The People You Meet

[dekkard2019]

I fished the Highwood with my buddy Ayr yesterday and we had a great day of fishing. At the end of the day we bumped into a couple in the parking lot that were probably in their mid fifties. They were just rigging up to fish the last 2 hours of daylight. We got chatting with them and it turns out that they are from Australia. I thought, wow, that is a ways to come to chase trout. Actually they have been all over the world. They both have taken a year away from their business to just fly fish around the world. I couldn't believe it. What a trip! They weren't the kind that would stay in a lodge for a week either. Just fly to some place and rent a car and give 'er. It seemed they wouldn't stay longer than 2 or 3 days on any particular river and they were off to some place new. They mentioned that they were at the tail end of their trip...fishing the Highwood...then maybe fishing the Bow today(we told them to get a guide through Fish Tales...I don't know if that would materialize on such short notice)...then off to the Elk River and then down through to the Yellowstone and back up to BC.

Ayr and I asked them what their favorite trip was and it was some obscure place for bonefishing. I think it was close to Cuba. They said there was plenty of bones caught with exceptional sizes. Wow! They also mentioned how awesome Argentina was. Lots of great rivers. They also mentioned how great it is here. Sometimes I think how spoiled we are sometimes and just don't know it. They drove from Jasper to Lake Loiuse and said it was the nicest drive they had expereinced yet. Cool.

I had to think too...how much would a trip like this cost? Obviously, you have to have a few bucks. Being a millionaire sure helps. $150, 000? $200,000? More? Less? Me? I think I will be stuck in good old Alberta for awhile chasing trout right here! And maybe BC...

[slingshotz]

Actually doing a trip that like costs a lot less than you think except for the flights. When we lived in Australia and NZ, we took 6 months in each country living out of a station wagon and van driving around the country from one fishing spot to another. I basically fished non-stop for an entire year (spin casting back then) for the price of gas, the occasional campground and food. It helped catching your own lunch and dinner of fish, crabs and prawns too They didn't have as restrictive overnight rules like here but since we were not in a trailer, it was basically finding a parking spot at a boat launch to setup for the night. In those countries it helped that you never needed a permit for fishing in the sea and the freshwater fishing licence in NZ that covered the ENTIRE country was dirt cheap.

 

We probably spent about $10k for the entire trip for the year but about $3k was for flights and maybe $3k for the vehicle "rental" and gas. Didn't lose that much money buying and selling the vehicles for the trip. However, if you are going to hire guides, fish expensive permit waters, etc then yeah you do need more money. I think for a lot of people the time is more of a factor than the money. It seems you either have excess time or excess money in life but they don't occur at the same time....

 

But after fishing in many parts of the world, we do indeed have awesome waters for fly fishing but I still miss fishing the sea as you really have no idea what you might catch there due to the numerous species. The only other place I'd say is as good would be NZ, only fly fished it a handful of times while living there and now really regret not doing it more.

[dekkard2019]

I heard New Zealand is awesome for the brown trout. Yep, they were interesting people...they had the time and the money to do this trip. It must be pretty cool to fish stuff all over North and South America...NZ...Europe...on and on...all in one year.