BurningChrome

Survive, yes. But it took what, about a decade for Montana rivers to recover? Our already at risk bulls and cutties are a major concern though. How will their already low numbers fare if they're exposed? Posts like this have a danger of lulling people into a false sense of security when we should be encouraging them to clean their gear between water bodies, especially when you look at quagga mussels being on our doorstep as well.

More or less the same thing. Some of them like Loon Top Ride also have a powder floatant mixed in. I gave up on the shake stuff last summer and bought an amadou patch instead. Works way better and doesn't risk damaging your tippet like the shake containers.

Thought I read somewhere that they did test it but didn't find anything and will continue to test. It's much more difficult to prove a negative than a positive...

Yup. If you go to the Rio website and choose a tip it'll tell you the grain weight. They used to have it all in a table but for whatever reason they changed up the site.

So maybe draining it will "put a break" in the lifecycle, but from what I've read the spores can survive 30 years in dry dirt. Wouldn't it start up again after they put more fish in? It might not start right away, but maybe in a year, 2 years, 10 years... Seems not fully baked to me.

See what I did there?

Went last year for the first time and I'll be back this year. Great format and lots of fun.

The Versitips should be different grain weights depending on line size. 5wt - 55gr 6wt - 65gr 7wt - 75gr 8wt - 85gr 9wt - 95gr

I think that guys who actively seek to pull fish off redds are going to find them either way. You just need to know what kind of conditions they need and the redds are pretty easy to find. Before we did the count last year I think a few of us already knew where to look and where we'd find the highest concentrations just with that knowledge. Hopefully if anything responsible anglers can use the information to avoid certain areas during spawning times. Man, that's a major philosophical debate. I think one of the things about it that gets people worked up is years where there Highwood is frozen at the confluence. Those years the fish don't simply pass through, they stack up waiting for the ice to drop out so they can migrate. It creates a bit of a "fish in a barrel" situation where you can pretty much just chuck a triple worm rig and catch lots over and over and add to that the number of people lining the banks on both sides. That's what probably raises peoples' hackles the most.

Plenty of people don't have social media accounts so would they not be able to get a fishing license without providing that info? If not, what would stop me from saying I don't have those accounts even if I do when I buy a license? No way to enforce it... And of course it's a moot point anyhow since it would be a privacy violation to ask for that info.

You realize you contradicted yourself in those two sentences right? Plus there's only a single year of data for the Bow, so you can't infer anything from it as there aren't other years to compare to as part of a trend. Many guides are finished in October or doing a lot fewer trips. There's no reason they couldn't just continue to float Police to Mac during a fall closure anyhow.

Don't think so. Once you own the days I think they're yours until you sell them to someone else. Kind of like taxi plates. There may be annual fees associated with them though. I seem to recall one outfitter buying out another just to get the rod days they owned, not for the business itself.

Absolutely correct and not all fish spawn every year either. I think it can show things like streambed health in areas - if there were lots of redds in a certain area one year but none the next, did something change at that spot like lower flows made it unusable? Drastic changes from a baseline number of redds would also likely indicate something was up. Either way, numbers and locations don't tell a full story which is why you'd need to do some additional research.

I think it might be premature to say anything since we don't have any comparative data for the Bow yet. There's no way to say that an increase in redds in the Elbow didn't coincide with a decline on the Bow because we're missing data prior to 2015. It's good to see that there was an increase from 2014 to 2015 on the Elbow, but it's also interesting that there was a decrease from 2013 - count would've been after the floods - to 2014. Is there an associated report to go with their data that offers insight? I'm looking forward to comparing the 2015 and 2016 Bow river counts, but until there are at least a few years of data for it I don't think we can claim any trends.

Google maps imagery is free to use for non-commercial projects. The issue is the GIS software used to map the redds on the imagery doesn't have access to Google maps imagery for free (if at all). The most current and up to date map imagery is not vital to this project though - even the geolocation used for redd location was not the most accurate. Come out for the 2016 survey and you can get a better idea of how the sausage is made.

If you have free access to more current imagery TU can always use more volunteers to help with these things.

Really happy to see this report and very nice presentation of the data. Glad to have been a part of this and looking forward to doing it again this year so we can get some comparative data.

Today is the last day for Mac.

Keep testing and educating. Need to know the extent of spread and hammering on people to clean their gear between water bodies to slow/halt the spread. Right now all the hatcheries should be shut down and stocking halted. Between four confirmed cases in hatcheries so far it does seem to indicate they're going to point to the origin, like a common source of broodstock or something similar.

Honestly, I feel this is a bad idea. What will it accomplish? At the least, a bunch of people will post their outrage and we're no further than we were before. At worst, someone will see the truck parked somewhere and decide to vandalize it or confront the owner and things will degenerate from there.

May have been here for several years.

Since it's public land I'd start with AEP. If you email them tell them you have video but don't attach it to the email since their mail server might reject it. http://aep.alberta.ca/about-us/contact-us/fish-and-wildlife-area-office-contacts.aspx Blairmore would probably be the office to contact if you phone. Edit: Just had another thought. Maybe try contacting TU Oldman chapter or Oldman Watershed Council. One of those groups more than likely has some direct contacts they could put you in touch with or contact on your behalf.

Picture of you holding your fish, often with arms extended towards the camera to make the fish appear larger than it actually is.

Actually I think it's perfectly valid to discuss. One of the definitions of forum is "an assembly, meeting place, television program, etc., for the discussion of questions of public interest" and I'd say this is a question of public interest. I didn't get any feeling from his post that it was an attack, rant, or axe to grind. Bringing it up on this forum can call attention to it and maybe then more people can express their concern. I've seen Dave post on this forum before so this can also give him an opportunity to explain to everyone here who may feel the same way. If someone is legally keeping a fish then I'm not worried about it, but if it's a protected species then I agree with Bron that it's troubling. I'm not saying that this is or will be the case, but if just one person says something they can easily be dismissed as a single malcontent. If you get a large group of people who are part of your customer base saying the same thing then it's definitely time to sit up and take note and either make a change or explain the reasoning.

I haven't tried overhead casting it. The Indicator line actually works pretty good if you want to overhead cast a streamer with polyleaders. I only use two tips with the OPST though - a 10' full sinking light MOW and a 10' intermediate light iMOW. Anything much more than that and the head just won't turn it over well.