller fish wading too. My buds have watched me do this and are convinced I will end up with a hook buried in my finger or thumb but I have been doing it for 3 years now and have not been jabbed once (I did get some tippet jammed up under my thumb nail once but I blamed myself for being slow sliding down the line - it is key to reach the hook before the fish begins to flip again. The other key is that you are moving your fingers to the fish, if you pull the fish to you it doesn't work (it will keep flipping) - I like this method as I never touch the fish or lift it out of the water. I have thought of trying to design a little plastic tool that would clip on the leader (picture a macdonalds size straw) that is large enough dia to fit over most flys but small enough to catch the hook bend - theoretically the idea is sound - wish I had more time to experiment with stuff like that...
For larger fish I use the net in the toon and tube and usually tail when wading (ha ha ha - like I ever catch big fish)
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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 
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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.
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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
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Gets me places the dodge can't get anywhere near..
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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)
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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.
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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
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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...."
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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.
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what do you mean by a gravel road?
It isn't paved you drive on gravel.....
whats gravel?
Ha - don't even try using the word "Blacktop"
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One of my fav's,... how come everyone speaks American and not Canadian
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What the white stuff is on the mountains ? - would shock you to know how often that one gets asked.
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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.
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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...
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Thats great news - will attend now I don't have to go into the city core
Lynn, I think CF stands for "Calgary fun" except Calgary is actually "Cluster" and fun is actually "fu**"
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That is crazy Howgstoppah - you are most certainly a bow river ninja ! - your a steely-eyed-missle man in my books, You did exactly what you should do, reality is most folks don't have the courage to stand their ground - I wish I had your guts, in the same situation I don't know what I would do - everytime I see a bear all I can think of is how each time I encounter one my statistical odds of it not ending well increase dramatically. If peeing the pants was the only loss of control you had,...well thats nothing - half of Birchy's posts make me pee my pants LOL
The reason I reccomend more than one can of bear spray is that people often "blow their load" way to early and empty their can before the bear is even in range. Also, there are some experts who believe the use of bear spray may actually provoke a more severe attack, or even elevate a bluff charge to a defensive attack. Using your can may make you the center of the bears attention so having a bud grab and use that second can may prevent a mauling or give you a defense option if your alone and a bluff charge is followed by actual aggression (assuming you dumped you can on the bluff)
Avoidance through noise deterence really is the best method. (actually #3 on Rickr's list seems pretty foolproof LOL)
heres a good link to more info (closures, warnings, guidelines, safety etc etc) Parks Bear Info - if your heading into the Nat parks this is well worth reviewing before you leave
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Yep ! that is a great price
Curious - is that walk and wade or float (I assume thats a half day)
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I've run into 72 with her cubs on the Bow 3 times now without incident - scary part is the cubs are curious and mom is a little disattentive. Thats the type of scenario you never want to be in so be very cautious if you come across cub indicators. I have also run into 2 different Black bears as well this year - with our waters opening folks really have to assume they will run into a bear and plan with that mindset if your fording into this area.
Follow the advice in the "griz" post Dave just re-posted in the "ask the experts" section - Bear spray is really a last resort - best advice ever, is to keep making noise (like singing in the shower at the top of your lungs noise, if your not completely embarrased, your probably not singing/yelling loud enough) and travelling in groups - do these things well and you should never have to use your spray.
Couple other tips off the top of my head...
1) Replace your spray EVERY year (I keep the oldies in my pack as back ups - just in case)
2) If you smell a horrible smell like rotting meat - get out of the area for at least a week (there is likely a kill site nearby, we found one at Wolf Lk accidentally)
3) If possible fish opposite sides of the river with a friend (watching each other backs)
4) If you keep a fish, seal it in a freezer baggie (two for good measure) and be wind aware when moving.
5) Leave Poochie at home
6) Know what a bluff charge is and how to react to it.
PS anyone hear about the Americans attacked in Romania, the woman killed was actually trying to help the first attack victim - there is a harsh lesson there.
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Ditto that Lorance
Starting to occasonally hit the sweetspot on my Brad Hanson - The shooting capacity is crazy, it rips out line like mad - I love it. Already saving pennies for a 10 wt ( dreams of N Thompson and fat Salmon dancing in my head LOL)
Its funny, I have put in about 6-8 hours of practice still using nothing but a yarn indicator (the wife thinks I am full-on nuts, when I explain that I don't want a fish on the line as it would just mess up my concentration and rhythm)
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Hills are brown again and the river is clearing up - the combo of alternating rain and hot days has melted most of the pack out - so I would expect things to get better downstream soon if not already. Missus and I thinking of our first weekend up in Nordegg this weekend (I went and checked the Sask this morning - its still pretty fuzzy) not sure if it'll be decent or not
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Pipestone R - there is a decent pool by the old pump house - beyond that might be more hiking than you want. (bears up there too in July)
I would pass on Herbert and go with Bow Lake - try from shore close to the small stream were all the bus folks walk out to the lake - do not wade, puts em down real quick in that area (even though wading looks tempting, you can reach the shelf easy from shore and fish will often follow into the shallow water before taking a fly or lure) - if your up to a hike take the trail to the outlet - can be decent down there as well.
Consider Emerald Lk - very good for kids - trolling with a canoe almost garantees a fish and lots of shore opportunities.
The Bow can be pretty demoralizing up here but if you give it a go, try starting at Castle Jct (Youll see an awesome osprey nest in the area) and head upstream - there is a bunch of swampy areas feeding the river which attracts fish so you may have better luck in there. The river has fish in many areas but they are few and far between and the Bow has been hit alot as it has been the only water open up here for the last couple months.
For a more intimate experience go to any of the easy small but close lakes (Altrude, Smith, Vista, Copper, Mcnair) they all have fish in good numbers and most are a short hike in and will have seen little pressure for the first week or two of July (in my experience most kids prefer a ton of small fish to one or two biggies) - G- luck
Flyslinger - R U in town here (LL)- haven't met to many folks with the resolve to do that Morraine Crk hike.
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I see topless canoeists quite often up here - great for identifying caddis hatches - just ask them to flap their arms up and down, if hundreds of caddis fly out of their pit fuzzies tie on a EHC and have at er. caution though - the fuzzy black bikini aint no bikini
- Must be something with the granola crowd - grooming and nudity never seem to go together LOL - man I miss city girlz -
No she was lake all the way - but a surprisingly small lake for the size of it
Landing Fish - Net Versus Hands?
in Ask the Pros
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Re-reading that I should mention the importance of pinching firmly at the hook eye - obviously if the eye makes it past your pinch you'll end up with a poke in the finger or thumb