Jump to content
Fly Fusion Forums

fishpro

Members
  • Posts

    535
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    14

Posts posted by fishpro

  1. Thanks everyone! That steelhead was one of the most memorable fish I've ever landed, my heart was pounding through the entire fight! I'm already trying to figure out when I can go steelheading again.

  2. Just got back yesterday from 3 weeks of living out of a minivan and fishing through Northern BC. I had a fantastic time fishing the Skeena and Kitimat systems, tons of fish, incredibly strong Chum run on the Kitimat this year, especially early on in the trip, and once that died down I turned my attention to fishing for steelhead, ended up fishing them for a total of 6 days, and spent one day on a charter out of Prince Rupert.

     

    I went up there excited to simply spend 3 weeks fishing as much as I possibly could, and also wanted to catch my first steelhead. I thought it would be cool if I could get the grand slam - steelhead plus all 5 salmon species, and in the end I did!

     

    My first steelhead:

     

    101_0257.jpg

     

    101_0258.jpg

     

    101_0260.jpg

     

    22 lb chinook:

     

    101_0279.jpg

     

    Large Chum:

     

    101_0135.jpg

     

    This is what catching numerous large salmon can do to tackle, the spool of the reel actually came apart into 2 pieces:

     

    101_0182.jpg

  3. Yesterday my girlfriend and I went for a drive through Banff Park, and on our way back we stopped for lunch at a lookout point, only to notice lots of people taking pictures of something down the hill. We went to look, and there below us was a black bear and her cub feeding on the hill side. As everyone was getting pictures, the cub stayed down lower but the mother came right up the hill and had no fear coming within 10 feet of everyone as she was feeding on the grass. It was an unreal experience, and is probably something I will never have the privilege of seeing again.

     

    101_0074.jpg

     

    101_0075.jpg

     

    101_0076.jpg

     

    101_0078.jpg

  4. So in about a month I'm heading out to the Skeena and Kitimat systems for 3 weeks and was looking for some general info about fishing and etiquette. I know some of the stuff with busy rivers, give steelhead a minimum of a foot of water when landing them, etc. but was wondering if there's other things I should know.

     

    -Are there any lesser known etiquette rules I should know on busy waters other than "no low holing" and starting at the head of the pool and working down at the same pace as the other anglers?

    -Any tips for landing large salmon on your own, particularly with a spey rod?

    -How dangerous is it to be seen fishing a bead? LOL

    -Any tips or suggestions I should know?

     

    I've done lots of research, but am just looking for some insight from those who have been there.

     

    Thanks guys!

  5. Do you have any sort of a boat? I learned how to fly fish when at that age mostly by trolling sinking lines for stocked trout, and then a bit of casting here and there. Worked well for getting me into fly fishing, however I was completely hooked on fishing by that age anyway.

  6. What's your life situation like outside of work? Do you have a family or long term significant other that you'd have to leave behind for periods of time? How much do you have to lose from taking the job up north?

     

    On the other hand, if you're not giving up a lot from here outside of work, it may be worth it. You say you can live paycheque to paycheque now - are you happy with that forever or do you have travel dreams for your future?

     

    My advice would be to consider everything in your life besides your work. If what you have now outside of work is your dream life, then I would stay here in Calgary. If you see room for improvement, then I'd go to the oil sands. Going up north would essentially be a form of investing in your future, just like how many people go to university for years to become engineers or doctors, it may not be ideal but they know the pay off will be a lifestyle that they enjoy.

  7. My guess is that it's due to a lot of tradition, and people are just used to the imperial system. Plus a lot of young people who were taught the metric system in school were probably taught imperial by their parents or grandparents that taught them to fish. Imperial has a way of hanging around and getting instilled into a lot of the younger generation, I'm only 23 but my entire life I've heard people refer to their height in imperial, including my parents as I was being raised, so I now think in both methods, and use one system or the other in different situations - imperial for day to day life, metric for anything more scientific.

  8. Although it's not quite as thin as the fluoroflex, head down to Wholesale sports and get some Maxima fluoro in the 200 yard spools. It's tough as nails and has way higher shock strength than any fly tippet.

  9. 2. A boat on plane equals less boat in river, which than has less wake.

     

    I've always found this confusing. I do know that if you slow down a bit it will create more wake, but what if you slow down a lot? It seems to me it would be like trolling in a boat, when the speed is super slow there's almost no wake. Is it different with jet boats on a river? Just curious as I've heard your argument a lot from people.

  10. Should be good now and the fishing will pick up through May. The ideal will be when the water temperatures hit the low to mid 50s and the fish enter their post spawn mode. I'd say Badger is your best bett out of the places you mentioned, I've seen on google maps that it has a lot of nice bays. I've got a spot I've heard is really good and I've seen a few big pike pulled out of, if you want to meet up and head out there send me a pm.

     

    Also, see if you can still get a copy of Barry Reynolds' book "Mastering Pike on the Fly, Strategies and Techniques". I have it and there's a ton of good info in it.

  11. What was it last year?

     

    Up until now it's been a limit of 3 fish over 30cm.

     

     

    While I do release 99% of my fish, upper k was one of the few lakes I liked to keep a couple trout a year. This lake has sure had some huge changes over the years, rainbows with bait allowed, rainbows/bulls/cutties no bait allowed, and now cutties/bulls no bait allowed and basically no retention. I understand for a rainbow trout fishery having a minimum size of 20" because that is not really a huge fish. However I don't really understand the 20" size for cutties, 20" is a huge cutthroat and I wouldn't want to keep one that big. I guess they are more or less turning this into a C & R lake??? Would it not of made more sense to make minimum size smaller (16"?) for cutthroat since they do not grow as a big as rainbows?

     

    In the right conditions cutthroats can easily reach 20 inches, maybe not a lot over but they will regularly hit that 20-21 inch range. I fished a large mountain lake this summer that produced many large cutthroats, including probably 1 in 7 fish being 20 inches or larger. It'll all be in how the lake is stocked relative to the food source.

  12. Just saw the new regulations for 2012 and the regulations have been changed to now allow only one fish over 50cm to be kept. Great work to all those on the forum who got behind this initiative and played a role in making it happen, and thanks in particular to Dekkard and Beedhead for running the petition and all the work they did. These lakes already produce some great fish, it'll be exciting to see what these lakes can turn into in the coming years!

  13. thanks dude ill half to use big spoons if i want to get a 15incher out of elbow. Is it cool to take fish from there or what dawg?

     

    I've never heard of a fish that big coming out of Elbow Lake. However it's a great lake to go to if you want to get a bunch of little trout in a day, and even the biologists recommend keeping your limit as the fish are overpopulated in there.

×
×
  • Create New...