toolman

Thanks Don, yes I meant Sundays Spey School. You can join us on Saturday also, if you can make it to the Bow Clean up & bbq. greenteal, Gordon will respond to your enquiry this evening. Thanks, EDIT: Thanks for signing on Greenteal, we will see you on Sunday, 9:00am.

I understand the fear of the industry slowing with the new royalty rate bieng discussed, but it is long overdue and Alberta is at the bottom of the list of rates. With oil at $80 a barrell, big oil companies are cleaning up and it's time we got a fair piece of the pie. Why should we give our resources away for free like we have been for half a century. In Alaska, the citizens get a royalty cheque for the resources extracted from their state. Why should'nt we? We pay for all of the infastructure and deal with the deforestation, pollution, inflation etc. and will have to clean the mess up when all the oil developement is completed. I say, good on Ed for having the balls to do the right thing for the citizens of this province. I don't get a free ride in my business, why should the oil industry.

Trout eat fresh water snails, but they are usually a small portion of their diet in most cases. We found them bieng eaten by the trout on the Bow river as well.

Don, Gordon is likely in transit flying over to Calgary from Glasgow, but he does have a spot open for Saturday's school. He is arriving late Thursday pm and staying with me for the weekend. I will let him know that you are in. See you on Sunday.

I think I hooked the same fish a couple of weeks ago Rick. He swam across the river and then turned downstream to hide behind some submerged rocks and wrapped my line, which was 150' out and took another 10 min. to get unstuck. I'll pm the location to you so you will know if it is the same location. Even with my Spey rod, there was no slowing him down.

Dam those are nice brookies. Looks like a Mickey Finn to the top lip, in the first photo.

Looking forward to giving it a try on the water Gordon. Is it a 7wt., 4pc.?

Sounds fun. Gorgeous colors on the Browns lately. Headlamps available at Fish Tales Fly Shop for under $15.

Thanks for the info. I think I will try the Deer Creek 13' 7/8, as one is available for a test run at Fish Tales Fly Shop here in Calgary.

I am interested in trying a few models, the MKS 136 7/8, Highlander 136 7/9, TFO DC 13' 7/8 and 136 8/9 (low cost), to name a few. I will use it to fish medium size rivers for trout here on the Bow river in Calgary and for Steelhead in BC with occassional trips to chase Atlantics next season. I am leaning toward the TFO Deer Creek rod due to the affordability, versus the amount of use I may get out of it. I mostly fish for trout with my 12'6" ers, but plan on expanding the rod collection to include the 13'6" as well as a 15' 10wt. for the big water, at some point in the near future. However, the MKS 136 7/8 may be the perfect all round rod for the majority of my fishing for trout/steelhead/salmon and it is getting a strong consideration.

I used to have difficulty with break offs on my 6 weight two hander with big trout snapping off 12 lb. tippets. Then I decided to use a longer leader (12'-16') to allow more stretch in the system and now I can use 4x routinely on the Bow. I have landed many 24"-26" Trout on long 4x tapered leader/tippets(Frogs Hair) without a single break off and I pull pretty hard on them. I'm not suggesting that you would use 4x for huge Bulls on these streams, but I would think you could use 12lb. Maxima and pull pretty hard on them without break offs. Of course there are limits to everything and you can only pull so hard before the rod/leader system becomes fully loaded and then something is going to snap. Hopefully not the rod above the cork. My buddies fish for Atlantics using 8lb. on 9/10 wt. rods, but they are following the trout downstream when they need to, so it's a different environment than those tight quartered rocky streams where there is no slack water for a long ways and difficult shorelines make it impossible to chase. To prevent break offs at the knot, I use a palomar knot, or if you want a good loop knot, to allow better fly movement when using larger, stiffer tippets or in slower water, try the open clinched loop knot. http://www.alaskaflyfishingonline.com/tips...clinchknot.html

Ah, so you have a multi tip line. Then a short piece of Maxima, as Mykiss descibes is all that is needed. I also am a big fan of FrogsHair tippet. I'll pm my contact info.

Now that's funny.

That must bend the MKS rod deep through the cork, with a 1,000+ gr. load on it. I would love to cast the MKS 1367/8 as I have heard it is a pretty sweet stick. A 13'6" will be the next rod I buy. Maybe in the next week or two.

SilverDoctor, the Dodger bead eye worked well for me for a few trout, untill I lost it under a rock. Mykiss, are the 24' big boy tips that you are using, a full sink type?

I would recommend Airflow, 14' Polyleaders, 24lb. core, in an intermediate sink type, to extra super fast sink type, for fishing at different water depths. A short piece of tippet, 2' - 4' is added to the pre looped end as required. I use regular Mono and Fluro tapered leaders in 10'-15" lengths for dry flys. I also use 10' Polyleaders with 12lb. core, intermeditate to extra super fast sink rate, for swinging small flys sub surface. Learning what leader type and size to use for different fly sizes/weights and fishing conditions is important and I would start with these leaders. Hawgstoppah and I should be up in Terrace/Smithers area, around Sept. 28th-30th, fishing for 4-5 days. We'll try and hook up. I'm assuming that your Windcutter is a standard line and not the multi-tip line.

That's a "FACT"... As for the relationship of pressure having an impact on fishing, I believe it does have an influence, but I'm not exactly sure how. I know many people that sometimes get terrible headaches when the pressure rises quickly and dramatically, so it does affect animals in some way. Maybe the Trout get a headache too and if you add in Weedy1's, loss of vision theory thrown in, it proves beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if the fishing is slow, you can just blame if on the atmospheric pressure.

What rod and line system are you casting the 24' tips on? That sure is big weight to roll out.

Incredible story and photo's Hiketofish. Many thanks for sharing your adventure with us.

LOL....That's better. Now I understand completely.

Care to elaborate a little, as the "I don't agree" default position, does not give us any idea of why?

Great too see some highlights of your Bull Trout adventure guys. Thanks for taking the time to put this together MTB. It was fun to watch.

That's an excellent link Lonefisher. Thanks for posting it. RE:DELETED POSTS... We're running a family show here, Thanks.

Thanks to everyone for contributing their experiences and info. It has been a fun discussion and the reason I posted this was to learn more about what happens along our Bow river, not to prove a point, but to have an open discussion on the subject. I wonder if anyone could tell us what species of Hoppers are found along the Bow or anything about their life cycle, hatching, mating, colonization, migrations, migratory flights, food sources, behaviors etc. ? Anyone?

Of course that is what I also have heard from these Bow veterans. My point is not if trout will eat hoppers or not, of course they will, the point was that hopper fishing can run hot and cold over a cycle that is often years apart and that with the increasing anual abundance of Stoneflies, they are playing a minor role in the trouts diet in the Bow in the past few years. I collected hoppers on the weekend and did not find very many any closer than a 100 meters from the water, as there was too much moisture along the river banks with the cool nights creating a lot of condensation. I did the collecting/observing at about 1:30pm on a hot sunny afternoon. I only saw a couple of flyers and it was pointed out to me today that the cool weather in August may have stunted their developement and thus not many have functional wings, so no migratory flights anytime soon. Also, my point was that many folks have been fishing hoppers since early July with marginal success and that the trout were likely taking these Hoppers patterns as Stoneflys. This month, my goal is to collect, identify, photograph and learn about the life cycle of the Hoppers along the Bow river.