rhuseby

I haven't fished it myself but you may want to be aware that there are a few big bulls in the lake too. They get nice and fat eating the trout and suckers. A friend of mine got his butt cleaned good by one.

NICE FISH! My first coho was a 16 inch jack. Rinse off the gear and enjoy the pops.

I've got to catch one of those guys, just to add to the list of Alberta species caught. All those darn trout keep getting to the streamer first (grin).

Okay, I must have been dropped on my head at birth. I use a 7wt for over 90% of all my fishing everywhere. Punching flies into the wind with a lighter rod drives me nuts. When it's fairly calm I do use a 5wt. If you're worried about line splash, add on a couple of extra feet of tippet. Fishing Quirk Creek on the brookie project, there have been a lot of days that guys with 4 wts were cursing because the wind kept blowing their line into the willows. The ole 7 just hammered through and put the fly where I wanted it.

Hey Brewingup. I just spent most of September on the island fishing the salt. The best flies I found for coho were small clousers in chartreuse and white and hot pink and white, about 2-3 inches long. Small pearl mickys and white wizards also got some action. Strip rate and fly depth were often very important to getting action as well. A couple of times I had gotten fed up with no coho and had let the fly sink deep and was stripping slowly trying for some flounder when bang! there was a coho. Searun cutts ALL hit the hot pink. I never would have guessed. Have fun and keep the updates coming.

Angler, I would agree with you if don't fish a lot (that's a fuzzy definition, I know), but when you start going through 50-100 flies a month, you're adding up fast. As long as you don't get stupid about expensive tools and a massive amount of materials right away, you can get started for the price of one season's flies. Since the tools don't wear out, except maybe scissors when cutting heavy materials, they amortize down to nothing over time. If you have very little time to tie, that is another twist. There have been a couple of good threads on the flytying page related to this topic.

Silver Doc, get Fisherman's Winter if at all possible. The best of the series in my opinion. A read that you won't want to put down, and a facinating look at Chile in the early days of it's flyfishing destination development.

I usually find rainbows jump more, but some of the wildest jumpers I've ever hooked have been browns. They've also made some pretty explosive runs on me too.

If you truly get the flyfishing bug, you might as well learn to tie flies. There's no way I could afford my habit if I bought flies, as I got through a feww hundred every year, between decorating trees and willow bushes, hitting high banks on backcasts, snapping off a few, snagging bottom with nymphs and streams and all of the other ways you can go through them. Have fun everyone.

Congrats Playdoh. Once you know that you can indeed get the little buggers, life becomes much less stressful. The knot Ladystrange describes is the improved clinch. It has been pretty much the only knot I've used for tying on hooks since I started fishing. I've tied double turles, non-slip mono loops, trilenes, and a few others, and keep coming back to the improved clinch. Make sure you goober it up well with spit, pull everything really tight and test it before you start casting. Usually it will pop on a steady pull if you've screwed it up and and then you just tie it again with more care. Carry3-4 spools of tippet material for rebuilding your leader. I pack 2x down to 5x, usually using 3x or 4x for the end section depending on the size of the flies. 5x is for small stuff, like size 16 and down, and any more I only go that fine if the fish are insisting on it. I use a double surgeon's knot to join sections of tippet. Overlap about 3-4 inches of the two pieces, tie an overhand knot with the doubled section, and then, without pulling it tight, take the doubled section through the loop again. Goober it up, and pull all 4 ends at the same time slowly but firmly. This knot is much easier and faster to tie on the stream once you get it learned. However, I tie up my own leaders, and I use a blood knot on all of those sections. I have time to get them right and tight then, however, sitting at home. There aren't any warnings on eating trout out of the lower Bow, but I have eaten a whitefish (my daughter's first rockie) and it had a distinct phenol taste that was unpleasant. Mercury is not only from human activity. Around Hinton, many fish have mercury warnings and there are no industrial human activities to cause the pollution. Apparently many parts of Alberta have a naturally occurring trace of mercury and it quickly concentrates in the higher food chain. If you want a fish to eat, any brook trout you catch from a stream in Alberta is a prime candidate. Every biologist I've talked to says that you will cause no harm to fish populations and you will benefit the native cutts and bulls by reducing instream competition. Downside is that they rarely get over 10-12 inches in Alberta streams.

Nice photo of the bears. Looks like they're all kids, where's mom? Were they fishing for lunch?

I agree with Flytyer that quality is always an issue with the cheap kits. However, when you're just starting out you have such a steep learning curve that you're going to waste quite a bit of material. Better that you waste the cheap stuff and then restock with the good material once you've learned the techniques. This kit looks like it only contains materials. Get good tools, not necessarily expensive but good quality and you'll enjoy tying a whole lot more. Any of the good fly fishing shops in town can set you up. Also, find somewhere you can get some instruction. I learned to tie by reading out the section in the back of Ray Bergman's book "Trout". Any of the older guys who remember that book will recognize the challenges I faced. A major word of caution, if you don't like squinty, fiddly you may not enjoy tying.

Great posts by everyone, but Rickr nailed the one that I missed big time. Attitude, keep it positive because you will get tangles, screw up casts, etc. Relax, enjoy.

Not trying to pirate the thread, but when I was at Royal Roads Military College in the 70's, they had a bunch of peacocks running around. They are are the noisiest damn birds in Dcemeber (breeding season) right when you're cramming for exams. One of the guys (not me thank god) was going down to play tennis and gave of the males a light smack with his racket for all of the disturbance. Yep, dead as a doornail. Talk about crap hitting rotating blades. We didn't get to eat the bird though. Great shots of the birds by the way. There is a flock west of Turner Valley, usually on the Bar N ranch, but I've seen them in Sandy McNabb as well.

First of all, don't be stressed because you haven't gotten a fish in your first two trips. It took me about 10 outings before I finally persuaded a trout to accept what I was offering. The Bow is also a difficult stream to be starting you flyfishing career on. A course is a great plan, but there are also guys on this forum who are willing to help out beginners such as yourself. Hooking up with one of them is a great way to quickly upgrade the skills. Learn to mend your line, because that is one of the keys to getting a truly dead drift with your fly. If your line is tight and straight for sure you will be having some drag. There are times when fish want a dragging fly, because it simulates the behavior of the real bugs. Swinging caddis imitations is an example, because caddis are very active little buggers. Right now, the fish you see rising are probably taking blue-winged olives (bwos) which are small, size 18 and down, and float without moving for long distances on the surface while their wings dry. If you are going to fish dries right now, a 5x leader will help give the small flies a natural drift with relatively good strength for fighting fish. A size 18 adams or other dull fly will probably get some takes from fish on feeding bwos. You should start off by dead drifting the fly over the rising fish. Make sure it lands a few feet above the fish so it has time to see the fly approaching. With small flies, the fish won't move far to take it, so the drift has to pretty much go right over it. If you miss on a cast just keep casting over the fish as long as it's rising. To fish streamers, just get a black wooly bugger, about a size 8, and use at least a 3x leader because the hits are often very hard. Cast downstream and across at an angle, more straight across in slow water and more downstream in faster water. Let the fly pull around until is is straight below you, then jiggle about 6 inches a few times, slowly strip a few feet of line and then recast. There many other effective streamer patterns and other techniques that are often more productive, but an outing spent with this technique and fly will guarantee a few hits at the very least. Wading in the water is usually required to get into the best position to fish on the Bow. As long as you go slowly and don't make big waves, it usually doesn't scare the fish 30-40 feet away, and many times I've hooked a fish only a few feet away on my first cast. It's okay to pick the fly up off the water with line out. Just make sure the fly has drifted well below the fish you're trying for, then start the backcast slowly and accelerate so that the flypulls quietly off the surface. If you start the backcast hard, the fly usually makes a loud pop that can scare fish. There a number of good fly floatants available. I use Gherke's Gink, but there are others preferred by good anglers. Try a few different one's over time and you'll have a favorite. Nymph fishing is effective in almost any water, but to begin with riffly water like the head of a pool is the easiest to learn in. The fish are not overly spooky and you can get quite close. Use no more than two flies about a foot apart to start with, to reduce tangles. Put a strike indicator on the leader above the flies, 1-1/2 to 2 times the depth of the water you're in and then a split shot above the flies. You'll need to experiment with the size of the shot and the flies to get the set-up to when you touch the bottom almost every drift, without actually snagging. Every time the indicator moves, stops, submerges, twitchs, does anything, strike. Most times it isn't a fish, but that way you'll be striking when it is a fish. Hopefully there are a few tips here that will give you a starting point. There will be a lots of really good advice from some of the other guys here as well. If you want to send me a PM, we can get together some time. Good luck with the fish.

Have only ever used one vise. It came in my $12.95 tying kit in 1976, and looks like a really bad Thompson knockoff. The jaws are canted about 10 degrees towards me and I had to file the ends to match them up. Still it's held every hook from size 20 to 3/0 that I slap in it and I've never really felt a need for something else. Of course, I refuse to get a cell phone too, so maybe I'm just low tech :-)

Season is still going for me, but so far since Jan 1: 100+ days on the water 500+ fish of 22 different species, rainbows, browns, cutts similar numbers Biggest fish, 2 coho about 15 lbs near Campbell River Best day, fishing with the kids up at Elbow Lake Best flies, gold ribbed hare's ear, sjw, elk hair caddis, clousers Waters fished, Bow, Elbow, Sheep, Quirk, Prairie, Flat, Etherington, Cataract, Oldman, Crowsnest, Dogpound, Raven, Stauffer, Fraser, Upper and Lower Kananaskis Lakes, Elbow, Severn, Airdrie pond, Pacific Ocean, Strait of Georgia

Just got back from 3 weeks in Chilliwack and on the island. The Fraser has some nice coho coming in, as I got a bright 10 lb fish while trying for pinks near Chilliwack. That was on the 25th. If you have enough time to get over to the island for a couple of days, the beach fishing around Campbell River was picking up for coho when I left on the 24th. Everywhere on the lower mainland will be busy compared to what even the Bow is like, but you can find some space midweek.

The van is loaded except for the cold stuff and launch time is 0600 tomorrow. 24 days on the coast, 14 of them on Vancouver Island, chasing anything with fins. Hopefully the memory creel will be full. Out till the 28th.

Following you must be like going climbing at Wasootch the day after the army had been training there. I accumulated almost a full rack just digging nuts and pins out of the cracks that had been forgotten by them.

The BUI term is a little older and has probably been replaced by BIU to more accurately reflect what is intended. I was pretty tired when writing last night, and not making as much as much sense as I hoped. What I was trying to point out is that a small amount of rain can quickly reduce the likelihood of a fire starting without reducing the intensity of a fire if one starts. Ignition probability is one of the main concerns in determining forest closures.

A question on location. Was this inside the K country boundary or downstream in the ranch country? If it was upstream, then vehicles aren't allowed off-road at all in the Highwood drainage. Try contacting the Kananaskis Emergency Center and have them get hold of the duty CO for the area. There is at least one on duty almost all of the time from May to September and they will deal that sort of stuff asap. If it was downstream, then there really aren't a lot of restrictions other than the pollution stuff already pointed out and just plain old public pressure. That could change if enough people pressure their mla, so lets get on it people.

A couple of points as to why the access was lifted. The BUI or build up index reflects the overall severity of a fire that may occur. It heavily reflects the major fuels like standing timber that are slow to ignite but burn intensly once ignited. The FFMC or fine fuel moisture code reflects the dryness of stuff like grass and pine needles that don't burn really hot but are very easy to ignite. Because they are fine, the fine fuels rapidly lose their hazard when rain falls, and it doesn't take long to rapidly reduce the ignition likelihood. Obviously they can dry out again relatively quickly, but by this point in the year overnight dew and frost will have a significant effect in slowing down the rapidity of this drying out. While there are politics involved, remember that they closed the area right before a long weekend. All I can say is that I'm glad that I don't have to make those kind of decisions. No matter which way you go, someone is chewing on your ass. Fire closures, bear closures, etc.

Best revenge is to just walk over to where the jerk just came from, catch a fish, smile sweetly as you release it and say "It's the fisherman and not the spot". I've only been able to pull it off a few times, but my what a feeling. However, I've been on the Bow about 10 days this month, and only had to avoid one jerk. A little walking took care of him.

Gorgeous areas up along the 93. I've been lucky enough to ski tour and climb in both areas and the views from above are awesome. The ex's uncle was a Danish shipwright who did most of the construction on Numtija Lodge for old Jimmy Simpson. Castella was his name.