TroutPanther

Beauties!

No kidding. Looking at the map of where testing was performed - for the years 2003-2008 surveys were performed in the same stretch, near police, in 2011 three separate locations, including above the highwood, below police, and near Cranston, in 2012 they only sampled below the carseland weir, and in 2013 they sampled in the city, 4 separate locations from the WHD weir down to Douglasdale... I’m no biologist or statistician (and won’t try to speculate on whether the adjustment/fudge factors are sufficient to accommodate this) but those sections are not exactly the same in terms of the productivity of the fishery. Would be awesome to see them do population surveys in the same location to make year over year data more comparable...

Good points sparkplug. Pretty sobering report nonetheless. We had a couple really good years for big rainbows, in 15 and 16 I think? This summer there seemed to be more snakey ones, but my anecdotal experience has been that the browns were almost unicorn status in 13 but have come back a fair bit. Definitely lots of non-fishing issues at play here. Those flow fluctuations and low flows in mid summer after spring flood mitigation have been crazy. Certainly something needs to be done there, and great to see bow river trout advocating for these issues on behalf of the community. The article mentions a lottery system - I really hate the idea. I’d much rather see a classified system implemented with the money going back into the resource, perhaps spring & late fall closures implemented during the spawn (apparently insta stars can’t help but to hammer spawners), barbless hook requirements, and mandatory closures when water temps cross a predetermined “unsafe to fish” level in the dog days of summer. Given they just changed the regs, I’m not counting on them doing anything any time soon.

You guys are doing great work. I’ll continue to support the cause. Keep it up! Seeing some improvements post-2020 in terms of negotiating for stabilized flows in the bow would be awesome. The prospect of stable flows in the K, to establish/bring back a quality cutty fishery would be a truly remarkable achievement. We aren’t getting any more rivers, would be nice to see the K live up to its potential. Great to see inroads are being made.

Thanks for the photo essay Jason! Looks incredible.

The Smith low light ignitors are fantastic. I use them in cloudy conditions or for sightfishing, and the Maui Jim HTs for everything else. The HTs are supposed to be a lower light lens also, but with a ball cap they work just fine in the sun. I broke/lost a few pairs of Smiths before I settled on these... I don’t think I would wear anything else now.

Yep - I was talking parks Canada.

Would be nice if they moved fishing license sales into the 21st century and made them available online (unless they have and I missed it).

Bigfoamy - I didn’t complain, but like scel I didn’t realize the fish was in water until your repost. I almost always read the forum on my phone, where the pics are smaller. Could have been an honest mistake. Either from a millennial like me or an old dude with bad eyes. Nice fish.

Hahaha. Sounds like Jimmy needs a measuring tape. The ever humbling tape usually shrinks a fish by a few inches. Very few honest 28”ers out there. If I get a couple bow river browns in a season over 24, 25 I consider I’ve done well, and I’m a dedicated streamer junkie. Or maybe I just suck at fishing.

I made similar comments about the bull spawning stream... thanks for pointing out the survey Monger.

Kelly Galloup has some great videos on streamer tying. He’s posted a bunch recently as well, including ones on setting materials, wrapping hackle, and constructing deer hair/wool heads. His tutorials deal with material selection & preparation, articulation, tying techniques, etc. They are great, and well worth a watch. My streamer box is probably 60% galloup flies, or versions of his patterns I have tweaked.

Cool. I think I will throw my support behind them.

Thanks for pointing me to their letter, as well as their mission statement. Their letter makes sense and I like some of their recommendation, but their “qualifying” reasons they listed for supporting the closure, in my view, (like wanting to see more enforcement, habitat restoration, etc.) could just as easily be seen as logic for not mandate a closure yet - wanting to see some of these actions before taking the step of shutting C&R down.

That is surprising - With TU’s mandate (and its supporters largely being in the FF community) I thought they would be critical of a plan that appears on the surface to prioritize closures over other habitat rehabilitation. Maybe TU should survey its members re: priorities and support for closures. If TU supports closures on the Oldman & the like - depending on the circumstances - I might reconsider my support.

Thanks for posting - I shared a lot of the same thoughts re: single barbless hooks in cutthroat/bull streams, increased enforcement, implementing a tag system for non-residents in sensitive headwaters/popular tailwaters, giving browns fall spawning protection in the bow upstream of whd and in the elbow, and (might not make friends with this one) closing the bow mainstem near the highwood mouth in the spring. I disagreed with the “recovery is more important than angling” proposition (that was on the north central survey as well, and they are shutting down those systems). I would like to think we can have both with properly managed C&R if other impacts are mitigated.

Doc - what are you using for the body material on that bwo spinner? Is it some sort of midge flex? I like your foam wingcase idea - may have to spin a few of those up.

Nice hawgs!! That underwater brown shot is wicked.

Hey treeplanter - the rock snot was not too bad - quite a bit of it in the deep bay in the SE of the lake and along the east shore, but otherwise not much. The fish didn't seem to mind. Neither of us had ever been to the lake, and it was nice hoofing it up that wide open ridge with the views after scaling that damn mountain. Had no idea there were vision circles to check out. We did notice a trail further back down the ridge heading towards the lake, but we decided to press on to that faint goat trail you can see in the pic so we wouldn't lose as much elevation and have to make it up again. Mistake. Made for a pretty nasty descent in some chunky scree/unstable boulders. Unfortunately no goldens left (not that we were expecting any).

I've only ever had issues with the C49s hooks, in size 14 and smaller, but everything else has been fine for me. Most of the other mustard hooks I use are 2x strong and hold up just fine. It has been bad enough with the C49s that I have thrown out entire batches of nymphs in disgust after losing fish after fish on bent hooks without overly heavy pressure. I won't buy them again, as a few companies make a good curved pupa/shrimp hook.

Thanks for posting BC. Just completed the survey. I imagine they put this up after getting a lot of blowback on the original survey re: their proposal to allow harvest on the Ram. This Ram-specific one is very straightforward, with only 2 maps to look at and without needing to read a huge proposal. I'd encourage everyone to fill out and support C&R on the entirety of the Ram.

In areas that aren't flyfishing only, like the Taupo region tribs are, you can use thingamabobbers. But in a lot of the backcountry water, the nz strike indicators are still great unless you really need to dredge a deep pool with heavy bugs.

Thanks for sharing that link. Just completed the survey. What a bizarre approach. If it isn't native to the drainage, it has no value? To squander such a unique resource would be foolish. Might as well rotenone the bow and restock it with native cutties and bulls by extension of their logic.

Glad you guys enjoyed the pics! Definitely a beautiful part of our province - every time I go I find my hike-in bucket list gets even longer. Aleady scheming to get a couple bigger trips in next summer.

I decided to give the Bow rest for a couple weekends and get out into the mountains for some hike-in cutthroat fishing. Luckily, I hiked with a buddy who has a good eye for photography (and unluckily, with much better cardio than me). Obviously please don't name-drop the locations if you know where they are. Hopefully the photo-sharing works fine. Here are some of the highlights: " /> " /> " /> " /> " /> " /> " /> " /> " />