We're off

Well, the season begins for us at Fortress. We'll be up there through the season, back home to host a few special trips, and try our best to help everyone enjoy their fly fishing trips this season. Our guides will host river trips once the water levels permit. I'll have time to write a few blog posts in the evenings at Fortress and likely share them when I come out next week. I have some thoughts I need some time to assemble.

Remember, the hike in Fortress Lake Retreat rate is $295 per person per day, includes your accommodation, meals, semi guided fishing, use of power boats & pontoon boats, and a whole host of perks at our 2011 Orvis Endorsed Operation of the Year Retreat. To put that in perspective, that's less than a day of guided fishing on the Elk or Bow R with a drive through supper. We'd love to host you and share this incredible location, and have you use our boats to enjoy the full valley and lake - and its big, trophy brookies!

Amelia is available to take calls & emails in a couple of days again. We'll see you soon & until then, tight lines.  :) 

The first mistakes...

My list of dumb moves began, ironically, with my first move in the fly fishing industry.

From my perspective, when I lobbied to change the S Ram to catch & release, it was after years of working for the Forest Service and looking ahead. I knew that the logging company was opening access, so too o&g. Watching catch rates and sizes dwindle while extrapolating to the future, it didn't take a genius to figure out what was to come for the river. To this day, I believe the Ram a special and unique location that is more deserving of a wilderness park with motorized restrictions. Others would see it differently, that's how the world turns. For now, it's c&r.

But a dumb move was being a guide and doing the lobby to get the river c&r. I should have done it before I began guiding. Local perception was rampant that I was doing the lobby solely to get attention to myself, my company, to pump my business. I still laugh at that notion in disbelief. I heard back that I was self serving, etc. To some degree that notion is correct simply due to the law of physics that action gets reaction. But the motivation & purpose has and always will be the river.

Things went downhill the summer after. A project to establish a baseline fishery study on the Ram fell apart due to some politics. A concept came together that the local advocacy group would fund raise, then finance a fly in, one day fly fishing study of the river. Two angler units spread out every few kilometers were to be dropped off by heli in the remote reaches, while other pairings would drive/atv to their reaches to fish. The idea was to have baseline fisheries data taken on the same day, same conditions, etc throughout the drainage, then repeated every few years to monitor the population. Basically, fish your butt off all day and record the result so there were tangible numbers to show trends through time. This was yet prior to the logging roads and oil & gas roads & wells that have since come to the river. It was a wonderful project concept, which would at least show us the pre-industry status of the fishery and subsequent trends. It would also have shown catch rates prior to the wave of attention the river has garnered this past decade. It was something that hadn't been done before in Alberta by a private organization.

And then came the politics.

Who would be the anglers? Not only who are the anglers but who got to choose the anglers? What sections would one person fish... while who got the free heli fishing trip?

People were asked to submit names who they thought should be amongst the anglers. I was 24 at the time and only knew names of people that you read in magazines plus a few others. So, Jim Mclennan, Barry Mitchell, and a few others were on my list. I figured if these guys were the gurus of fly fishing in Alberta, who better to do the fishing to get the data? That's the very moment I began to learn to never under-estimate the ability of others to project their limited viewpoints and paint a very narrow picture of you. As Barry was heading the project through the local advocacy group, in later years he told me how much I pissed people off in that group with my list, that they saw me as having no respect for the group and that I was (again) self serving. Apparently a few stated that I only wanted Jim on the trip so he'd write a feature article about the river and my company. I hadn't thought of that, I simply wanted the river to get the best opportunity to thrive well into the future. Credit to Barry that he's never told me who had said what, and frankly I don't care.  Being good friends, Barry & I have spoken of it a few times through the years now, and every time I come back to my position that I simply wanted the river to be taken care of. However, I do realize the mistakes I made, and hopefully this might help someone else.

I didn't know the people involved. I didn't know the fundraising process. I didn't know how entrenched the people involved had been with the group, nor for how many years, and much less did I recognize the extent of pride people take in their involvement. In a nutshell, I was only focused on what I wanted, saw things from my perspectives and I didn't take the time to look around me to see what was really going on. And tell me that's not typical of a 24 year old.

When dealing with an establishment, it is as much about the people and their/its history and keeping their involvement, energy, momentum and taking the time to recognize it than simply to bang out the project. Without the people involved, nothing gets done. That's what makes clubs/groups so valuable and, when you think about how long and how many projects have been accomplished, so amazing.

When it comes to taking the time to honor those involved, it's important that we do so to the best of our ability and put our own agendas and timing aside for the betterment of the whole.

When it comes time that you have a great idea and want to see it accomplished, taking that extra time to get to know how things have been done before, what the process within the group involved is, and stroking a few egos (in a positive, sincere manner) along the way saves everyone a lot of time, energy, and grief. I'm still hearing about it nearly 15 years later.

Which leads to the biggest lesson of all in the fly fishing industry - people have really long memories. Like it or not, whether they are right or wrong, people remember what they will of you and generally won't let it go, good or not. There's a lot of pride and ego in the Alberta scene to boot, and when you add it up, it's best to heed the lesson - look to the future with every action and interaction as you'll likely interact with the same people 20 years from now that you are today. Try your best to make it the most positive interaction you can.

Heroes and Open Water

We've been back for a week from our return trip, so apologies in the update delay.
This trip was also a good one to us both for weather and the fishing result. The pods of fish came and went. The fishing had its highs and lows, just like fishing anywhere. A couple pods of 70+ fish were sighted, which - as it turns out - is more fun to try to video and photo than fish to once you land a couple anyway. Most pods had 3 to 9 or 10 fish and if you ran down the beach and got something at the right depth in their path, one of 2 or 50 casts would be taken if you wanted to chase on the available shoal. Not terribly difficult but fun sighting anyway.
This trip was certainly windier and for 1/2 the trip  you simply couldn't launch a jon boat. Thankfully we found reaches of shoreline with nobody else fishing periodically. That isn't to say there aren't people, however. At one point we found ourselves feigning to fish while waiting for our friends to wrap up. The beach can come alive with drunken fools and anglers launching fish back into the lake like a shanked NFL punt - 20 yards high and 25 deep, the "football" wobbling. This was of course all serenaded by another group in their 1978 Pontiac Parisienne with 800 Watt bass tubes belting out the Mexican Top 40, enjoying the quaint moment. In hindsight the locals poaching massive cutts right in front of everyone on our last trip should have been a clue.
But by our last afternoon the 1km section of shoreline available to wade fish for cruisers (due to very restrictive land use laws and sheer rock cliffs) was shared with a couple of other anglers, which quickly spelled out just how few people this location could handle while still feeling freedom to fish.
So, when you look at the photos, realize the reality of the above, and please note that we try our best to reflect the best locations have to offer with pretty photos. It is a pretty spot, but... if you only looked at the photos, you'd be fooled as to the reality of the situation.
To be responsible both to the folks that fish there already and don't need to be crowded out, as well as the folks that only look at the photos and salivate at big cutts and just have to go, it's not all heroes and open water.
We wanted to share this so if you decide to figure out where we went, you know what you are getting yourself into.
I wouldn't want to be responsible for tempting you into what might be your personal hell in terms of fishing surroundings, if such factors aren't your bag, especially given the time to travel, the time off work, and the costs involved. We want to respect your time. A couple evenings it certainly detracted from the experience AJ & I had. The upside & central reason for the return trip was to escape the last of Alberta's clinging winter and to feel the spring sun. That mission... accomplished.
On a scale of 6 second hang times, the fishing experience was a 2 or 3 given the shenanigans. For photos, spring air, and some down time in a pretty spot... a good 5 seconds on that punt.  ;)

Check out our full album at our Facebook Page:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150183391976441.302481.688531440

Feature Article!

Last summer I was presented opportunity to write a feature article for the major fly fishing magazine. The request was for an intensive journalism piece on central Alberta brown trout streams. Having seen what having a feature article on the Red Deer R in 2005 could have done for that river (we had scores of bookings... until the flood hit and changed everything), I mulled over the options of such an article. Should it be written? Should anyone else write it? Who?

You see, Amelia & I love our brown trout waters in central Alberta. We spend any available time poking around new spots and return to a few favorites, but seldom do we milk the same reach of stream more than 4 or 5 times in a season. I'll delve into why in a future blog post. The trouble is that generally every single inch of our brown trout water is publicly accessible if you are willing to walk or talk to land owners.

An in depth article includes access points, hatches, timing of the best fishing per stream. Could I do that? I have the knowledge, sure. I have the photos, the background, etc. Once you get to a point of fishing in the region, it's not hard to know it intimately. With brown trout streams having big browns and big browns doing what big browns do - territorial as hell - it's not hard to pin point what reaches have the best fish and best opportunities.

How would you like to see that in the major fly fishing magazine? Would you want to see 3 cars at every cut line, bridge, or get jumped by someone coming in off private access every time you fished?
Sure, knowing what happened with the feature on the Red Deer R, our guide company would have flown off the handle with bookings. Yay. How irresponsible would that have been of me? How selfish of me to put those kind of needs first? Regardless of anyone else, would I want to do that to my own enjoyment of fly fishing the region? Would I want to be responsible for that? If you consider others then, would you want me to do that to other people - you?
In discussion with the editor, there was no way in hell this article was going to be written how they wanted it. And in discussions, I really hope that I drove home the fact that such an article should never be written about this region. It would simply kill what it's all about.

In future blog posts, I hope to convey some thoughts about responsibility in being part of the fly fishing community. I've watched a few things on the internet and done some dumb things in the past myself that set the table for a growing, yet succinct list of do's and don'ts when it comes to the responsibilities of anglers, but more so those involved in the fly fishing community/industry. Amelia & I have had some unfortunate things happen to us and we simply hope to convey that there are other ways of sharing without crossing the boundaries of appropriate sharing.

This essentially signals my personal return to some writing and sharing of thoughts and perspectives after some time off. The entire decade of hosting the old Fly Fish Alberta Forum really took a major toll on me personally, and it's been 4 years since I've really engaged. I just see opportunity to jog thoughts on sharing perspectives, and some folks I've interacted with have jogged me to share.

Cheers

Quick Tip

When cleaning your pontoon boat or raft, while Armor-All makes it look all shiny and new, it also makes standing in the raft or holding anything on or against the pontoons all but impossible. So, don't use Armor-All to finish the look on inflatables. Some experience points in my past.

Red Deer R Clean Up

As an FYI, here are the details for this year's Red Deer River Clean up.

Tick Talk

Well, it's spring and in some areas, that means ticks. We just got back from a trip south once more and while the fishing, the weather, the setting, etc was all great, we had a little reminder about some menacing little critters. When hopping into the shower, Amelia found a tick helping himself to some strip loin (get it?). It was just a wee bite, but given the effects of Lyme disease, she was a little freaked. The next night we just came in to town to get supper and while waiting in line (sign of a hi-brow supper) a lady pointed out a tick crawling on AJ's back. I swept it off. A few minutes later she had another one crawling along her collar. Soooo, just a head's up that it is tick season for those of you in tick land. Here's a link to a little more info on ticks & the dreaded Lyme disease:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002296/

Awareness Time

It's that time of the year.

Lahontan Cutts trip

Last week we enjoyed an escape to warmer weather, a little south of the border. The leaves were out and spring was very enjoyable. Not a hint of snow or ice where we fished, nor any muddy water. Like everyone else in Alberta, we appreciate these things this time of the year. :)
It was interesting to get away to fish a new species of fish. Lahontans have long been on our radar, since I saw Larry Schoenborne fish for them @ Pyramid Lake during his "Fly Fishing the West" tv series back in the early 80s. Yes, they get big. No, they don't fight all that well - like westslope cutts. For the most part, they look like a cross between west slopes and yellowstones with a few extra spots added, and slightly more color on the females. We caught our fish near their spawning time, though well away from the closed spawning grounds, and their colors were incredibly vivid.

To see more photos in this gallery, as well as to see our ongoing gallery additions, check out my FaceBook Page.
http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=688531440

Catch Magazine

The latest issue of Catch Magazine is live.
It includes a short feature on Ben Bolden, a younger fly fisher whom Amelia & I ran into one day in New Zealand 2 years ago. He's genuine and loves to fly fish and photograph.
http://www.catchmagazine.net/