trailhead

email address is info@bowriver.org

The link headscan posted worked for me, took me to the chapters page and there's a drop down menu at the top that takes you to contacts or whereever else you want to go.

I think it is water body specific. In some cases they have bouys or signs marking the division ie on the east end of Slave Lake, and in some cases it is a certain distance, kind of like where the Highwood flows into the Bow and the Bow regs are in effect for a certain distance upstream on the Highwood from the mouth.

I will jump in with my tale. I was about 12 or so and our family used to go to Rock Lake on the NW border of Jasper Nat'l Park. The lake is the headwaters of the Wildhay River. My dad wasn't much of a fisherman, but one of our neighbors was older British gentleman and he used to give me tips and also flies. I only had a spinning rod but he taught me the bubble and fly trick which nver worked for me, I thought a real flyrod would solve that problem. So I saved up my paper money and bought a Shakespeare rod and reel setup that came with a woven line. I practised casting in the field by our house using books from the library and on the July long weekend we went out. The weather was terrible, cold wet and windy. Myself and my best friend were game though and we tried to catch fish, my friends dad caught a whitefish, but that was it. On the last day my friend and his family left early, they had enough of the rain. My dad said we were going to leave soon too. So I grabbed the rod and my brother and I went down to our cartopper to take it around to the boat launch. I tried casts from the boat and trolled back to the launch, all to no avail. My brother took off to tell our dad the boat was ready to load, I had to keep casting. When my dad drove up in the car he told me to stop fishing and help load the motor, life vests and oars. So I left my rod for last, leaning over the edge of the boat. When we came back to the boat I flipped the fly forward, and a little Athabasca Rainbow grabbed the Royal Coachman. Not very glamorous was it.

I got them all right

I will post my five favorites in no particular order; Red Coyote Parachute Adams EHC Lime Trude Dark Stimulator These just don't work on the cutty streams, I have caught some dandy browns, bows and brookies on these. I'm not bragging, just saying.

Shack Nasty Buster or Bustin da Shak Nastees

I have encountered jerks on the river repeatedly, and not just in the last 5 years. Had one guy come up to me on a very popular stretch in the city, and accuse me of stealing his spot. I'd been there for an hour at least. This was in July of 1993, he promptly stepped in 20 yards upstream and started fishing. I vividly recall this because I was shocked and something like that had never happened to me before, I'm a pretty easy going guy so I left. This board didn't change or cause anything. Some folks blame Barry White for taking famous American sports writers on floats in the 80's, some folks blame Jim McLennan for doing the same thing, some folks blame Barry Mitchell and the Alberta Fishing Guide, some folks trace it back to Dave Jensen and the old Flyfishing Alberta forum. It's just that there are way more people on the river now, including yourself, and you unfortunately will run into the inevitable jerks that seem to be just about everywhere. So if you are going to let them ruin your day that is your choice. I choose to take it in stride because I'm out to enjoy myself, have a bit of adventure and if things work the way I hope, I'll catch fish. I refuse to let anyone ruin my time on a beautiful river doing something I love.

So I'm riding the bike home at the end of the day, and as I ride by the Pumphouse Theatre area I hear voices down along the river. Being the curious individual I am I peek over the chain link fence that has been erected to keep people off the crumbling concrete abutement. There I see three guys sitting on lawn chairs, rods propped up with their bait rigs in the river. I will sometimes give fishermen the benefit of the doubt and provide a heads up that the river is closed. And I have found that flyfishers and spin fishers will respond in a positive manner and leave. Some have even asked where the river is open, and I have given them the proper information. But in all the instances where I have run into bait chuckers they have been beligerent and/or threatening, so nowadays I just call RAP. About two hours later I got the return call from Ranger Bob that he got down there and issued "tickets".

If you saw that fish upstream of the Irrigation weir, it's already closed. Though it reopens on the first of Dec. I have seen more that a few people fishing in the downtown part, and in every case but one they immediately stopped when I mentioned it was closed. The one guy told me to mind my #*+@ing business, so I did and phoned RAP. They busted him. It is a good thing and I think allows those big spawners some peace to do their thing.

So I'm going to wade in here again and say thanks to everyone who voted. Largest voter turnout since the Klein 80's, and from what I saw at the polling station a lot of the voters weren't even born at that time, I overheard one young lady say "this is like a party". I believe that Nenshi will be a very good fresh new perspective at city hall, much as Klein in his day. I also think that the turnout overwhelmed the election officials, and like the snowstorms last winter, this was the "one in a 100 year" election. I say this because I worked at a polling station, and though we didn't run out of ballots our Prime Deputy Returning Officer was totally over her head. She told me she had never seen anything like this election in the 15 years she has been involved. Electing Nenshi has put the global spotlight on our city, resulting in a Peter Mansbridge interview and one on the CBC Francais. If you didn't vote for Nenshi and you don't like what he has done complain all you want, and come next election kick him out. Druh and Brian made it through, but unless they win support by acting in the voters interests, this is merely a reprieve. All and all a great example of the democratic process, congratulations to all of us.

Just as long as you get out and vote. Apathy never elected anyone and in the last civic election only 33%of those eligible vote did so. And at the civic level every vote has much more of an impact so the "my vote wouldn't matter" attitude is BS. If you don't want to vote move to North Korea, we are incredibly fortunate to live in this country, province and city, be responsible and accountable and do your duty. In some "democratic" countries you are legally required to vote, failure to do so results in a fine and if this is not paid, jail. Here we have the luxury of a free vote, so do it. Then when you are dissatisfied with the mayor and council you have right to complain, if you didn't vote, keep your trap shut, you have no right to criticize, you reneged on your obligation and your right.

That's almost like "blinky" the 3 eyed fish.

Shhhh (yes the quarry was in Canmore).

Having done this type of thing in the past, don't tie big flies and don't tie small ones. If you want to make it real simple get some cheap flyboxes and put in a "beginner Bow River" selection of 4 X 3 flies. It looks artistic and you can do as many up as you want and charge $20+/box.

http://s108.photobucket.com/albums/n11/vur...nt=BUSH0300.jpg Went to the Highwood Saturday and all the spots I wanted were taken, caught this guy on a highsticked prince, a measured 20", only fish I caught. http://s108.photobucket.com/albums/n11/vur...nt=BUSH0301.jpg On Sunday I ended up getting this female grayling, not sure of the size but she went aerial a couple of times, got a smaller male a little later in the day.

Yea those are the directions for that spot, been to it a fw times. You are also right in that the fishing isn't that good there. i have caught a lot of little fish there but the biggest would have maybe been 12 inches. Though I did have a double header, one on the dry and one on the nymph, thought that was a big fish until I saw what was on my line. Nice spot, but the locals do go down there to partie.

Okay let's get back to the fact that all fly fishers are liars, they don't catch as many as they say, and they aren't as big either!

My buddy with a Castle Cutt, he caught his first flyrod fish on that day Action shot from the Highwood Oldman Cuttbow Another action shot All and all not a bad summer. Just not stellar

Some summer shots A March Brown A spring rainbow A brown from... you know where Another one And one more First dryfly fish of the season A little cutt from a little stream

I think that the numbers that people post are generally close, within reason. But I firmly believe that the sizes are boosted by an inch or two.

WOW those are some beautiful shots. Especially of the lights. I have found that the Caribou up there are quite easy to sneak up on, they even are curious about new sights and sounds and will come close to investigate. It is a incredible part of Canada, thanks for posting.

Because of this post I did a direct comparison of the two markets and Crossroads is definitely lower, Mac apples $.99/lb at Xroads, $1.99/lb at Currie, acorn squash $.79/lb Xroads and $1.69/lb at Currie. As for the boxes, I noticed that there were stacks of Chiquita banana boxes full of BC peppers. Looked to me that they are using the boxes to pack their produce around.

Just to show how variable the weather is, today it was dead calm in that very spot. Oh by the way are there any fish there? I have tried that spot on more than a few occasions and have yet to even have a sniff.

I was just up in the area and noticed this letter to the editor was published in the local paper under "Open letter to Mel Knight". I hope it helps because the rural votes are worth something like 8 times more than the urban ones. I also saw something that I am a bit confused about. Are random campers allowed to cut down trees for firewood? Because in this area there had been obvious tree cutting going on, not massive cutting but whoever it was had selectively cut trees within the forest. They had an area down out of view where they had cut the trees into smaller pieces, a good sized pile of sawdust was left behind. Along with the usual assortment of beer cans, water bottles and an empty bait minnow container.