sldrose

Aaron at BRT told me a few months ago that he would rent one for $200 if you wanted to demo One of the stores in Craig, Montana also rents them out

thanks for that, i thought it was the oar itself, I would been stuffed even with the spare oars. time to buy a couple of these. thanks bcubed

thanks guys; my boat is pretty new so i'd probably persist for now but it's good to know. I'll reassess after i break a few oars and get annoyed; cheers

This always comes up about replacing the rack and pin with proper oar locks. I haven't done this myself, but thought i'd post it here for anyone who is interested. outcast heat weld their oar mount; not sure if there is somewhere that is capable of that here in calgary The picture is a full size oarlock, but they are also available in a smaller size. I'd love to hear from anyone who has done this to their frameless pontoon. I'm guessing that with the full ring oar lock that it would have to be removed with the oars. cheers 341-glue-on-mount-pad 241l-locking-combination-side-or-deck-mount 103-oar-lock-post 104-strongback-oar-lock

fishinhole has had em in the past. I got mine at their annual sale in May I think. Pontoons are usually 20% off if you can wait and if they're in stock beforehand. the outcast stealth pro was on sale last year. It looks sweet.

beadalon 0.38 nylon coated stainless 19 strand. from michaels craft. there is also an 8or 5 ? strand, but apparently more strands the less kinking. (more relevant for intruders where you may change out the stinger hook occasionally) Kelly uses beadalon too. or intruder wire, but intruder wire is more expensive.

I've rowed both framed (fishcat style) and frameless pontoons. (outcast commander) I ended up buying the frameless outcast commander and really like this boat. I can't speak highly enough about it. The new model update looks even better, with the blunted nose. I was also looking at the scadden assault xx and the watermasters, but they were way to expensive. Coming from rowing driftboats, I thought I would hate the fixed oars, but I got used to it in 20min The framed pontoons are probably a little better from a pure rowing perspective because you can choose any oars you like and can retract and feather at will, but you adapt pretty quickly. It's very important that you carry spare oars though, and make sure you don't jam the oars into rocks etc as i've heard they can break. I actually prefer the lower position of the frameless, despite being closer to the water. Feels more stable, less affected by the wind. This is just me being wierd, but i feel like i could slip off the footpegs on a framed pontoon and fall in, whereas i never got that feeling in the outcast. I haven't tried either with fins so i cant comment on the difference, but the frameless is more stable to me. I did have to buy some addons for the scotty rod holders with my outcast so it didnt get in the way of my stroke, but they worked perfectly. I also tried the watermaster which was good, but I preferred the commander was more maneuverable due to the rocker. Used the commander for about 80km down pacific NW rivers. I'm 5'11" and 230lb Also the frameless are lighter and easier to pickup and move, and STACK easy. I hope that helps.

I tie what I can't buy or anything that is too expensive The only flies I tie are my preferred boatman patterns, and my articulated streamers/intruders It sounds like you don't enjoy tying nymphs, so don't tie em. From a technical standpoint, I think if you skip dries, you will be hindering your progression long term, but I don't think it would hurt too much if you delayed getting into them tho. Plus quality hackles are expensive. I think you can jump straight into tying streamers. Tying in schlappen is pretty good practice for tying in dry hackles. Stacking or spinning deer hair for your dungeons is lots of fun. but buy yourself a large stacker and gelspun thread first or it will be frustrating. And practice spinning and trimming the head first on some junk hooks cause your first few will suck. Have a play with some rabbit strips in dubbing loops and then composite loops for some awesome leeches have fun

thanks guys, I forgot about MEC. I just ordered a DIY packraft kit and they recommend the aquaseal brand over others sealers. Unfortunately, I forgot to add the aquaseal to my order. looking forward to working with some Thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) I'll let you know how it goes cheers

I all I'm having a hard time finding aquaseal close by. I live near westbrook mall. Any ideas where I might find some this side of town. the local Walmart used to have it, but now that I need it, I cant find it. thanks

you can't use them over there?? I didn't use them, but I had them with me and was planning on using them for exceptionally deep runs. thanks for the heads up. I've used this NZ strike indicator and wasn't overly impressed for the way I wanted to use it. I was fishing to a sighted fish in maybe 2 ft of water. I'm trying to get better by sight nymphing without a dry or indicator like the NZ guys do, so I started without any indicator and waited for the fish to move off station, intercept the fly, look for the white of the mouth and strike. Well I was struggling so I put one of these onto the 3x section of the leader, maybe 3-4ft up the leader (fishing 4x rio tippet). It seems like the perfect application for this kind of indicator. Unfortunately, 3x is too thin for this to hold. No matter how I tried to wedge the indicator into position, it kept slipping down to the tippet knot. It became a pain so I got rid of it. It may work on the butt of a leader, but it wont work closer to the fly where you want a shorter dropper

I cant even catch those!! but even with an 8wt, 600gr head and T11, throwing a dungeon with a (1/4)" eye isn't pretty. It's still chuck an duck. As redbeard said, i've tied a few dungeons without eyes (sticking on 3D eyes for the look) and just relying on the T11 sink tip to get it down. but using a smaller dumbbell (maybe 5/32) and zap-a-gaping a larger 3D eye (filling gaps with UV resin) is what I find the best weight to throw. The eye still has enough weight to allow the fly to jig, but is still as easy to cast as an intruder. I can speak to it's effectiveness on the bow, but it has the same profile as your standard dungeon, and casts pretty well. i'm not a purest though when it comes to a traditional swing. I'm more than happy to throw slightly upstream and add the occasional strip/jig till it starts to swing as you'd do singlehanding from the bank. No reason you can't do the same with a double hander, esp since it's big trout not steelies you're targeting

i was considering this too. thanks for the heads up

Bass pro aren't committed to Canada, their website is US based in USD, and its impossible to figure out what stock the store has. Calling them isn't much better, and it's impossible to tell if anything is on sale. I don't think I've ever seen so much as a sale from them. At least Cabela's is somewhat better, but will probably be enveloped by the bass pro brand. Sad to see wholesale go, and the people out of jobs I heard an interesting comment that even though WS closing sounds good for the local shops, If their annual revenue for western Canada is 100m, they are probably sitting on 4-5 times that much inventory, so 500m which will be dumped onto the marked at a discount. Even if fly fishing is only a small proportion of that, it's still a lot of business taken away from your local stores in the next 12/24mths.

thanks guys the rio website has two recommendations for that rod. 575 for casters who want to feel a faster action 625 those that prefer a deeper bend and to feel the rod load i'll check FT and see if they have those head kits available. thanks. As for the T14, I only mentioned it as that was working for the guys on their trip last season. I'll have to buy a range of tips, but I'm more concerned with the rod being overloaded if I go for the heavy head combined with the heavy T14. I've never cast with the heavy tips before. They say not to factor in the tip when selecting a head as the Dloop is formed with the head only(not the tip), but that doesn't make sense to me. 10ft T14, adds 140 grains to the system. How that "doesn't" effect the cast is beyond me.