rhuseby

Looks like my brother and I timed our trip perfectly. When K-Country was closed in late August and early Sept of 2001, they re-opened it after 3/10 inch of rain. Don't know if that would apply here, but it really doesn't take much to make a big change in the fire hazard.

I've caught a few of those chunky guys, and lost a lot more. I suspect that they are rainbows that have never previously spawned and have therefore not experienced the stress and loss of body condition associated with spawning. Rod Haig-Brown refers to them as maiden three year old fish in a few of his writings. They are definitely explosive. Most of the stocked rainbows are hard fighters but not as absolutely dynamite as those river fish.

I'm with you Toolman. My kids go fishing and hunting with me, and they understand that you have to care for wildlife and the environment as part of those activities. My son has decided that he's not ready to hunt yet, because he isn't sure of making a clean shot. When he feels he's ready he will, but I just tell him that's what respecting wildlife is about. Rabbiee, good job starting a very thought provoking thread.

Okay, let's start pushing the Alberta government to bring in something like this. There's not really much anyone in the ATV/4x4 community to say against it, since they are otherwise saying that their recreation destroys the environment and they don't give a flaming rat. One nice $100,000 conviction is all it would take to clean up a lot of trouble.

As long as the fish are moving a little and hence probably feeding, I've often had luck with a small soft-hackle wet fly. Like the other guys say, sometimes, you have to smile and move on.

Great report. Is it okay to pm you about saltwater flyrodding? I'm just getting started at it and will be spending most of September on Vancouver island chasing anything in the salt.

Just for general info for all, I was fishing down on the Oldman with my brother and he had to phone his wife. To reach a tower we had to drive south on 22 to the top of the hill to the south, about 5 minutes from the Oldman itself. He had no contact anywhere else from the the Gap east.

I've never actually fished the lake, but when climbing in the area I've seen quite a few rising. The trout are natives, so there will still be fish in the lake, as well as in the upper meadow portion of the creek draining the lake. A couple of the fish I saw cruising looked to be 12-14 inches.

I think my kids would classify both of those as shaggy dog jokes. Baaaad.

Fish Creek does have quite a few trout in it, even in the city. Access to the area above the reserve is limited, and the headwaters are in the off-highway vehicle zone around McLean Creek, so unfortunately it is always running dirty up. I have caught a few cutts up there, usually just before the weekend when the water's as clear as it ever gets. I'm planning to fish here in the city sometime soon, just to see what there is. I have seen little trout from the foot bridges.

I had a dog almost that bad, but al least I never caught him in the act.

I started fishing in 1962, when we lived in Rocky. Access was limited on most streams due to oil indistry just getting going on exploration. Catch limits were 10 trout, and I think 10 whitefish, 15 pike, 10 walleye, and 30 perch. There no restrictions on bait and no size limits. Sad to say, my dad was not the world's greatest fisherman so I'm not sure about catch rates and size. Those I remember were about the same size range as now, and Dad pretty often got his limit. I never caught a fish until I was 11, after we had moved back to Blackfalds. My first fish was a 10 " trout from Shunda Creek. I caught a lot of goldeye and some walleye in the Red Deer at Burbank, and the Blindman River had a lot of small pike. Catch limits started being reduced in the mid 70's, with the first one I noticed being the drop to 10 pike. By the time I started flyfishing in 76, access was a lot easier and you were seeing a lot more fishermen west of Rocky. The first Buck for Wildlife project in Alberta was the restoration of parts of Stauffer Creek (North Raven), and the wire mesh gabion and iron bank support stakes were all fresh the first ime I fished it. The David Thompson highway was paved past Nordegg and a day trip from Red Deer was a reasonable thing. In 1982, the North Ram was made the first catch and release water in the province. I had fished it in 81 for the first time and caught 72 cutts in 4 hours, with the biggest only 13". Unfortunately, the massive flood of 82 seemed to cause a serious reduction in the fishery for a number of years and I haven't been back since about 84 when I was working south of the Trans-Canada. Limits were also reduced to 5 trout around this time, and the Bow had a closed season in April and May downtream of Calgary. The Kananaskis Lakes were poor fisheries relying on stocking of 100,00 rainbow a year. A few bulls came out of the Lower lake each year, mostly to ice-fishermen, and most were promptly smacked on the head. Up to about this time, fishing in all streams tributary to the therivers the size if the Sheep, Elbow, Highwood, etc were on the alternating open year system. One year all of the tributaries that flowed in from right hand side would be open and the left side tribs would be closed, and the next year the reverse would occur. I remember going to an Alberta Fish and Game conference in 1983 where the raging debate was whether stream stocking of rainbows and cutts should continue. It was not long after that that the alternate year rule was dropped, and stocking in streams ended. Over the next ten years there were incremental changes in the regs but nothing very drastic. In the early 90s thing really started to change, with size limits and bait bans becoming widespread, closures to protect spawning fish and just generally much more specific management tools being used. In 1995, the bull trout given complete protection and the profile of fisheries management really seemed to take off. This has been a bit rambling but a few specific points are in order. There were far fewer people fishing in general, due to fewer people in the province, about 1 million in 1965. I fished the Crowsnest a few times in the 80's and don't recall ever seeing another fisherman. One change for the better has been the fact that a lot of ladies are now fishing and they seem to have a better ethic about conservation than many guys. There were few serious issues with stream damage by recreational use. Although 4x4s were common, few people used them for anything other than access to areas to hunt or fish and no one tried to use streams as playgrounds. Litter was mainly confined to well-defined random campsites, alothough you certainly found the odd pop or beer bottle along the stream. Going by the number with caps still on, I think quite a few were stashed to cool off in the water, and then never recovered. Industrial and agricultural abuse on stream was reasonably widespread but improved remarkably fast with educational programs about stream impacts. The worst industrial impact in my opinion has been logging, with clear cutting contributing to stream warming and siltation. Cattle damage has been greatly reduced on many streams but is still an issue as onyone fishing stretchs of the Dogpound or some of the foothills strreams can attest. Overall, I'd say that, given the increase in population in Alberta in the last 50 years, the fishing has held up remarkably well. We are faced with over-crowding by our standards, but nothing like the east faces, or the popular waters on the west coast. Fisheries management has generally managed to keep up and although we would all like to see more enforcement, there are serious penalties in place when offenders are prosecuted. Because the management has developed to a high standard, reading the regulations carefully and understanding them has become a significant issue for fishermen. The insects have probably changed, but I'm not a big bug guy, so maybe someone else with a greater knowledge on entomology can give a lot more detail. There will be a number of others responding to this thread who will be able to supply a lot more detail and some different recollections. At least we lived out the ancient Chinese curse "we lived in interesting times".

Okay, now where are my rubber boots and velcro gloves? Only someone as disturbed as me would take that shot.!

Okay guys, just what the heck is that thing? Guaranteed he'll take a bugger if you can get it down 122 (feet or meters it didn't say). Seriously, does anyone know what it is??????

It's a vicious circle, especially if we get limited on the amount of garbage we can put out at home. Scumbags dump, we pick up but can't dump it anywhere, so where do we put it. We want rivers protected so we make sure people know about them, cause the more friends a river has the better, but then the fish get beat up. We just have to try and remember that there are a hell of a lot of people living in this province now, and a certain percentage of them fish. At least when I was a kid, there were less than a million people in the bloody province, access was tough cause few roads and cutlines, but there still problems on any kind of accessable water. Life never bloody changes, but at least the fish still bite and there are people who care about them. Let's do what we can and tolerate the rest.

Nice pics of the tracks. That's a good size tom for sure, since a lot of the female tracks can be confused with coyote tracks for size. Where did you find these?

Yeah, but you'd have to be walking backwards so the spikes could dig in.

The tricky part of staying out of the water is how do you fish the really brushy stretchs where you have to be in the stream to reach the fish. All good points, but I'm not so sure about the boiling thing.

North, but only because there are fewer people. Fishing is pretty equal in my opinion.

I know what you mean, Grizz. In order to sustain an agriculture you have to use various inputs. In a lot of Asia, human excrement is used to fertilize rice fields. Why, it's the only cheap available fertilizer. India can only support its population of over 1 billion because of the green revolution use of fertilizer and pesticides. We all hate clear-cut logging, but we want to live in our own house. A lot of the environmental community live in nice homes on acreages because they don't like the city life, but that's one of the most environmentally unfriendly ways to live (more required infrastructure like roads and power lines, more fuel needed to commute, etc.). Let's all keep working towards improving things and reducing our impacts, but don't be an idiot like the speaker in the article.

You definitely feel an urge to check your shorts after a close encounter of the grizz kind. I've been charged twice, but the closest they came was about 20 yards. I had a closer encounter, but that bear was just peeling out after jumping up from a hollow about 10 yards away. What was really spooky about that one was that I then noticed a dead moose calf about 5 yards from where the bear had been lying. What are the odds on a grizz NOT defending a kill. Scary. Hope you have good luck fishing.

Thanks for the post and pics. I've only ever caught 4 tiny smallies from Surveyor's Lake near Fernie. Nice sandals, is that so the turtle bait shows up well in the water???????

Eau Claire Rod Companyhere in town did a repair for me about 5 years ago. Cost $35, but I'm not sure if he's still around. Phone 874-3075. That said , you'll be better off investing in a new TFO. Reasonable price, and a lifetime warranty.

I love it, Birchy. That may say something about my IQ that I don't want to know, but I love it.

Looks pretty staged to me. Able to get a couple of different camera angles on close-ups. Obviously very close to the action, watch the degree of panning as brer bear moves away. No fur flying when the cat bats the bear. On the other hand, it is nice photography.