We spent New Year's Eve fishing a small stream, thoroughly enjoying life. AJ nets a good trout that took her nymph. Given that she'd missed one 2 casts earlier on the dry, she was thrilled to take this one to the net. It was a little cloudy with the odd drizzle and sunny periods too. A mixed day for early summer. A great way to bring in the New Year. Some great video footage of the day and another trout wheeling the reel into the backing for Dave. :)
A good hook up and another brown screams downstream. This time, the fish has a little shoreline structure to work with. Over and over, the 7 1/2 pound brown made his way to the overhanging sticks, gorse, matagouri, beech limbs, and whatever else it could find. I think I did an ok job, leveling the rod to the water sideways and cranking the old 4 wt. I managed to land it after 4 or 5 solid runs into the bush and 2 deep runs into the backing. Good fun!
As they do everywhere, after a NZ monsoon and heavy, high water, trout move to the edges and tailouts. The good news in NZ is that clear water comes 12 hours after a heavy rain of 100 - 200mm dumped in a day, where back home that kind of rain could wipe a river like the Red Deer for 10 days. The trout above was caught the morning after a rain event, in near gin clear water, holding a foot from the bank. It was sighted and a flip of a 20 foot cast with a small nymph, and the fish took, no question. 15 feet in front of it another trout was caught in the same fashion. The frustrations of losing a day to rain sometimes gives the gift of gaining less wary trout. Such is life on the west coast.
About the time Edmonton was the coldest place on earth, we were wheeling a back road, spellbound by the gorgeous summer scenery. 11 weeks fly fishing in NZ, or shoveling snow back home. Now we've done it... gloating should bring on another rain front.
We'd had a good day on a small stream but were running out of good water as the drizzle began. A long run revealed nothing and we were about to turn back to the car. The last 10 yards of the run... a trout sidled up against a white rock in a flat bit of water on the far side. It was a good spotting as the fish blended well. AJ was up and she had a taker first cast through. A great bit of video and some good photos of a good, fat brown of 7 3/4 pounds. Just to be complete, as AJ released the trout and we watched it swim under the far bank downstream, I spotted a good trout on the same white rock, sidled up to it in the exact same fashion hers had been. Dave's turn. Second cast through, again on the dry, a good hook up and a good bit of video. An 8 pound fish followed AJ's fatty. Not to get greedy, we did a good hi-5 and headed for the car.
A fish holding in a fast water seam takes a mayfly and screams away, burning through the slack line. A good fight as it heads up and across the current to the far boulders before turning and coming my way for a change.
After releasing, I fished a little more through the run at the bridge...
We walked 100m upstream of the bridge and sighted this one... 
For good measure, this one was sighted a few yards upstream and absolutely hammered the cicada pattern.
In 90 minutes on a sunny Christmas Eve, 6 to 8 pound browns were landed, a few nice photos and video taken, and a couple Canadian kids both got sunburns as they didn't layer or lather up. AJ simply said Merry Christmas to me as we hopped in the car and drove to our friends' place. With a lot of time on our hands through Feb, think we might fish that one again?
:)
Merry Christmas everyone.
Dave & Amelia.
We do this as we see that temperatures back home dip to -25. Not to think we're gloating (for today anyway) as two more days of rain saw the river depth increase by 2.4 m - about 7 1/2 vertical feet at the reporting station - after the small drainage got 400mm of rain. In Alberta that would be a total disaster. Here, we'll be sight fishing on that one by two days from now, if not tomorrow afternoon. It's rather dramatic as the country is built to withstand the weather. We told our friends of the thunder all day 2 days ago and it was perhaps their 4th or 5th time hearing of thunder anywhere near them. It is different. :)
Happy snow shoveling as we head to a lake in the morning - hope for some sight cruising and sight fishing.
We'll keep this update short. AJ checks in with a few trout. This one was sitting in a nice little seam on what was our favorite stream. It was feeding freely on nymphs and it took the dropper.
"Question: How can I better set the hook when fishing size 20 and smaller hooks? I have such a hard time getting small hooks into fish—even small fish, especially when swinging emergers. I get frustrated feeling the tug, only to set the hook and pull the fly right out of the fish's mouth.
Joshua B., Belgrade, MT
Answer: THIS IS a very common problem, and I threw the question out to some guide friends who regularly fish with tiny patterns.
Jackson Hole-based guide, tier, and author Scott Sanchez notes that Joshua is facing more than one problem:
“There sound like two issues: Small hooks and swinging flies. Swinging soft hackles and wet flies is deadly, especially on fish that are feeding on caddisflies. Unfortunately, you will always get some strikes without a hook up. I think fish are following the swing and hit the fly, pushing at the hook bend and not the point. The point is away from them, and the fly is moving the same direction as the fish.
On small hooks, the hook-up rates goes down exponentially with size. The solution is to use hooks with bigger gaps. A Dai-Riki 125 or TMC 2488 are big-gap emerger hooks, and you can tie a size 20 fly on a size 18 hook. Tie the flies sparse, so that the body doesn't block the hook gap. Beadheads can block the hook gap on small flies, as well. Use a bigger gap hook or a longer shank hook, to keep the hook point available.”
Brant Oswald—a Livingston, Montana, guide best known for his mastery of the Paradise Valley spring creeks—addressed Joshua’s question so fully that I won’t even try to paraphrase him. This is brilliant stuff:
“As I guide, I find that teaching people how to hook fish more effectively makes a big difference in the number of fish landed. Even experienced anglers who are well above average in overall skills have rarely thought much about this part of the game. Somehow, when clients measure up their success at the end of the day, they tend to forget the fish they missed or lost right after the hookup. I feel I have done the lion's share of my job when I put a client in position to get the fish to eat the fly, but I won't get credit for any help until the fish is in the net..."
Click below to read the rest of the article by Phil: http://www.midcurrent.com/flyfishing/tinyhooks.aspx
This fine rainbow is sent to us by a Fortress Lake guest and Manitoba fly fisher Andrew, who has been fishing the Parkland region's lakes extensively the past few years and watched many of the lakes develop astounding trout. This fine rainbow came out of a lake in its 4th season of growth.Hi All,
The Sustainable Red Deer web site is up and running, providing a clearinghouse of information on sustainability groups and events in our community. Subscribe to the newsletter online and every couple weeks you will receive an email update on what's happening in Red Deer's sustainability community.
List Your Organization
We invite all the organizations that have been involved in Green Deer to spread the word about your activities on Sustainable Red Deer. If you belong to a government agency, business, school or community organization that is involved in sustainability initiatives in Red Deer and district, please add your organization's contact information here. Your submission will go to the site administrators for approval and appear shortly after.
List Your Event
Are you planning a community presentation, speaker, or meeting on a sustainability topic? List your event on the community sustainability calendar. Simply send an email to info@sustainablereddeer.com with your event name, subject, location, date, time and any other details re: who should attend. We will get your event posted and remind people about local events in our newsletter.
Spread the Word
We will be doing a media release and publicizing the new site in a few weeks but in the meantime, please feel free to encourage your friends and colleagues to contribute information to sustainablereddeer.com. Thanks for your interest!
The article was the foundation of a very recent Fly Fisherman magazine where they also discussed tests performed on Michel Creek where high concentrations the selenium were detected and the impact on insect and fish populations. Sounds pretty ugly for the Wigwam Drainage, Flathead River drainage and maybe some impact on the Elk.
Just an fyi.
As we started to set up for the day we realized that I left the anchors in the garage. Good one Bob. It was completely my fault. Of course the wind was blowing so what to do? Well I emptied the liner from one of my Sorel boots and filled it with rocks. A spare rope tied on to the sealed boot and presto, instant anchor. Well the fishing was ok. We did manage to get 14 to hand. Many rainbows in the 17 inch range. It was darn cold again today. We put foot mats on the bottom of the pram to keep our feet from becoming bergs. 
The province has issued a public health advisory recommending that people limit their consumption of some fish caught in Alberta waters.
The province said test results found high enough levels of mercury in certain fish to prompt the warning.
"While levels of methylmercury identified do not pose an immediate health threat, limiting consumption is the best way to reduce any long-term health risks," said Dr. André Corriveau, Alberta's Chief Medical Officer of Health. "I recommend people who eat fish frequently from these bodies of water either avoid or limit their weekly consumption."
It's now being suggested that pregnant women, women of child-bearing age and children do not eat the following:
The province said mercury found in fish in Alberta waters likely originate from natural sources.
Once in a lake, mercury is converted to methylmercury by bacteria or chemical reactions. Fish absorb methylmercury from water as it passes through their gills, or from the prey they eat.
Fish like walleye and northern pike accumulate more methylmercury as they are known to consume smaller fish.
For more information on mercury advisories visit: www.albertaregulations.ca
Question: The question of how much to tip a guide has always plagued me, and that got me thinking, “Why do we have to tip at all?” I don’t tip my auto mechanic or the plumber who comes to fix my sink. They charge what they have to charge to stay in business, and if they do a crappy job, I hire someone else the next time. Why can’t guides operate like that?
Charlie G., Eureka, MO
Answer: This is a question that often comes up during discussions about tipping guides. The truth of the matter is that many people don’t like being forced to make a financial decision based on a nebulous “value” such as the quality of guiding. There are simply too many variables involved. For instance, on a tough fishing day, a guide might work his ass off to put you over just a couple fish, whereas some days you’ll catch 20 without the guide breaking a sweat. Which guy deserves the better tip? What makes a guide good, anyway? Is it just a numbers game, the quality of his shore lunch, the entertainment value of his conversation?
When you’re tipping a waitress, all you have to do is look at the bill and do a little financial calculation. When I was a waiter, however, I came to believe that 99 percent of diners don’t tip based on actual performance, unless your service was exceptionally good or exceptionally bad. People are just either “twenty-percenters” or “fifteen percenters” by nature. And since a guiding tip has not traditionally been tied to the cost of the trip—which can vary widely by destination—anglers are left to figure out a more complex calculation.
Marshall Cutchin’s excellent article on tipping offers some good general guidelines to help anglers negotiate this frustrating process, but I’ve talked to many folks who would like to simply remove the “tipping angst” from the process altogether. If the guide would simply charge more and not expect a tip, they argue, everything would be easier and above-board.
So I asked several guides what they thought of the idea, and here’s what they had to say. The names of the guides have been withheld to protect their identities. We’re talking about their livelihoods here, after all.
Outfitter/Guide #1: I'd like to think that guiding follows your auto-mechanic example, but it doesn't seem to. You'd think the guides who are rude or incompetent or totally disorganized would eventually lose their clientele and drop out of the business, but I see a lot of those guys in the field year after year, and they appear to be just as busy as everyone else.
I have had people in the industry suggest that better or more experienced guides should just charge a higher rate—that clients would be willing to pay the extra money, and this would allow the guide to dispense with tipping. But I don't think many of us have enough clients who recognize our value to pay this kind of surcharge above the going rate. And I don't think that would play well within the guide community. I imagine plenty of the excellent guides who do trips for my outfitting business would be offended (or pissed off or at least peeved) if I charged more for my trips than I do for theirs, just because I have 20 years of experience on them.
Guide #3: You may have a point, but the custom of tipping is now doctrine—and a good doctrine, in my eyes. Few things feel better than a hard-earned tip from somebody who noticed and cared. I also think that a tip is how you get paid for all the work you do when you’re not on the clock—scouting, learning an area on a day off, or otherwise enriching the basic guiding experience.
Guide #4: I work for an outfitter who already charges $550 for a full-day float in peak season, so it would be hard to raise the price even higher to make tipping unnecessary. That said, the tip should never cross your mind until you hit the burger stand on the way home or buy flies the next morning.
Guide #5: I would not take tipping out of the question, and here is why: I already get paid the rate I need to make the trip time worthy. Tipping is just a way for the customer to say you did your job above and beyond and this is a little something extra. But a tip is a nice way for them to say we would like you to restock the $6.00 Crease Flies we lost (all 5 of them) or the $15.00 Lucky Craft lures we broke off (all 3 of them). That is NOT priced in the fee I charge.
Guide #6: I couldn’t raise my price to cover the tip because the guy down the street will keep his price at $450 and undersell me.
What do you think? Would you be willing pay an extra $100 to get the guide with 20 years experience instead of the fuzz-lipped kid who’s trying to make money for college? Or do you figure that the fishing is easy enough on the Yellowstone or the Frying Pan that you don’t need that extra knowledge?
Ladies and Gents, On behalf of Keith Rae, I am sending you the attached draft agenda and a compilation of comments for your information and review before the meeting on Saturday, October 24, 2009 at Beacon Heights Community Hall, Edmonton. If you have any questions or concerns or wish to advise of your attendance, please contact Keith directly.
Thank you
