The day we knew was coming through our entire trip. We came to NZ with a fly selection suggestion from our guide and from what we read on the internet. We intentionally left our small stuff home, save for a few small nymphs. We had no small (#18 or smaller) selection of emergers or dries. As the 3 weeks in NZ wore on, without a single drop of rain, we knew we were going to hit this kind of a day - one where trout were looking only at small stuff and would be shy about it. Our guide sent fly suggestions based on normal early season conditions of good water flows and more reactionary trout. By the end of our trip we were essentially fishing fall conditions as the rivers dropped feet, not inches. So, in this video, we show what it's like to play "Spookles", as the fish flip us the fin and head for deeper water. For most of the trout this day, we might as well have thrown rocks at them as much as cast flies. #14 was 4 sizes too much. We still caught a few, but it wasn't easy with what we threw at them.
http://www.flyfishalberta.com/video/nz22/nz22.html
Blog Archive
-
►
2009
(236)
-
►
October
(26)
- Sustainable Red Deer website
- Is a NZ survey a good template for Alberta high co...
- Paul Brandt article in Canadian Fly Fisher
- Lodgepole Mine near Fernie
- Surprise Fiesta Lake Is Now Ice Free
- Fish consumption warning
- A walk in the woods
- Midcurrent newsletter
- Guide Tipping
- Conundrum
- Guide licensing meeting
- Back to Beaver Lake
- Central Alberta Lake Update
- LETHBRIDGE COLLEGE STUDENT CHAPTER DUCKS UNLIMITED...
- NLTU Fundraising Dinner, Oct 17 '09
- Central Alberta Tying Club
- Prepping for a guided trip
- The way of a trout
- Unmatching the hatch
- Alberta Fisheries Round Table Canceled - confirmed...
- It could be worse!
- New SFoTF website
- Didymo Study
- Brassed Off by Dave Wiltshire
- Today's weather warnings
- New weather trend
-
►
September
(24)
- Once in a Blue Moon DVD
- A change in fortune
- Interesting site & action
- New Zealand Mouse Year!
- Big and fat
- Doug Cressoman passes 9/25
- Latest This is Fly Magazine
- Hope over new skin cancer therapy
- Alberta Grizzly Population
- Things that eat hoppers
- A fine evening
- New edition of Catch Magazine
- Alberta Fire Bans
- Jack Gartside Update
- Filming
- Who's that fishing my river?
- Suspension of Alberta Fisheries Round Table Meetin...
- Canadian Fly Fisher Magazine at Fortress Lake Retr...
-
►
October
(26)
Monday, March 31, 2008
Feature Article: Breaking into Commercial Photography
The following article best describes how to get involved in Commercial Photography, and also deals hand in hand with getting articles published in magazines. You won't get anywhere without good photography. Rather than re-creating the whell ourselves, we've used the following article written by Zach Matthews. As far as we're concerned, this is an excellent article that lays out a few great points to consider.
10 Tips for Breaking into Commercial Magazine Photography
The following post on commercial magazine photography is by Atlanta based photographer Zach Matthews. Learn more about him at the end of this post.
Every amateur photographer who’s ever flipped through a magazine has shared the same fleeting thought: I could do this. I am this good. And who’s to say that’s wrong? With the advent of digital image-making, cameras have become not just tools to record and describe, but tools that teach. The mean of photographic quality has skyrocketed in recent years, as a casual perusal of Flickr or a photography hobbyists’ board will immediately illustrate. What, then, is holding amateur photographers back? Why aren’t they selling images to magazines and commercial clients? Why aren’t you?
The difference between a working professional and a dedicated amateur is fairly minimal these days, and it has a lot more to do with business decision-making than talent or equipment. A number of important differences jump immediately to mind, however. The way I see it, there are two types of professionals: full time, and everyone else (and by that, I mean you, too). The full-time professional starves his way to the top. Typically a full-time pro goes to photography school, where he learns darkroom techniques, film chemistry, light physics, and the hard, cold reality of living paycheck to paycheck for decades. Most full-time pro photographers share one thing in common: they’re broke. But not all. A sizable population of working professionals make a living at photography, and they do it with the same business acumen necessary to operate as any entrepreneur. They set up a shop, build a client list, hire employees, and above all, they shoot their tails off.
Full-time pros of my acquaintance in the outdoor photography world spend as much as 40 weeks a year in the field. In my business, that’s in far-flung locations, involving international travel, injections, passports, broken gear, and hard deadlines. It isn’t an easy job, and it’s a long climb to the top, but eventually these pros tend to top out and make a respectable living.
There’s only one problem: chances are, this isn’t you. Full-time professional photographers won’t be reading this article; they know the route to success, they are logging their hours as we speak, and they’re aware of the rules of the game. But here’s the question: would you really want to be a full-time pro? What if you could have all the benefits, including international travel (for money), access to the best locations (for money) and the respect and praise of your peers, sometimes even for money, all while keeping your day job? It’s not a bad option, is it?
Breaking into commercial magazine photography is becoming easier every day. The main reason is magazine contraction: as profits are drained inevitably into the swamp of the internet, magazines have had to scramble to cut corners and restrict costs. The primary way they do this is by paying less for the same product, just as in any business. You can take advantage of this. The following are ten not-necessarily-exclusive tips to help you break the ice:
1) Become an expert on something.
My expertise is fly fishing. It’s paid off handsomely. I didn’t get my start in professional photography by taking pictures; I got it by writing articles, on the internet, about fly fishing, my passion. One of the symptoms of magazine contraction is that many small-market players now search for contributors who can both take pictures and write. That way, the magazine only cuts one paycheck (and we do twice the work). My writing editor was the first person to suggest that I ought to purchase a digital SLR camera, which were just then overtaking the photo sections of every major outdoor magazine (with the exception of specialty outfits like Arizona Highways). And that leads to the second point:
2) Learn to express yourself, preferably in writing.
If you can’t do writing, however, then learn to express yourself visually. There are only two roads to getting that editor’s attention the very first time: you either impress him with the practicality of hiring you to perform a given task, or you blow him away with your sheer talent. Some amateurs are good enough to stun even a seasoned photo editor. But the first question the editor will ask himself is: can he or she do this on a deadline, for what I’m willing to pay?
3) Be willing to sacrifice artistic integrity to get the image that will work now.
Many amateurs are unused to the pressures of needing an image by tomorrow. Commercial magazine photography isn’t the daily news, but cycles are still fast. When a photo call goes out, the editor isn’t going to be sympathetic to the photographer who snaps off a quick email promising to get to it by next week. By then, that door of opportunity will have closed.
4) Begin building an archive.
The best and easiest way to satisfy a photo editor and get your first publication is to be able to immediately provide him with a host of on-topic choices. Don’t waste the editor’s time with images that don’t meet the call guidelines. Don’t try to impress him with how good you are at something other than what he needs. Give him the goods, and step back. If he doesn’t bite on the first call, wait for the next one, and keep building that archive.
5) Know what the editor will want before he does.
Magazines are cyclical. Every magazine has a flavor of image that it runs over and over. Sometimes the flavor has to do with composition (in fishing, the technique du jour is always the “grip and grin”). Sometimes it’s lighting, or creative use of flash, or time-delays, or, as one of my commercial clients always reiterates, “beautiful people doing beautiful things.” So study the magazine; look at the archives online or in your local library. Know your prey.
6) Get noticed.
The best way to make an editor come calling is to participate in the things the editors participate in. In small-market work, be it fishing or kayaking, home repair or gardening, kite-flying, mailbox painting, whatever, the editor of the magazine is always an enthusiastic participant. He or she didn’t get to their current exalted status without putting in the time to learn their area of presumed expertise. So put your work out there in the community you’ve chosen. Build a beautiful website. Participate in online forums, and post your work. Write legibly, even on the internet, even in email. Remember that the internet is nothing more than a giant archive, which your potential clients will use to evaluate you. Submit to photo contests, by all means, but don’t put too much reliance in them. Photo contests reward one superb image. Photo editors reward consistently acceptable images.
7) Be acceptable.
Images in magazines are frequently unspectacular. But they are very rarely over- or under-exposed, out of focus, grainy, noisy, poorly composed, or shot no more recently than 1972. All of your images may eventually find a home in someone’s publication, so take the time to make each one count. The difference between a throwaway snapshot and a publishable image is usually exactly two seconds of reflection prior to depressing the trigger.
8) Use realistic equipment.
You don’t need a $5,000 warhorse to build an image archive you might use to sell 10 photos a year. But you do need a bare minimum. Most magazines publish in 270 dpi (300 dpi for artistic or glossy publications). At 270 dpi, a ten megapixel camera can make an acceptable two page (or “double-truck”) image in horizontal orientation. A six megapixel camera can handle one full page vertically. Those are the baselines. If you can afford ten megapixels, get them. If you can’t, don’t sweat it; they’ll be affordable any day now. Do not waste editors’ time with images made on a two megapixel point and shoot camera (publication of images like that effectively ceased three years ago). Don’t waste their time with ancient slides, unless you were especially good at slide photography.
9) Be professional.
When you do get that first email or phone call, avoid trying to act like a big shot. You’re a rookie. The editor knows that. He knows you’d probably work for free this time. But he’s going to pay you anyway, just to keep you interested. Don’t demand to know how much you’ll get paid. Publication is what you want; payment is irrelevant for now. Don’t hassle him about when you’ll get paid, either. Don’t request any form of editorial control whatsoever (this rule goes out the window if either you or your spouse will be taking any clothes off in the image in question, in which case, I can no longer help you). Be flexible, non-histrionic, reasonable, and reliable.
10) Never miss a deadline.
Missing deadlines causes editors to have to go pay other photographers a premium for things you were supposed to cover under the budget they already laid out. By missing a deadline, you are screwing up your editor’s entire world. He will get yelled at by his boss. The magazine will lose money. The publication will have to rush and settle for second best. You will never be hired again.
Commercial magazine photography isn’t an arcane club requiring secret handshakes and credentials from high-end art schools. Mostly, it’s a you-scratch-my-back, I’ll-scratch-yours kind of arrangement, with working pros helping each other out and giving boosts when the opportunity arises. Having a good professional reputation in a narrowly-targeted field is the quickest way to publication and pro status. That, and getting your work in front of the people who will eventually be buying it. And when that day comes, you’ll know that you, in fact, with your kids and your day job and your hobbyist’s keen interest, were the one who did it right.
Zach Matthews is a Contributing Writer with American Angler magazine, http://www.americanangler.com/. Along with his wife, Lauren, he has published photos and writing in American Angler, Fly Fisherman, Backpacker, The Drake, and Fish and Fly. He lives and practices law in Atlanta, Georgia.
10 Tips for Breaking into Commercial Magazine Photography
The following post on commercial magazine photography is by Atlanta based photographer Zach Matthews. Learn more about him at the end of this post.
Every amateur photographer who’s ever flipped through a magazine has shared the same fleeting thought: I could do this. I am this good. And who’s to say that’s wrong? With the advent of digital image-making, cameras have become not just tools to record and describe, but tools that teach. The mean of photographic quality has skyrocketed in recent years, as a casual perusal of Flickr or a photography hobbyists’ board will immediately illustrate. What, then, is holding amateur photographers back? Why aren’t they selling images to magazines and commercial clients? Why aren’t you?
The difference between a working professional and a dedicated amateur is fairly minimal these days, and it has a lot more to do with business decision-making than talent or equipment. A number of important differences jump immediately to mind, however. The way I see it, there are two types of professionals: full time, and everyone else (and by that, I mean you, too). The full-time professional starves his way to the top. Typically a full-time pro goes to photography school, where he learns darkroom techniques, film chemistry, light physics, and the hard, cold reality of living paycheck to paycheck for decades. Most full-time pro photographers share one thing in common: they’re broke. But not all. A sizable population of working professionals make a living at photography, and they do it with the same business acumen necessary to operate as any entrepreneur. They set up a shop, build a client list, hire employees, and above all, they shoot their tails off.
Full-time pros of my acquaintance in the outdoor photography world spend as much as 40 weeks a year in the field. In my business, that’s in far-flung locations, involving international travel, injections, passports, broken gear, and hard deadlines. It isn’t an easy job, and it’s a long climb to the top, but eventually these pros tend to top out and make a respectable living.
There’s only one problem: chances are, this isn’t you. Full-time professional photographers won’t be reading this article; they know the route to success, they are logging their hours as we speak, and they’re aware of the rules of the game. But here’s the question: would you really want to be a full-time pro? What if you could have all the benefits, including international travel (for money), access to the best locations (for money) and the respect and praise of your peers, sometimes even for money, all while keeping your day job? It’s not a bad option, is it?
Breaking into commercial magazine photography is becoming easier every day. The main reason is magazine contraction: as profits are drained inevitably into the swamp of the internet, magazines have had to scramble to cut corners and restrict costs. The primary way they do this is by paying less for the same product, just as in any business. You can take advantage of this. The following are ten not-necessarily-exclusive tips to help you break the ice:
1) Become an expert on something.
My expertise is fly fishing. It’s paid off handsomely. I didn’t get my start in professional photography by taking pictures; I got it by writing articles, on the internet, about fly fishing, my passion. One of the symptoms of magazine contraction is that many small-market players now search for contributors who can both take pictures and write. That way, the magazine only cuts one paycheck (and we do twice the work). My writing editor was the first person to suggest that I ought to purchase a digital SLR camera, which were just then overtaking the photo sections of every major outdoor magazine (with the exception of specialty outfits like Arizona Highways). And that leads to the second point:
2) Learn to express yourself, preferably in writing.
If you can’t do writing, however, then learn to express yourself visually. There are only two roads to getting that editor’s attention the very first time: you either impress him with the practicality of hiring you to perform a given task, or you blow him away with your sheer talent. Some amateurs are good enough to stun even a seasoned photo editor. But the first question the editor will ask himself is: can he or she do this on a deadline, for what I’m willing to pay?
3) Be willing to sacrifice artistic integrity to get the image that will work now.
Many amateurs are unused to the pressures of needing an image by tomorrow. Commercial magazine photography isn’t the daily news, but cycles are still fast. When a photo call goes out, the editor isn’t going to be sympathetic to the photographer who snaps off a quick email promising to get to it by next week. By then, that door of opportunity will have closed.
4) Begin building an archive.
The best and easiest way to satisfy a photo editor and get your first publication is to be able to immediately provide him with a host of on-topic choices. Don’t waste the editor’s time with images that don’t meet the call guidelines. Don’t try to impress him with how good you are at something other than what he needs. Give him the goods, and step back. If he doesn’t bite on the first call, wait for the next one, and keep building that archive.
5) Know what the editor will want before he does.
Magazines are cyclical. Every magazine has a flavor of image that it runs over and over. Sometimes the flavor has to do with composition (in fishing, the technique du jour is always the “grip and grin”). Sometimes it’s lighting, or creative use of flash, or time-delays, or, as one of my commercial clients always reiterates, “beautiful people doing beautiful things.” So study the magazine; look at the archives online or in your local library. Know your prey.
6) Get noticed.
The best way to make an editor come calling is to participate in the things the editors participate in. In small-market work, be it fishing or kayaking, home repair or gardening, kite-flying, mailbox painting, whatever, the editor of the magazine is always an enthusiastic participant. He or she didn’t get to their current exalted status without putting in the time to learn their area of presumed expertise. So put your work out there in the community you’ve chosen. Build a beautiful website. Participate in online forums, and post your work. Write legibly, even on the internet, even in email. Remember that the internet is nothing more than a giant archive, which your potential clients will use to evaluate you. Submit to photo contests, by all means, but don’t put too much reliance in them. Photo contests reward one superb image. Photo editors reward consistently acceptable images.
7) Be acceptable.
Images in magazines are frequently unspectacular. But they are very rarely over- or under-exposed, out of focus, grainy, noisy, poorly composed, or shot no more recently than 1972. All of your images may eventually find a home in someone’s publication, so take the time to make each one count. The difference between a throwaway snapshot and a publishable image is usually exactly two seconds of reflection prior to depressing the trigger.
8) Use realistic equipment.
You don’t need a $5,000 warhorse to build an image archive you might use to sell 10 photos a year. But you do need a bare minimum. Most magazines publish in 270 dpi (300 dpi for artistic or glossy publications). At 270 dpi, a ten megapixel camera can make an acceptable two page (or “double-truck”) image in horizontal orientation. A six megapixel camera can handle one full page vertically. Those are the baselines. If you can afford ten megapixels, get them. If you can’t, don’t sweat it; they’ll be affordable any day now. Do not waste editors’ time with images made on a two megapixel point and shoot camera (publication of images like that effectively ceased three years ago). Don’t waste their time with ancient slides, unless you were especially good at slide photography.
9) Be professional.
When you do get that first email or phone call, avoid trying to act like a big shot. You’re a rookie. The editor knows that. He knows you’d probably work for free this time. But he’s going to pay you anyway, just to keep you interested. Don’t demand to know how much you’ll get paid. Publication is what you want; payment is irrelevant for now. Don’t hassle him about when you’ll get paid, either. Don’t request any form of editorial control whatsoever (this rule goes out the window if either you or your spouse will be taking any clothes off in the image in question, in which case, I can no longer help you). Be flexible, non-histrionic, reasonable, and reliable.
10) Never miss a deadline.
Missing deadlines causes editors to have to go pay other photographers a premium for things you were supposed to cover under the budget they already laid out. By missing a deadline, you are screwing up your editor’s entire world. He will get yelled at by his boss. The magazine will lose money. The publication will have to rush and settle for second best. You will never be hired again.
Commercial magazine photography isn’t an arcane club requiring secret handshakes and credentials from high-end art schools. Mostly, it’s a you-scratch-my-back, I’ll-scratch-yours kind of arrangement, with working pros helping each other out and giving boosts when the opportunity arises. Having a good professional reputation in a narrowly-targeted field is the quickest way to publication and pro status. That, and getting your work in front of the people who will eventually be buying it. And when that day comes, you’ll know that you, in fact, with your kids and your day job and your hobbyist’s keen interest, were the one who did it right.
Zach Matthews is a Contributing Writer with American Angler magazine, http://www.americanangler.com/. Along with his wife, Lauren, he has published photos and writing in American Angler, Fly Fisherman, Backpacker, The Drake, and Fish and Fly. He lives and practices law in Atlanta, Georgia.
Cold weekend
We didn't do much fishing over the weeked. After an incredible run of good weather through mid Feb to the end of March, with some of the best fishing we've had in many years, things cooled down last week. Overnight temps froze some pools and insect life slowed. It was expected. You can't go that long with that good weather and enjoyable fishing without a turn. We made it out to fish on a day that wasn't too warm but just nice enough to keep us out most of the day. It was our slowest day of the month by far, far from how it has been lately, but slower fishing is expected. The rest of the weekend was spent tying flies, watching the women's curling team squeak past a couple of fine teams from Japan and China, and catching up on video editing.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Happy Food on a stick day!
March was declared international food month by Ronald Reagan when he was in power. Interestingly, March 28 was dubbed International Food on a Stick Day. This has no fly fishing connection, however, a stretch could be that I'm headed out fly fishing and rather than stop to get a burger, or Timmy's, perhaps I will grace the grease of 7-11 and grab one of those chicken breast on a stick ka-bob things. While at it, perhaps I can convince Amelia that potato wedges on a stick would work too. Obviously Feudgesicles, popsicles, creamsicles all count. Corn-dogs too. Don't go misleading yourself into believing homemade ka-bobs with healthy chicken, red and green peppers, and slices of onion count. They don't. Only pre-fab, grease soaked fabrications of mass production count. Anyway, in honor of 7-11, Mac's, and the Kwik-E-Mart, see you with stick in hand!
NZ video - "At Peace"
Two trout working separate seams in the same run. The decision as to which one to work had to be made as spooking or hooking one would undoubtedly put the other off. A quick look at the sizes and we decided to work the one on the side we were already on. That made life easy. By this point of the trip, things were really relaxed. No shoulders in my ears in angst. No tension. No worries about catching a trout. Life was pretty good. In fact, if I could sit on that rock and cast dry flies the way I did that day again today, I'd be ok with the same result 10 times out of 10. It was a really enjoyable moment.
http://www.flyfishalberta.com/video/nz19/nz19.html
http://www.flyfishalberta.com/video/nz19/nz19.html
Pigeon Lake Fisheries Management Plan Update - Feb 2008
Vance Buchwold, biologist for the region, emailed last week to inform anglers that this pdf is now online.
http://www.srd.gov.ab.ca/fieldoffices/prairies/fisheriesmanagement/pdf/SRD_PIGEON_LAKE_Pigeon_update.10.letter_size.pdf
http://www.srd.gov.ab.ca/fieldoffices/prairies/fisheriesmanagement/pdf/SRD_PIGEON_LAKE_Pigeon_update.10.letter_size.pdf
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Easter wkd
Bob & Karen Vanderwater of Red Deer spent the Easter weekend down on the Crowsnest River and area. They emailed a few photos of the weekend, which included a stop at Waterton townsite, Beauvais Lake, and the Crowsnest R. As you see in the photos, it looks like Waterton is going to have a good runoff this spring, with all that snow!
http://picasaweb.google.com/jensenflyfishing/VanderwaterEaster/photo#s5182440578334925506
http://picasaweb.google.com/jensenflyfishing/VanderwaterEaster/photo#s5182440578334925506
NZ video - "Another Chase"
Last video posted of Amelia, she chased a big brown after a great take. It was hot and left the pool, down a run and screamed downstream. In this video, the trout takes, screams into the backing upstream, turns and does the same heading downstream, Amelia hitting the backing twice as she chases it downstream. It's a good fish.
http://www.flyfishalberta.com/video/nz21/nz21.html
http://www.flyfishalberta.com/video/nz21/nz21.html
Stauffer on Wednesday
The forecast was for a cold night in Rocky Mountain House and when we arrived at 12:30, most eddy pockets of the larger pools were frozen. In fact, some never shed ice all day. With overnight temps this week in the -12 to 15 range out west, this could be a common theme on the creek all week - I wouldn't suggest running out there in the morning. Very few early stones on the creek Wednesday and a few random rises between our two fishing groups. Amelia & I managed to catch some fish, however. It was actually cool for the first time in a couple of weeks and the cold overnight temps and cool daytime weather, with that dreaded east wind, made for slower fishing. Some shots of Wed:
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
NZ video "What would you do?"
A pool with 6 or 7 trout in the 5 to 10+ pound range. Only two are reachable as the pool is 20+ feet deep, has a sheer wall on one side with trees over hanging - the other is deep and forces you to cast from 40 yards back. The two trout that tantalize are 6/7 and 10 pounds, and drop to within a 35 yard cast once an hour before cycling back upstream. The ultimate in Tantalus.
http://www.flyfishalberta.com/video/nz20/nz20.html
http://www.flyfishalberta.com/video/nz20/nz20.html
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
New Zealand Videos
The next week or so, we'll post quite a few interesting videos of fly fishign in New Zealand. Our revamping of our several websites and their video and photo galleries took priority over editing New Zealand videos until now. We'd like to get the NZ video posted over the next week or so and get into the season in our area.
In this video, "Bullseye" Amelia captures a trout along the shoreline with the video camera. Dave steps up to the plate. It's a short, 1 minute piece, but a good little cast to get the fish.
http://www.flyfishalberta.com/video/nz25/nz25.html
In this video, "Bullseye" Amelia captures a trout along the shoreline with the video camera. Dave steps up to the plate. It's a short, 1 minute piece, but a good little cast to get the fish.
http://www.flyfishalberta.com/video/nz25/nz25.html
Monday, March 24, 2008
New Zealand Video - "Yup!"
I was walking ahead of Amelia on a nice rock shelf along shore. I had to get over a hump to continue. Naturally, in doing so, I came up and over and saw a nice trout scoot from the pocket. It moved up and across the river 20 yards, then further up behind a large boulder on the far side at the head of the run, disappearing in the chop. Amelia didn't see it, but saw my disappointment as this was the second in a row I'd spooked. I was wrong, however. The trout was simply on a feeding run, as it crossed back over the river and took up residence over a rock in the seam in front of us, feeding. This is a nice bit of video, as Amelia works the brown, somewhere in the 6 pound range - a healthy trout caught on 5x tippet and a #18 nymph.
http://www.flyfishalberta.com/video/nz18/nz18.html
http://www.flyfishalberta.com/video/nz18/nz18.html
Alberta's Order of the Bighorn 2008
March 7, 2008
Outstanding wildlife conservationists receive Order of the Bighorn
Edmonton...
Five of Alberta’s fish and wildlife champions have been honoured for their exceptional conservation efforts.Ted Morton, Minister of Sustainable Resource Development, announced the names of those chosen as inductees into the Order of the Bighorn, Alberta’s most distinguished wildlife conservation award.
Merv Kopperud (Medicine Hat), Tom Bateman (Lethbridge), Kelly Semple (Sangudo), Neil Downey (Red Deer), and Dr. Charles Bird (Erskine), are the newest members of the Order of the Bighorn.
“The five newest members of the Order of the Bighorn have demonstrated significant leadership in conservation,” said Morton. “The Order of the Bighorn is proof not only that people can make a difference, but also that it takes people to make that difference happen.”
The award recipients were honoured at a gala banquet in Edmonton on March 7. The reception was hosted and co-sponsored by Alberta-Pacific Forest Industries Incorporated, Ducks Unlimited Canada, Devon Canada Corporation, Shell Canada Limited, TransCanada Pipelines Limited and the Alberta government.
The Alberta government established the Order of the Bighorn in 1982 to recognize outstanding contributions to fish and wildlife conservation by individuals, organizations and corporations. Customarily, recipients have demonstrated a commitment to conservation over many years. Including the five new awards, 108 of the honours have been awarded since the Order was established. Alberta’s official mammal, the Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep, was the inspiration behind the name of the award.
March 7, 2008
Order of the Bighorn recipients
Merv Kopperud (Medicine Hat)Merv Kopperud has been a leader and promoter of conservation efforts in Medicine Hat for more than two decades.
Merv was the driving force behind the Fish and Game Report on Medicine Hat radio, which for 18 years brought weekly updates and tips for hunters, anglers and anyone interested in conservation and wildlife habitat. Merv also helped develop the “Use Respect” billboard campaign, which promoted safe hunting and good landowner relations.
In addition, Merv took on leadership roles in the Alberta and Medicine Hat fish and game associations, Ducks Unlimited Canada and Pheasants Forever.
Whether it’s fundraising or brainstorming promotional ideas or rolling up his sleeves to get on with the work outside, Merv has made a lasting and significant contribution to wildlife conservation in southern Alberta.
Tom Bateman (Lethbridge)For more than four decades, Tom Bateman has blended his interest in education with his passion for wildlife and wild places to great effect for the conservation cause in Alberta.
Instrumental in the creation of the now 3,000-member-strong Alberta Hunter Education Instructors’ Association in 1964, Tom also co-authored hunter education and fishing education manuals that are still used today. In addition, Tom served as a game warden and conservation education project coordinator with the Government of Alberta for a quarter century.
In 1995, Tom joined the Conservation Education WISE Foundation. It was during his tenure there that the number of graduates from conservation education programs skyrocketed - from 5,000 a year to 55,000. In 2006, Tom and his colleagues graduated their one millionth student from conservation education. Today, Tom still teaches hunter education and firearms safety in the Lethbridge area.
Kelly Semple (Sangudo)For more than two decades, Kelly Semple has been an ardent advocate for conservation, hunter education and the wise stewardship of Alberta’s natural resources.
Kelly has become a high-profile spokeswoman for conservation issues and hunter education in the media; at farm, ranch and outdoors trade shows, and through her work mentoring young hunters.
As well, Kelly has been an inspiring leader for conservation and wildlife management through her roles in the Alberta Conservation Association, Hunting for Tomorrow Foundation, the Alberta Professional Outfitters Society, the Alberta Hunter Education Instructors’ Association and the Conservation Education WISE Foundation. Kelly has assumed a core role in the Hunting for Tomorrow Foundation’s Youth Mentor Program, and coordinated approximately 10,000 volunteer hours in 2007.
Neil Downey (Red Deer)Neil Downey’s commitment to the conservation of wildlife habitat in Alberta is best reflected through his devoted 27 years of volunteer service (and counting) to Ducks Unlimited Canada, including the honour in 2007 of being elected as the national president of Ducks Unlimited Canada.
Neil has also spent more than 30 years as a member of the Red Deer Fish and Game Association, where he has served in a number of different capacities, including as the association’s auditor.
Neil’s commitment to conservation and stewardship begins at home. Neil and his wife, Marilyn, have devoted half of their 400 acre Red Deer area farm to aspen parkland.
Dr. Charles Bird (Erskine)Retired University of Calgary botanist Charles Bird has had a life-long fascination with the flight of the butterfly. Charles was the lead author of Alberta Butterflies, the definitive 1995 study that emerged from 32 years of research. During his illustrious career, Charles has published hundreds of scholarly articles in scientific journals and naturalist publications, and has been honoured with numerous awards for his work in classifying plants and insects.
Blessed with the ability to make biology easily understandable, Charles was voted one of the top science teachers at the University of Calgary. In his active retirement, Charles continues to research moss and lichens, conduct field trips, and participate in bird and species counts, graciously sharing his knowledge with others.
For more information about former Order of the Bighorn recipients, visit the website of Alberta Sustainable Resource Development – http://srd.alberta.ca
Order of the Bighorn award
In 1982, the Alberta government established the Order of the Bighorn to acknowledge contributions to fish and wildlife conservation that enrich the lives of Albertans. Traditionally, recipients have demonstrated a commitment to conservation over many years.
Past recipients of the Order of the Bighorn sit on the committee that reviews nominations for the award.
Deserving individuals or organizations are inducted into the Order every two years, at an awards banquet in Edmonton. The reception is hosted and co-sponsored by Alberta-Pacific Forest Industries Incorporated, Ducks Unlimited Canada, Devon Canada Corporation, Shell Canada Limited and TransCanada Pipelines Limited, and the Alberta government.
Including the five 2008 recipients who will receive the award this year, a total of 108 Orders of the Bighorn have been conferred since the recognition was established.
Those honoured become Members of the Order of the Bighorn, and each will receive a distinctive medallion that features the head of a Rocky Mountain bighorn ram, with its striking curved horns, as well as a bronze statue of a bighorn sheep head. Alberta’s official mammal, the Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep, was the inspiration behind the name of the award. The bighorn sheep was named Alberta’s official mammal in 1989.
There are approximately 35,000 bighorns in North America, ranging from northern Alberta to New Mexico. Alberta has the largest population, with about 10,000 animals.
For information about the Order of the Bighorn recipients, visit the website of Alberta Sustainable Resource Development: http://srd.alberta.ca
Outstanding wildlife conservationists receive Order of the Bighorn
Edmonton...
Five of Alberta’s fish and wildlife champions have been honoured for their exceptional conservation efforts.Ted Morton, Minister of Sustainable Resource Development, announced the names of those chosen as inductees into the Order of the Bighorn, Alberta’s most distinguished wildlife conservation award.
Merv Kopperud (Medicine Hat), Tom Bateman (Lethbridge), Kelly Semple (Sangudo), Neil Downey (Red Deer), and Dr. Charles Bird (Erskine), are the newest members of the Order of the Bighorn.
“The five newest members of the Order of the Bighorn have demonstrated significant leadership in conservation,” said Morton. “The Order of the Bighorn is proof not only that people can make a difference, but also that it takes people to make that difference happen.”
The award recipients were honoured at a gala banquet in Edmonton on March 7. The reception was hosted and co-sponsored by Alberta-Pacific Forest Industries Incorporated, Ducks Unlimited Canada, Devon Canada Corporation, Shell Canada Limited, TransCanada Pipelines Limited and the Alberta government.
The Alberta government established the Order of the Bighorn in 1982 to recognize outstanding contributions to fish and wildlife conservation by individuals, organizations and corporations. Customarily, recipients have demonstrated a commitment to conservation over many years. Including the five new awards, 108 of the honours have been awarded since the Order was established. Alberta’s official mammal, the Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep, was the inspiration behind the name of the award.
March 7, 2008
Order of the Bighorn recipients
Merv Kopperud (Medicine Hat)Merv Kopperud has been a leader and promoter of conservation efforts in Medicine Hat for more than two decades.
Merv was the driving force behind the Fish and Game Report on Medicine Hat radio, which for 18 years brought weekly updates and tips for hunters, anglers and anyone interested in conservation and wildlife habitat. Merv also helped develop the “Use Respect” billboard campaign, which promoted safe hunting and good landowner relations.
In addition, Merv took on leadership roles in the Alberta and Medicine Hat fish and game associations, Ducks Unlimited Canada and Pheasants Forever.
Whether it’s fundraising or brainstorming promotional ideas or rolling up his sleeves to get on with the work outside, Merv has made a lasting and significant contribution to wildlife conservation in southern Alberta.
Tom Bateman (Lethbridge)For more than four decades, Tom Bateman has blended his interest in education with his passion for wildlife and wild places to great effect for the conservation cause in Alberta.
Instrumental in the creation of the now 3,000-member-strong Alberta Hunter Education Instructors’ Association in 1964, Tom also co-authored hunter education and fishing education manuals that are still used today. In addition, Tom served as a game warden and conservation education project coordinator with the Government of Alberta for a quarter century.
In 1995, Tom joined the Conservation Education WISE Foundation. It was during his tenure there that the number of graduates from conservation education programs skyrocketed - from 5,000 a year to 55,000. In 2006, Tom and his colleagues graduated their one millionth student from conservation education. Today, Tom still teaches hunter education and firearms safety in the Lethbridge area.
Kelly Semple (Sangudo)For more than two decades, Kelly Semple has been an ardent advocate for conservation, hunter education and the wise stewardship of Alberta’s natural resources.
Kelly has become a high-profile spokeswoman for conservation issues and hunter education in the media; at farm, ranch and outdoors trade shows, and through her work mentoring young hunters.
As well, Kelly has been an inspiring leader for conservation and wildlife management through her roles in the Alberta Conservation Association, Hunting for Tomorrow Foundation, the Alberta Professional Outfitters Society, the Alberta Hunter Education Instructors’ Association and the Conservation Education WISE Foundation. Kelly has assumed a core role in the Hunting for Tomorrow Foundation’s Youth Mentor Program, and coordinated approximately 10,000 volunteer hours in 2007.
Neil Downey (Red Deer)Neil Downey’s commitment to the conservation of wildlife habitat in Alberta is best reflected through his devoted 27 years of volunteer service (and counting) to Ducks Unlimited Canada, including the honour in 2007 of being elected as the national president of Ducks Unlimited Canada.
Neil has also spent more than 30 years as a member of the Red Deer Fish and Game Association, where he has served in a number of different capacities, including as the association’s auditor.
Neil’s commitment to conservation and stewardship begins at home. Neil and his wife, Marilyn, have devoted half of their 400 acre Red Deer area farm to aspen parkland.
Dr. Charles Bird (Erskine)Retired University of Calgary botanist Charles Bird has had a life-long fascination with the flight of the butterfly. Charles was the lead author of Alberta Butterflies, the definitive 1995 study that emerged from 32 years of research. During his illustrious career, Charles has published hundreds of scholarly articles in scientific journals and naturalist publications, and has been honoured with numerous awards for his work in classifying plants and insects.
Blessed with the ability to make biology easily understandable, Charles was voted one of the top science teachers at the University of Calgary. In his active retirement, Charles continues to research moss and lichens, conduct field trips, and participate in bird and species counts, graciously sharing his knowledge with others.
For more information about former Order of the Bighorn recipients, visit the website of Alberta Sustainable Resource Development – http://srd.alberta.ca
Order of the Bighorn award
In 1982, the Alberta government established the Order of the Bighorn to acknowledge contributions to fish and wildlife conservation that enrich the lives of Albertans. Traditionally, recipients have demonstrated a commitment to conservation over many years.
Past recipients of the Order of the Bighorn sit on the committee that reviews nominations for the award.
Deserving individuals or organizations are inducted into the Order every two years, at an awards banquet in Edmonton. The reception is hosted and co-sponsored by Alberta-Pacific Forest Industries Incorporated, Ducks Unlimited Canada, Devon Canada Corporation, Shell Canada Limited and TransCanada Pipelines Limited, and the Alberta government.
Including the five 2008 recipients who will receive the award this year, a total of 108 Orders of the Bighorn have been conferred since the recognition was established.
Those honoured become Members of the Order of the Bighorn, and each will receive a distinctive medallion that features the head of a Rocky Mountain bighorn ram, with its striking curved horns, as well as a bronze statue of a bighorn sheep head. Alberta’s official mammal, the Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep, was the inspiration behind the name of the award. The bighorn sheep was named Alberta’s official mammal in 1989.
There are approximately 35,000 bighorns in North America, ranging from northern Alberta to New Mexico. Alberta has the largest population, with about 10,000 animals.
For information about the Order of the Bighorn recipients, visit the website of Alberta Sustainable Resource Development: http://srd.alberta.ca
2008 Fishing Regulations on line - Note Changes
From the above link, please note the following important changes, including internet license purchasing:
"The summary in this section does not contain all regulation changes for 2008 and is provided only for general information to assist anglers in locating important changes. Carefully review regulations appearing in “Site-Specific Regulations” for each Watershed Unit for each Fish Management Zone starting on page 26.
GeneralThere will be an increase to licence costs in 2008. The Alberta Conservation Association has increased the levy portion of each licence by 20%.
Anglers can also add or change their e-mail addresses at www.albertarelm.com. The e-mail address will only be used by SRD for resource management purposes such as sending licenced sportsmen new and current information.
Special Fish Harvest Licences will continue to be available on Lake Newell, and Pigeon and Wolf lakes. The success of this strategy in protecting walleye populations and providing a positive angler experience may result in other lakes being considered in the future.
Improved ServicesInternet licensing has arrived for Alberta sportsmen. Beginning this season, sportsfishermen can purchase their Alberta Sportfishing Licence, apply for and purchase or renew their Wildlife Identification Number card and print their licences online using a secure internet program. For more details click here.
Increased Angling or Harvest OpportunitiesWalleye
The walleye limit on Fawcett Lake has been increased to three fish but at a higher minimum length of over 50 cm.
Rock Island Lake has been converted from a catch-and-release walleye fishery to one where anglers can retain 1 walleye over 50 cm.
The previous small fish limit for a short period on Sturgeon Lake has been replaced with a walleye limit of 2 over 43 cm for the entire year.
Pike
A number of winterkill prone lakes in the east slopes (ES3) with a limited potential for large pike have the length limit removed. Eta, Jackfish, Tie Camp, Whitemud, Zeta and 3 other unnamed waters now have a pike limit of 3 with no size limit.
Trout
New catch-and-release trout fisheries have been created in the east slopes. Fiesta Lake, a newly stocked trout pond near Rocky Mountain House and the section of the Sheep River upstream of the bridge at Indian Oils day-use area represent new angling opportunities.
Angler requests for the opportunity to catch larger fish have resulted in special regulations on two existing stocked waters, Outpost (Police) Lake and Kerbe’s Pond. Large minimum size limits, closure during the winter and bait bans will apply.
The trout fishing season on Battle and Graburn Creeks in the Cypress Hills has been extended to run through the winter.
New regulations to protect populations under pressureWalleye
Barrow Lake in the shield area has a reduced walleye limit (1 over 43 cm).
The walleye limit on Baptiste, Bourque and Vandersteene Lakes has been reduced to zero.
The Wabasca Lakes (North and South) have an increased size limit and reduced possession limit for walleye (3 to 2) in addition to an extended spring spawning closure.
Pike
The possession limit for pike on the Wabasca Lakes has been reduced to 2 over 63 cm.
The Sturgeon Lake pike limit has been modified to 1 over 63 cm from 2 over 55 cm.
To protect pike numbers and still allow angling the pike limit on Baptiste Lake and Lac Ste. Anne is now zero.
To protect predator species in Barrow Lake the pike limit has been reduced to 1 over 63.
Future Regulation Proposals
The Fish and Wildlife Division of Alberta Sustainable Resource Development conducts public reviews of various recommendations made by anglers, sportfishing organizations and staff. This section outlines issues under review to give anglers the opportunity to participate in the process. You are encouraged to send your comments on any issues of concern to the address below. Your letter or e-mail will be sent to the appropriate fisheries managers and advisory committees for further review.
Fish and Wildlife DivisionAlberta Sustainable Resource DevelopmentGreat West Life Building, 9920 108 StreetEdmonton, Alberta T5K 2M4Email: srd.infocent@gov.ab.ca
Internet Licensing
Buy your WIN card and your sportfishing licences online 7 days a week, 24 hours a day — Coming May 2008.Visit albertarelm.com - The website built for fisherman and hunters using your licence fees. You can buy your fishing licence and print your licence using your home computer and printer.Coming in June 2008 - Online Draw ApplicationFor more information contact Licensing Services (780) 427-5185 or Alberta Relm at 1-888-944-5495.
"The summary in this section does not contain all regulation changes for 2008 and is provided only for general information to assist anglers in locating important changes. Carefully review regulations appearing in “Site-Specific Regulations” for each Watershed Unit for each Fish Management Zone starting on page 26.
GeneralThere will be an increase to licence costs in 2008. The Alberta Conservation Association has increased the levy portion of each licence by 20%.
Anglers can also add or change their e-mail addresses at www.albertarelm.com. The e-mail address will only be used by SRD for resource management purposes such as sending licenced sportsmen new and current information.
Special Fish Harvest Licences will continue to be available on Lake Newell, and Pigeon and Wolf lakes. The success of this strategy in protecting walleye populations and providing a positive angler experience may result in other lakes being considered in the future.
Improved ServicesInternet licensing has arrived for Alberta sportsmen. Beginning this season, sportsfishermen can purchase their Alberta Sportfishing Licence, apply for and purchase or renew their Wildlife Identification Number card and print their licences online using a secure internet program. For more details click here.
Increased Angling or Harvest OpportunitiesWalleye
The walleye limit on Fawcett Lake has been increased to three fish but at a higher minimum length of over 50 cm.
Rock Island Lake has been converted from a catch-and-release walleye fishery to one where anglers can retain 1 walleye over 50 cm.
The previous small fish limit for a short period on Sturgeon Lake has been replaced with a walleye limit of 2 over 43 cm for the entire year.
Pike
A number of winterkill prone lakes in the east slopes (ES3) with a limited potential for large pike have the length limit removed. Eta, Jackfish, Tie Camp, Whitemud, Zeta and 3 other unnamed waters now have a pike limit of 3 with no size limit.
Trout
New catch-and-release trout fisheries have been created in the east slopes. Fiesta Lake, a newly stocked trout pond near Rocky Mountain House and the section of the Sheep River upstream of the bridge at Indian Oils day-use area represent new angling opportunities.
Angler requests for the opportunity to catch larger fish have resulted in special regulations on two existing stocked waters, Outpost (Police) Lake and Kerbe’s Pond. Large minimum size limits, closure during the winter and bait bans will apply.
The trout fishing season on Battle and Graburn Creeks in the Cypress Hills has been extended to run through the winter.
New regulations to protect populations under pressureWalleye
Barrow Lake in the shield area has a reduced walleye limit (1 over 43 cm).
The walleye limit on Baptiste, Bourque and Vandersteene Lakes has been reduced to zero.
The Wabasca Lakes (North and South) have an increased size limit and reduced possession limit for walleye (3 to 2) in addition to an extended spring spawning closure.
Pike
The possession limit for pike on the Wabasca Lakes has been reduced to 2 over 63 cm.
The Sturgeon Lake pike limit has been modified to 1 over 63 cm from 2 over 55 cm.
To protect pike numbers and still allow angling the pike limit on Baptiste Lake and Lac Ste. Anne is now zero.
To protect predator species in Barrow Lake the pike limit has been reduced to 1 over 63.
Future Regulation Proposals
The Fish and Wildlife Division of Alberta Sustainable Resource Development conducts public reviews of various recommendations made by anglers, sportfishing organizations and staff. This section outlines issues under review to give anglers the opportunity to participate in the process. You are encouraged to send your comments on any issues of concern to the address below. Your letter or e-mail will be sent to the appropriate fisheries managers and advisory committees for further review.
Fish and Wildlife DivisionAlberta Sustainable Resource DevelopmentGreat West Life Building, 9920 108 StreetEdmonton, Alberta T5K 2M4Email: srd.infocent@gov.ab.ca
Internet Licensing
Buy your WIN card and your sportfishing licences online 7 days a week, 24 hours a day — Coming May 2008.Visit albertarelm.com - The website built for fisherman and hunters using your licence fees. You can buy your fishing licence and print your licence using your home computer and printer.Coming in June 2008 - Online Draw ApplicationFor more information contact Licensing Services (780) 427-5185 or Alberta Relm at 1-888-944-5495.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Fish Hunting
From the article: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9503E2DD133CF932A25756C0A9629C8B63
How to Catch Fish in Vermont: No Bait, No Tackle, Just Bullets
ST. ALBANS BAY, Vt. - The hunter's prey darted into theshadows, just out of reach of Henry Demar's gun. "Come on, stand up and be counted," Mr. Demar whisperedexcitedly. "There was a ripple that came out of the weeds.There's something out there." Dressed in camouflage, gripping his .357 Magnum, Mr. Demarwas primed to shoot. But this time, no such luck. With aflick of its tail, his quarry - a slick silvery fish - wasgone. Fish shooting is a sport in Vermont, and every spring,hunters break out their artillery - high-caliber pistols,shotguns, even AK-47's - and head to the marshes toexercise their right to bear arms against fish. It is a controversial pastime, and Vermont's fish andwildlife regulators have repeatedly tried to ban it. Theycall it unsportsmanlike and dangerous, warning that abullet striking water can ricochet across the water like askipping stone. But fish shooting has survived, a cherished tradition forsome Vermont families and a novelty to some teenagers andtwenty-somethings. Fixated fish hunters climb into treesoverhanging the water (some even build "fish blinds" to sitin), sail in small skiffs or perch on the banks of marshesthat lace Lake Champlain, on Vermont's northwest border. "They call us crazy, I guess, to go sit in a tree and waitfor fish to come out," said Dean Paquette, 66, as hestruggled to describe the fish-shooting rush. "It'ssomething that once you've done it . . ." Mr. Paquette, a retired locomotive engineer, has passedfish shooting on to his children and grandchildren,including his daughter, Nicki, a nurse. "You have to be a good shot," said Ms. Paquette, 31, whostarted shooting at age 6. "It's a challenge. I thinkthat's why people do it." Her 87-year-old great-uncle, Earl Picard, is soenthusiastic that, against the better judgment of hisrelatives, he frequently drives 75 miles from his home inNewport to Lake Champlain. Mr. Picard still climbs trees,although "most of the trees that I used to climb in aregone," he said. "You can sit up there in the sun and thebirds will come and perch on your hat and look you in theeye." There is art, or at least science, to shooting fish,aficionados say, and it has nothing to do with a barrel.Most fish hunters do not want to shoot the actual fish,because then "you can't really eat them," Ms. Paquettesaid. "They just kind of shatter." Instead, said Mr. Demar, "you try to shoot just in front ofthe fish's nose or head." The bullet torpedoes to thebottom and creates "enough concussion that it breaks thefish's air bladder and it floats to the surface." Often the target is a female fish come to spawn in shallowwater, accompanied by several male acolytes who might alsobe killed, or stunned, by the concussion. "If you shoot a high-powered rifle, you can get a big mareand six or seven little bucks," Mr. Paquette said. Permitted from March 25 to May 25, only on Lake Champlain,fish shooting has probably existed for a century. It alsoused to be legal in New York, which borders the hugeapostrophe-shaped lake. Virginia used to have several fish-shooting areas, saidAlan Weaver, a fish biologist with Virginia Department ofGame and Inland Fisheries. Now, Mr. Weaver said, the onlyplace is the Clinch River in remote Scott County, where,six weeks a year, people can shoot bottom-feeders like"quill-back suckers and red-horse suckers." Virginia is theonly other state where fish shooting is still legal,Vermont officials said. In 1969, fish and wildlife officials in New York andVermont banned fish shooting. But Vermonters were loath tosever the primal link between fish and firearm, so in 1970,the Legislature not only reinstated the sport, it alsoadded fish like carp and shad to the target list, bringingthe number to 10. Since then, there have been several efforts to halt fishshooting. But they have been stopped by noisy objectionsfrom a small but dedicated bunch. Advocates crossed the state in a near-blizzard to onepublic hearing in the late 1980's, recalled John Hall, aspokesman for Vermont's Department of Fish and Wildlife. In1994, fish-shooters "outnumbered the people who spokeagainst it by about four to one," said Brian Chipman, astate fisheries biologist. State officials say shooters' claims that theirs is afading tradition that will die out on its own have notproved true. "We even think that some of the publicizing of this issuethrough efforts to pass laws against it has brought it moreinto the forefront," Mr. Chipman said. The issue is apparently touchy enough that Howard Dean,governor from 1991 to 2003, "has no interest in going onthe record on that subject," said Walker Waugh, aspokesman. Hunters like Mr. Demar, 45, joined recently by his halfbrother, Calvin Rushford, 56, and Calvin's 9-year-oldgrandson, Cody, say they make sure that their bullets hitthe water no more than 10 feet from where they stand. Thatway, said Mr. Rushford, who like Mr. Demar is a disabledformer construction worker, "you'll have no problem becausethe bullet won't ricochet." Indeed, state officials say they know of no gunshotinjuries from the sport. Bob Sampson, who allows occasionalfish shooting on his marsh, remembers only one. "I think he got shot in the stomach area," Mr. Sampson saidof a shooting that he believes took place about 40 yearsago. Most hunters say the worst they have seen is people fallingout of trees into frigid water. Mr. Demar said his brotherPeter once "shot, lost control and did a nose dive." "Hewas purple when he come up out of the water," Mr. Demarsaid. But Gordon Marcelle, a Vermont game warden who shot fish asa teenager, said every hunter safety course taught thatshooting at water was "one of the cardinal sins." State officials also say that fish shooting disturbsnesting birds and that killing spawning females couldendanger the northern pike population (although so farthere is no evidence it has). Worst of all, state officials say, many shooters do notretrieve all the fish they kill. They leave behind fishthey cannot find or do not want to wade after and fish thatexceed the state's five-pike-a-day limit or fall under the20-inch minimum length for northern pike. Mr. Marcellerecently found 18 dead fish left to rot. Two dead fish recently greeted Mr. Demar and his companionsat the marsh, a species he called mudfish. There were somefrolicking muskrats, chickadees in the ash and willow treesplus shell casings from an 8-millimeter Mauser. ("Oh,that's made for blowing them out of the water," Mr.Rushford said.) There were not, however, enough live fish to shoot. So Mr.Demar tested his gun on a log in the water, and spray shotup. "I got a little water on my sunglasses," he saidsheepishly. "That's the thing about pickerel shooting.Afterward, you have to turn away, or you get sprayed in theface."
How to Catch Fish in Vermont: No Bait, No Tackle, Just Bullets
ST. ALBANS BAY, Vt. - The hunter's prey darted into theshadows, just out of reach of Henry Demar's gun. "Come on, stand up and be counted," Mr. Demar whisperedexcitedly. "There was a ripple that came out of the weeds.There's something out there." Dressed in camouflage, gripping his .357 Magnum, Mr. Demarwas primed to shoot. But this time, no such luck. With aflick of its tail, his quarry - a slick silvery fish - wasgone. Fish shooting is a sport in Vermont, and every spring,hunters break out their artillery - high-caliber pistols,shotguns, even AK-47's - and head to the marshes toexercise their right to bear arms against fish. It is a controversial pastime, and Vermont's fish andwildlife regulators have repeatedly tried to ban it. Theycall it unsportsmanlike and dangerous, warning that abullet striking water can ricochet across the water like askipping stone. But fish shooting has survived, a cherished tradition forsome Vermont families and a novelty to some teenagers andtwenty-somethings. Fixated fish hunters climb into treesoverhanging the water (some even build "fish blinds" to sitin), sail in small skiffs or perch on the banks of marshesthat lace Lake Champlain, on Vermont's northwest border. "They call us crazy, I guess, to go sit in a tree and waitfor fish to come out," said Dean Paquette, 66, as hestruggled to describe the fish-shooting rush. "It'ssomething that once you've done it . . ." Mr. Paquette, a retired locomotive engineer, has passedfish shooting on to his children and grandchildren,including his daughter, Nicki, a nurse. "You have to be a good shot," said Ms. Paquette, 31, whostarted shooting at age 6. "It's a challenge. I thinkthat's why people do it." Her 87-year-old great-uncle, Earl Picard, is soenthusiastic that, against the better judgment of hisrelatives, he frequently drives 75 miles from his home inNewport to Lake Champlain. Mr. Picard still climbs trees,although "most of the trees that I used to climb in aregone," he said. "You can sit up there in the sun and thebirds will come and perch on your hat and look you in theeye." There is art, or at least science, to shooting fish,aficionados say, and it has nothing to do with a barrel.Most fish hunters do not want to shoot the actual fish,because then "you can't really eat them," Ms. Paquettesaid. "They just kind of shatter." Instead, said Mr. Demar, "you try to shoot just in front ofthe fish's nose or head." The bullet torpedoes to thebottom and creates "enough concussion that it breaks thefish's air bladder and it floats to the surface." Often the target is a female fish come to spawn in shallowwater, accompanied by several male acolytes who might alsobe killed, or stunned, by the concussion. "If you shoot a high-powered rifle, you can get a big mareand six or seven little bucks," Mr. Paquette said. Permitted from March 25 to May 25, only on Lake Champlain,fish shooting has probably existed for a century. It alsoused to be legal in New York, which borders the hugeapostrophe-shaped lake. Virginia used to have several fish-shooting areas, saidAlan Weaver, a fish biologist with Virginia Department ofGame and Inland Fisheries. Now, Mr. Weaver said, the onlyplace is the Clinch River in remote Scott County, where,six weeks a year, people can shoot bottom-feeders like"quill-back suckers and red-horse suckers." Virginia is theonly other state where fish shooting is still legal,Vermont officials said. In 1969, fish and wildlife officials in New York andVermont banned fish shooting. But Vermonters were loath tosever the primal link between fish and firearm, so in 1970,the Legislature not only reinstated the sport, it alsoadded fish like carp and shad to the target list, bringingthe number to 10. Since then, there have been several efforts to halt fishshooting. But they have been stopped by noisy objectionsfrom a small but dedicated bunch. Advocates crossed the state in a near-blizzard to onepublic hearing in the late 1980's, recalled John Hall, aspokesman for Vermont's Department of Fish and Wildlife. In1994, fish-shooters "outnumbered the people who spokeagainst it by about four to one," said Brian Chipman, astate fisheries biologist. State officials say shooters' claims that theirs is afading tradition that will die out on its own have notproved true. "We even think that some of the publicizing of this issuethrough efforts to pass laws against it has brought it moreinto the forefront," Mr. Chipman said. The issue is apparently touchy enough that Howard Dean,governor from 1991 to 2003, "has no interest in going onthe record on that subject," said Walker Waugh, aspokesman. Hunters like Mr. Demar, 45, joined recently by his halfbrother, Calvin Rushford, 56, and Calvin's 9-year-oldgrandson, Cody, say they make sure that their bullets hitthe water no more than 10 feet from where they stand. Thatway, said Mr. Rushford, who like Mr. Demar is a disabledformer construction worker, "you'll have no problem becausethe bullet won't ricochet." Indeed, state officials say they know of no gunshotinjuries from the sport. Bob Sampson, who allows occasionalfish shooting on his marsh, remembers only one. "I think he got shot in the stomach area," Mr. Sampson saidof a shooting that he believes took place about 40 yearsago. Most hunters say the worst they have seen is people fallingout of trees into frigid water. Mr. Demar said his brotherPeter once "shot, lost control and did a nose dive." "Hewas purple when he come up out of the water," Mr. Demarsaid. But Gordon Marcelle, a Vermont game warden who shot fish asa teenager, said every hunter safety course taught thatshooting at water was "one of the cardinal sins." State officials also say that fish shooting disturbsnesting birds and that killing spawning females couldendanger the northern pike population (although so farthere is no evidence it has). Worst of all, state officials say, many shooters do notretrieve all the fish they kill. They leave behind fishthey cannot find or do not want to wade after and fish thatexceed the state's five-pike-a-day limit or fall under the20-inch minimum length for northern pike. Mr. Marcellerecently found 18 dead fish left to rot. Two dead fish recently greeted Mr. Demar and his companionsat the marsh, a species he called mudfish. There were somefrolicking muskrats, chickadees in the ash and willow treesplus shell casings from an 8-millimeter Mauser. ("Oh,that's made for blowing them out of the water," Mr.Rushford said.) There were not, however, enough live fish to shoot. So Mr.Demar tested his gun on a log in the water, and spray shotup. "I got a little water on my sunglasses," he saidsheepishly. "That's the thing about pickerel shooting.Afterward, you have to turn away, or you get sprayed in theface."
Quick Fortress check
We flew to Fortress for the day on Friday. Quite a trek for sure - 4 hr drive from Red Deer followed by 45 minutes to the lake, return, in a day. A good day to be alive, as the weather was perfect and the setting stunning once more. The above shot tells the tale, thanks to Kevin for forwarding it. A soft landing in the snow on the lake and a short taxi over to the dock, which was covered in 3 feet of blown snow. A fair bit of snow up there still, though not as much as last winter, thankfully.The snow stayed off the roofs, as the weather co-operated the past month. Jasper temperatures had been above freezing daily for the past month, so too Golden. We took measurements of a few things for additional renos this spring as we step further towards our end goals. This is a great spring, as we complete many projects and have the site streamlined.
A disappointment was arriving to find that someone had been on site in the past few weeks, leaving trash, breaking in to our facilities and taking liberties, and using the front door of the cabins as a toilet. Not what you want to find, at all. The irony is that they accidentally left identifiable information as to who they are, and they operate a guest house in Golden. We wondered how they would appreciate us breaking in to their facilities and taking liberties with their possessions. You can bet we'll be following up on this. Disappointing, as without our facilities, there would be nothing for them at this location. Life in the back country.
All else went very well, as we move towards a pressure water system installation this spring, to go along with the solar power grid, new bath house, and new kitchen. Things are definitely progressing!
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Fishing the past week
The Blog took a back seat to fishing and catching up on emails the past two days. Things aren't too bad at all. Not a lot of over the top fishing, but some good trout being landed, certainly. Some dry fly fish caught, as well as a few on nymphs. There's a bit more water opening up. Today we opted to go a little higher in the system, however, and were rewarded. Yesterday, Amelia & I had a good day with some creative angling and unique video camera angles. If this sounds vague, it isn't intended to be. The spring fishing has been good with some nice trout caught, some good photos taken, and some excellent video captured. This is a good spring to be fishing, but we could say that every year coming out of Alberta winters. The fishing is as it has been all spring, hit & miss but very enjoyable thanks to prolonged, wonderful weather that has seen quite a tan develop thus far!
Again, if anyone wants to join us for a day of guided fly fishing on walk and wade streams, please email info@flyfishalberta.com
An active brown takes flight
A fine trout under the ice shelf
25" of fun. A good trout, certainly.
A great take and the fish rolled.
Nice light, fine trout.
Another nice brown.
And another.
A good week, capped off.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Red Deer River Fish & Riparian Health presentation March 27
Fish and Riparian Health
presented by Vance Buchwald, Area Fisheries Biologist, Alberta Sustainable Resource Development
7:30 PM, Thursday, March 27
Kerry Wood Nature Centre
● Visitors Welcome, free admission
This presentation will discuss fish distribution and population status in the Red Deer River, from the Dickson Dam to the Saskatchewan border. It will also discuss changes in fish populations since the Dickson Dam was built and changes that have taken place since large scale surveys were conducted in 1990-91 and 2004. The talk will also touch on the development of new analysis tools to examine the biological integrity of fish population in Alberta.Mr Buchwald will also discuss the riparian health of the Red Deer River from Dickson Dam to the confluence of the Blindman River. In June 2006, the riparian zone of the Red Deer River was videotaped from a helicopter and its riparian health was assessed from the video. In this segment of the presentation, he will discuss the results of the assessment and the use of videography as a riparian and shoreline monitoring tool.Vance Buchwald graduated in 1980 with a BSc Animal Biology from the University of Calgary. He worked as an environmental consultant from 1980-82, then joined Alberta Fish and Wildlife in 1982. He moved to Red Deer as a Fisheries Biologist in 1987 and is currently the Senior Fisheries Biologist, responsible for fishpopulation and habitat management in the Red Deer Area.
presented by Vance Buchwald, Area Fisheries Biologist, Alberta Sustainable Resource Development
7:30 PM, Thursday, March 27
Kerry Wood Nature Centre
● Visitors Welcome, free admission
This presentation will discuss fish distribution and population status in the Red Deer River, from the Dickson Dam to the Saskatchewan border. It will also discuss changes in fish populations since the Dickson Dam was built and changes that have taken place since large scale surveys were conducted in 1990-91 and 2004. The talk will also touch on the development of new analysis tools to examine the biological integrity of fish population in Alberta.Mr Buchwald will also discuss the riparian health of the Red Deer River from Dickson Dam to the confluence of the Blindman River. In June 2006, the riparian zone of the Red Deer River was videotaped from a helicopter and its riparian health was assessed from the video. In this segment of the presentation, he will discuss the results of the assessment and the use of videography as a riparian and shoreline monitoring tool.Vance Buchwald graduated in 1980 with a BSc Animal Biology from the University of Calgary. He worked as an environmental consultant from 1980-82, then joined Alberta Fish and Wildlife in 1982. He moved to Red Deer as a Fisheries Biologist in 1987 and is currently the Senior Fisheries Biologist, responsible for fishpopulation and habitat management in the Red Deer Area.
New Zealand Video "5 &1/2"
In this video, Amelia steps to the plate and works a nnice brown along the edge. Both the guide & I think the cast is short, but the trout is cycling the bank and comes up well downstream of its last rise. Surprise! A nice moment. Again, not a huge trout but a nice one that gave us a couple of nice jumps.
http://www.flyfishalberta.com/video/nz9/nz9.html
http://www.flyfishalberta.com/video/nz9/nz9.html
Monday, March 17, 2008
Follow up discussions to Open Spaces post
The post lower in this blog dealing with Alberta's Open Spaces email to the Minister from Carl Hunt was posted on the CanFF list serv. Once there it has taken a different spin, aimed at BC, oddly enough. You might wish to read from the bottom up. Again, this is for thought, hopefully it'll give insight to thoughts from another jurisdiction (BC) applicable to yours.
"I would like to tweak everyone's memory a bit about the east Kootenay fishing, but first.
It would be nice for the local resident to be able to fish at lease one good river in each area of the province without having to put up with a stream of boats going by every few minutes. That doesn't mean a guide couldn't take a customer in on foot.
The Elk river suddenly became very good fishing a few years ago and the guides showed up in great numbers,and I don't blame them as the fishing at first was fantastic but soon there was no place to fish off shore as every where you went there were guide boats in the hole or run, coming or leaving. It was terrible. B.C. residents had a beautiful river at their front door and couldn't fish it. From dawn to dark a boat was going by at the rate of one about every 5 to 10 minutes. The fishing dropped off fast, but by then the word was out, and the guides kept advertising the fantastic fishing, even when it was no longer there. The guides made a fortune. The fish numbers went way down, the fish size went way down, the numbers of dead fish found in the river went up. The guides showed up from the States in huge numbers. When checked they weren't guiding, but were just bringing friends for a trip. Funny thing about it was it was the same guides every few days. They sure had a lot of friends.
When the river became classified the guides became fewer and the fishing improved dramatically even for the residents, even at that, I have been told that on a week end the number of boats on the river is really high.
So if you don't want guides on the river you had better be real noisy or get the river classified, and, or, get the number of boats on the river restricted, that would mean resident boats too.
Good luck.
JBlake
"Neville,With all due respect, the Totems along with other Lower Mainland fly clubs are very much part of the problem. It seems that few members have an understanding of natural resource management that goes beyond what they learned from reading Roderick Haig-Brown. Given the era and his lack of education, Haig-Brown had an excuse. Some of the highly educated members of the local fly clubs have no excuse. Zero.If this was a school play ground, I would argue that we should take the sport fishery away from residents because they have been so naughty, greedy and selfish. The gig is up. The emperor has no clothes. Using self-serving reasons to keep "others" off the water in an easy-access environment and to suck the potential socio-economic value out of public fisheries in the early 21st century will become increasingly difficult.This approach is taking resources from future generations of anglers. In the meantime, your special-interest group-oriented management style is creating lousy, mediocre fishing, and strong incentives to "game" easy-access sport fisheries for those who are well connected/informed and have the resources. On a personal note, please thank your fellow Totem members for the crappy, awful angling that characterizes much of southern BC recreational fishing today.regards -Erik
At 09:42 AM 16/03/2008, Neville Gosling wrote:
Erik: It was good to see your post but not the content. This Government is only interested in the $ and is squandering the natural environment & resources. To quote fellow Totem Flyfisher and friend Gill Sage : - “The big bomb shell was their intention to allow guiding on the Skagit. Unfortunately copies of the draft Plan were not available at the meeting and will not be ready until Wednesday. Apparently the plan will also be on their website. Here is what they are saying for the lower Skagit , which is considered to be the water from Silvertip Creek to the Ross Lake, it should support 3000 angler days but is only seeing 2300 angler days which means that it can support another 700 angler days. Their proposal is to allow 80% of the unused days to be given to guides and they would only be allowed to guide on week days. The Upper Skagit (Silvertip to Sumallo) 487 available angler days and the Sumallo with 554 available angler days would also be subject to guiding. The indicated those rod days would be reviewed on yearly bases and may not necessarily be renewed. When asked how they would control guide numbers without classifying the water they said the need for a park use permit would be the control. It seems to me that a guide could challenge that in court if he was refused a park use permit while permit were issued to other. We were told that guides have been writing the Minister requesting that the Skagit be opened to guiding. I think they have over estimated the carrying capacities in terms on the number of angler days and they have failed to take into account that early in the season the water levels are too high to enable fisherman to spread out and towards the end of the season the water levels can be too low so angling effort is not spread evenly over the four month period but is concentrated in August and early September. They also fail to realize that a guided angler is more effective than a non guided angler as the guided angler will be targeting the hot spots. When they talk of anglers per kilometer and the 3000 anglers on the lower Skagit means 1.2 anglers per kilometer the fail to realize that there is a lot of water on the Skagit that is poor and anglers aren’t stupid they search out the better water. Some of the supposed rational behind this is that licence sales thus angler effort is declining thus there is the opportunity to create business opportunity by allowing guides to utilize what the public will not.” Erik we need to fight this madness vehemently. I myself am opposed to guiding on this small portion of the river as I strongly feel it will destroy the quality of the fishing on this river – all for the almighy $. We desperately need all the help we can get to let the government know how we feel. The other majorb problem initiated by thie insane government is to allow private power projects i.e the Upper Pitt. Absolute madness!Neville (Nev) GoslingSurreyB. C. Canada
From: Canadian flyfishing list [ mailto:CANFF@CLIFFY.UCS.MUN.CA] On Behalf Of Erik PooleSent: March 16, 2008 09:08To: CANFF@CLIFFY.UCS.MUN.CASubject: Re: FW: Open Spaces Project Tony,The BC provincial government Ministry of Environment is proposing to add two parking lot/day use areas on the (heavily pounded) lower section of the Upper Skagit River to spread angling effort out. The upper Skagit is the best resident trout and charr stream accessible by driving from the Greater Vancouver/Lower Fraser Valley area but the water is 'coastal' and not rich.At the same time, the primary goal is to add 500 guided angler rod days. I cannot think of a good reason to say no to guides but the game is inevitably zero-sum in this case. I have not returned to this mismanaged fishery. I see no personal need to angle for heavily pressured, scarred and mutilated fish. But that said, the river is popular with area fly anglers and I would guess that 98% of them would oppose additional access. I'd say without hesitation that the culprit is the popular, entitled tradition of open access and slightly, but insufficiently modified easy access to natural public assets.I should add that it is truly sad to watch Albertans squander their petroleum riches in a first-come, first-serve type gold-rush like setting. Alberta's Resource Curse. But then it is also truly sad to watch the BC government pull similar maneuvers like mismanaging hundreds of millions of dollars of natural gas in the ground, or subsidizing softwood lumber harvest and export into the US market, or dropping metal and mineral royalties a few years ago at the bottom of the market (!). Now BC has started a feel-good, gold rush on Run of the River (RoR) Independent Power Projects (IPP). There is much talk and opposition though interestingly I have to see any meaningful discussion of the economic returns, other than one employee of BC Hydro who has suggested that similar power output could have been attained with modifications to existing BC Hydro reservoir dams. As always, I can safely guess that the private returns are adequate. As to the public returns, I'll have to look closer.BC anglers have this strange notion that valuable public wilderness will just sit there and not be claimed. Hope you are well. -Erik
"I would like to tweak everyone's memory a bit about the east Kootenay fishing, but first.
It would be nice for the local resident to be able to fish at lease one good river in each area of the province without having to put up with a stream of boats going by every few minutes. That doesn't mean a guide couldn't take a customer in on foot.
The Elk river suddenly became very good fishing a few years ago and the guides showed up in great numbers,and I don't blame them as the fishing at first was fantastic but soon there was no place to fish off shore as every where you went there were guide boats in the hole or run, coming or leaving. It was terrible. B.C. residents had a beautiful river at their front door and couldn't fish it. From dawn to dark a boat was going by at the rate of one about every 5 to 10 minutes. The fishing dropped off fast, but by then the word was out, and the guides kept advertising the fantastic fishing, even when it was no longer there. The guides made a fortune. The fish numbers went way down, the fish size went way down, the numbers of dead fish found in the river went up. The guides showed up from the States in huge numbers. When checked they weren't guiding, but were just bringing friends for a trip. Funny thing about it was it was the same guides every few days. They sure had a lot of friends.
When the river became classified the guides became fewer and the fishing improved dramatically even for the residents, even at that, I have been told that on a week end the number of boats on the river is really high.
So if you don't want guides on the river you had better be real noisy or get the river classified, and, or, get the number of boats on the river restricted, that would mean resident boats too.
Good luck.
JBlake
"Neville,With all due respect, the Totems along with other Lower Mainland fly clubs are very much part of the problem. It seems that few members have an understanding of natural resource management that goes beyond what they learned from reading Roderick Haig-Brown. Given the era and his lack of education, Haig-Brown had an excuse. Some of the highly educated members of the local fly clubs have no excuse. Zero.If this was a school play ground, I would argue that we should take the sport fishery away from residents because they have been so naughty, greedy and selfish. The gig is up. The emperor has no clothes. Using self-serving reasons to keep "others" off the water in an easy-access environment and to suck the potential socio-economic value out of public fisheries in the early 21st century will become increasingly difficult.This approach is taking resources from future generations of anglers. In the meantime, your special-interest group-oriented management style is creating lousy, mediocre fishing, and strong incentives to "game" easy-access sport fisheries for those who are well connected/informed and have the resources. On a personal note, please thank your fellow Totem members for the crappy, awful angling that characterizes much of southern BC recreational fishing today.regards -Erik
At 09:42 AM 16/03/2008, Neville Gosling wrote:
Erik: It was good to see your post but not the content. This Government is only interested in the $ and is squandering the natural environment & resources. To quote fellow Totem Flyfisher and friend Gill Sage : - “The big bomb shell was their intention to allow guiding on the Skagit. Unfortunately copies of the draft Plan were not available at the meeting and will not be ready until Wednesday. Apparently the plan will also be on their website. Here is what they are saying for the lower Skagit , which is considered to be the water from Silvertip Creek to the Ross Lake, it should support 3000 angler days but is only seeing 2300 angler days which means that it can support another 700 angler days. Their proposal is to allow 80% of the unused days to be given to guides and they would only be allowed to guide on week days. The Upper Skagit (Silvertip to Sumallo) 487 available angler days and the Sumallo with 554 available angler days would also be subject to guiding. The indicated those rod days would be reviewed on yearly bases and may not necessarily be renewed. When asked how they would control guide numbers without classifying the water they said the need for a park use permit would be the control. It seems to me that a guide could challenge that in court if he was refused a park use permit while permit were issued to other. We were told that guides have been writing the Minister requesting that the Skagit be opened to guiding. I think they have over estimated the carrying capacities in terms on the number of angler days and they have failed to take into account that early in the season the water levels are too high to enable fisherman to spread out and towards the end of the season the water levels can be too low so angling effort is not spread evenly over the four month period but is concentrated in August and early September. They also fail to realize that a guided angler is more effective than a non guided angler as the guided angler will be targeting the hot spots. When they talk of anglers per kilometer and the 3000 anglers on the lower Skagit means 1.2 anglers per kilometer the fail to realize that there is a lot of water on the Skagit that is poor and anglers aren’t stupid they search out the better water. Some of the supposed rational behind this is that licence sales thus angler effort is declining thus there is the opportunity to create business opportunity by allowing guides to utilize what the public will not.” Erik we need to fight this madness vehemently. I myself am opposed to guiding on this small portion of the river as I strongly feel it will destroy the quality of the fishing on this river – all for the almighy $. We desperately need all the help we can get to let the government know how we feel. The other majorb problem initiated by thie insane government is to allow private power projects i.e the Upper Pitt. Absolute madness!Neville (Nev) GoslingSurreyB. C. Canada
From: Canadian flyfishing list [ mailto:CANFF@CLIFFY.UCS.MUN.CA] On Behalf Of Erik PooleSent: March 16, 2008 09:08To: CANFF@CLIFFY.UCS.MUN.CASubject: Re: FW: Open Spaces Project Tony,The BC provincial government Ministry of Environment is proposing to add two parking lot/day use areas on the (heavily pounded) lower section of the Upper Skagit River to spread angling effort out. The upper Skagit is the best resident trout and charr stream accessible by driving from the Greater Vancouver/Lower Fraser Valley area but the water is 'coastal' and not rich.At the same time, the primary goal is to add 500 guided angler rod days. I cannot think of a good reason to say no to guides but the game is inevitably zero-sum in this case. I have not returned to this mismanaged fishery. I see no personal need to angle for heavily pressured, scarred and mutilated fish. But that said, the river is popular with area fly anglers and I would guess that 98% of them would oppose additional access. I'd say without hesitation that the culprit is the popular, entitled tradition of open access and slightly, but insufficiently modified easy access to natural public assets.I should add that it is truly sad to watch Albertans squander their petroleum riches in a first-come, first-serve type gold-rush like setting. Alberta's Resource Curse. But then it is also truly sad to watch the BC government pull similar maneuvers like mismanaging hundreds of millions of dollars of natural gas in the ground, or subsidizing softwood lumber harvest and export into the US market, or dropping metal and mineral royalties a few years ago at the bottom of the market (!). Now BC has started a feel-good, gold rush on Run of the River (RoR) Independent Power Projects (IPP). There is much talk and opposition though interestingly I have to see any meaningful discussion of the economic returns, other than one employee of BC Hydro who has suggested that similar power output could have been attained with modifications to existing BC Hydro reservoir dams. As always, I can safely guess that the private returns are adequate. As to the public returns, I'll have to look closer.BC anglers have this strange notion that valuable public wilderness will just sit there and not be claimed. Hope you are well. -Erik
New Zealand Video - "I'm going to hide"
Our guide Serge does a little singing as Amelia tags into a nice trout in a shoreline riffle with a break. A nice moment on a great day.
http://www.flyfishalberta.com/video/nz10/nz10.html
http://www.flyfishalberta.com/video/nz10/nz10.html
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Ides of March
Thought for the day:
Beware the Ides of March. It's funny how this old saying comes true yet again. Has anyone noticed the snow and colder weather down turn the past few days? The spring equinox storm. It's the same in Sept with the autumnal equinox. Always beware the few days either side of the equinoxes.
Beware the Ides of March. It's funny how this old saying comes true yet again. Has anyone noticed the snow and colder weather down turn the past few days? The spring equinox storm. It's the same in Sept with the autumnal equinox. Always beware the few days either side of the equinoxes.
Snowy Saturday
Today we headed out to the creek to do a different section of water. It had snowed 2" overnight and there was ice in our guides all day. Actually, after 3pm the temperature dropped as a new low pressure front was moving in, sucking cold air with it to create tonight's snowfall. We managed a few ok trout with nobody else on the water. It wasn't that great a day for fishing but we managed a few. We also managed a few on the dry fly when the air temperatures were about -2 or 3C. Not anything big rising, but for early - mi March and below freezing air temperatures, what can a guy complain about?
See a few shots of the day here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/jensenflyfishing/March15/photo#s5178191912478889410
See a few shots of the day here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/jensenflyfishing/March15/photo#s5178191912478889410
Alberta Open Spaces - Carl Hunt
Thanks to Tony Blake for forwarding this to me. We don't want to have a heavy opinion in this Blog, nor raise too many issues, but the Open Spaces issue is certainly an interesting one. Here's what Carl hunt, retired head biologist for the Edson - Hinton country wrote to our Minister in two emails:
"-----Original Message-----From: Carl Hunt [mailto:carlhunt@telus.net] Sent: Friday, March 14, 2008 4:52 PMTo: 'Minister of SRD'Cc: David Swann; Brian Mason, NDPSubject: Open Spaces Project
Dear Minister Morton,
From your ‘form letter’ reply dated March 06, 2008, (copy attached) it’s obvious that your staff didn’t read my letter or consider my concerns. I am aware of a number of letters from other ‘Sportsmen’ that expressed concerns about Open Spaces as paid hunting and I share those concerns but my main question was about the government’s failure to protect critical wildlife habitat on crown lands and grazing leases. I also mentioned the serious lack of protection of riparian areas and fish habitat along trout streams that could be protected with a few changes of policy and legislation - without paying private land owners.
Achieving a successful program of habitat protection and public access on private land is extremely complex, expensive and subject to abuse so why expend such enormous energy and tax dollars in this direction instead of dealing with fish and wildlife habitat destruction on public land where access is allowed and private property rights are not an issue?
I hope the questions from my first letter and this follow up, will be answered by the competent and experienced fish & wildlife biologists on your staff instead of public relations people or forwarded to a ‘pilot project team’ that has no responsibility for public lands.
You stated, “If we don’t try, we will never know”.
I agree, but why don’t we practice on public lands before taking on a more complex project?
Sincerely,
Carl Hunt
c.c Opposition Members and general public
MAR 0 6 2008
Mr. Carl Hunt
4312 - 8 Avenue
Edson, Alberta
T7E 1A8
Dear Mr. Hunt:
Thank you for your February 20, 2008 letter concerning the Open Spaces Alberta Pilot Program. You have raised some valid questions which I will forward to the pilot project team.
I ask that you keep in mind that this is a pilot project during which we will seek to answer the types of questions you raised. As I mentioned earlier if it becomes clear through evaluation of the project that the goals are not being achieved, the program can be terminated. If we don't try, we will never know.
Thank you again for taking the time to share your concerns on this matter.
Sincerely,
Ted Morton
Minister
________________________________________________________________________________
Carl Hunt
4312-8Ave
Edson AB
T7E 1A8
Feb 20, 2008
The Honourable Ted Morton
Minister of Sustainable Resource Development
Legislature Building
10800-97 Ave.
Edmonton Alberta
T5K 2B6
Dear Minister,
I received a brief description of your Open Spaces Project from concerned hunters and looked for the full report of the committee, because I wanted to read the rationale, goals and the public representation in the decision making process. I found nothing on the SRD web site and was referred to the University of Calgary site where I found a description that included a few more details but differed somewhat from the version received from a hunting organization.
I also read your letter to “Fellow Hunters and Conservationists” but it didn’t answer my concerns that the program might evolve into paid hunting. My first concern was the lack of environmental organizations on the committee and the apparent scarcity of wildlife biologists or enforcement experts on the planning team, particularly when the “Terms of Reference” said that decisions would be resolved by voting.
Like most hunters, I would welcome the opportunity to hunt on private land and like all conservationists/environmentalists I think the protection and development of wildlife habitat should have a high priority compared to today’s emphasis on monetary values. Nowhere could I find the safeguards to prevent the proliferation of a black-market in the sale of farmer issued tags or how public access would be controlled to protect the access rights of resident hunters or the safety and vandalism concerns of landowners.
I failed to understand who would evaluate the qualities of productive wildlife habitat that would return private land owners an annual profit of up to $2000 for 100 hunter days per year for a section or landowner! How much would this cost tax payers if it was widely applied to private property? Habitat characteristics vary for each species so how would the government value different habitats? Tax payers could end up paying for aspen scrub to produce bull elk but might sooner watch a Pileated woodpecker or caribou in an old growth forest.
What really confounds me is having taxpayers pay private landowners to protect wildlife habitat while the government ignores the protection of critical wildlife habitat on grazing leases and crown lands. Our mountain caribou herds haven’t been hunted since 1980 and continue to decline while the government ignores the real problems of habitat protection. Logging companies continue to log these areas even though the demand for OSB and lumber has declined. Petroleum companies are building roads and ‘voluntarily’ promise to share them with the logging industry. Thirty years of caribou recovery plans and all we have seen is a caribou cowgirl trying desperately to prevent road kills on a highway and caribou cows rounded up and penned like livestock to reduce calf mortality. Now the government has resorted to culls of wolves which (science has repeatedly shown) rebound to even greater numbers after the killing stops? Will the wolf kill stop when the gas field is developed? Are caribou recovery plans written by industries?
Grizzly mismanagement is following the same scenario as caribou. Stop the hunting, blame poachers and allow industries to continue ‘business as usual’. When is the Alberta Government going to implement some industrial road planning, stop the unlimited motorized access to every quarter section on crown land and recognize that road densities are destroying wildlife habitat?
Open Spaces Project implies benefits for fishermen such as better access to fishing but says nothing about habitat protection. Bull trout have been protected from harvest for over ten years, west-slope cutthroat are being considered for listing by federal Species at Risk (SARA) legislation and Arctic grayling have been decimated in the headwater tributaries of the Athabasca River. The cumulated impact of human activities on our watersheds hasn’t even been monitored. Private landowners can legally remove vegetation to the high-water mark. On public land the number of stream crossings (often temporary log/snow/dirt fills or culverts) is unrestricted and riparian buffers aren’t even required on the thousands of kilometres of small feeder streams that nourish our trout waters. For example, aerial herbicide spraying for intensive forest management (approx 30,000 hectares sprayed per year) is allowed within 5 metres of fish bearing waters and there is only a one metre buffer for ephemeral streams.
In summary, I would really like to understand why the Alberta Government is offering to use taxpayers’ money to protect habitat and promote elk hunting on private property while they squander the renewable wildlife and fisheries habitat on public lands.
As a fellow hunter, fisherman and unabashed environmentalist, I implore (from your letter, 2008) “if I haven’t persuaded you, I hope you will keep an open mind” and support a broader view of the critical habitat protection that is greatly needed and long overdue in this province.
Sincerely,
Carl Hunt
c.c. Hunters, Anglers & Environmentalists
"-----Original Message-----From: Carl Hunt [mailto:carlhunt@telus.net] Sent: Friday, March 14, 2008 4:52 PMTo: 'Minister of SRD'Cc: David Swann; Brian Mason, NDPSubject: Open Spaces Project
Dear Minister Morton,
From your ‘form letter’ reply dated March 06, 2008, (copy attached) it’s obvious that your staff didn’t read my letter or consider my concerns. I am aware of a number of letters from other ‘Sportsmen’ that expressed concerns about Open Spaces as paid hunting and I share those concerns but my main question was about the government’s failure to protect critical wildlife habitat on crown lands and grazing leases. I also mentioned the serious lack of protection of riparian areas and fish habitat along trout streams that could be protected with a few changes of policy and legislation - without paying private land owners.
Achieving a successful program of habitat protection and public access on private land is extremely complex, expensive and subject to abuse so why expend such enormous energy and tax dollars in this direction instead of dealing with fish and wildlife habitat destruction on public land where access is allowed and private property rights are not an issue?
I hope the questions from my first letter and this follow up, will be answered by the competent and experienced fish & wildlife biologists on your staff instead of public relations people or forwarded to a ‘pilot project team’ that has no responsibility for public lands.
You stated, “If we don’t try, we will never know”.
I agree, but why don’t we practice on public lands before taking on a more complex project?
Sincerely,
Carl Hunt
c.c Opposition Members and general public
MAR 0 6 2008
Mr. Carl Hunt
4312 - 8 Avenue
Edson, Alberta
T7E 1A8
Dear Mr. Hunt:
Thank you for your February 20, 2008 letter concerning the Open Spaces Alberta Pilot Program. You have raised some valid questions which I will forward to the pilot project team.
I ask that you keep in mind that this is a pilot project during which we will seek to answer the types of questions you raised. As I mentioned earlier if it becomes clear through evaluation of the project that the goals are not being achieved, the program can be terminated. If we don't try, we will never know.
Thank you again for taking the time to share your concerns on this matter.
Sincerely,
Ted Morton
Minister
________________________________________________________________________________
Carl Hunt
4312-8Ave
Edson AB
T7E 1A8
Feb 20, 2008
The Honourable Ted Morton
Minister of Sustainable Resource Development
Legislature Building
10800-97 Ave.
Edmonton Alberta
T5K 2B6
Dear Minister,
I received a brief description of your Open Spaces Project from concerned hunters and looked for the full report of the committee, because I wanted to read the rationale, goals and the public representation in the decision making process. I found nothing on the SRD web site and was referred to the University of Calgary site where I found a description that included a few more details but differed somewhat from the version received from a hunting organization.
I also read your letter to “Fellow Hunters and Conservationists” but it didn’t answer my concerns that the program might evolve into paid hunting. My first concern was the lack of environmental organizations on the committee and the apparent scarcity of wildlife biologists or enforcement experts on the planning team, particularly when the “Terms of Reference” said that decisions would be resolved by voting.
Like most hunters, I would welcome the opportunity to hunt on private land and like all conservationists/environmentalists I think the protection and development of wildlife habitat should have a high priority compared to today’s emphasis on monetary values. Nowhere could I find the safeguards to prevent the proliferation of a black-market in the sale of farmer issued tags or how public access would be controlled to protect the access rights of resident hunters or the safety and vandalism concerns of landowners.
I failed to understand who would evaluate the qualities of productive wildlife habitat that would return private land owners an annual profit of up to $2000 for 100 hunter days per year for a section or landowner! How much would this cost tax payers if it was widely applied to private property? Habitat characteristics vary for each species so how would the government value different habitats? Tax payers could end up paying for aspen scrub to produce bull elk but might sooner watch a Pileated woodpecker or caribou in an old growth forest.
What really confounds me is having taxpayers pay private landowners to protect wildlife habitat while the government ignores the protection of critical wildlife habitat on grazing leases and crown lands. Our mountain caribou herds haven’t been hunted since 1980 and continue to decline while the government ignores the real problems of habitat protection. Logging companies continue to log these areas even though the demand for OSB and lumber has declined. Petroleum companies are building roads and ‘voluntarily’ promise to share them with the logging industry. Thirty years of caribou recovery plans and all we have seen is a caribou cowgirl trying desperately to prevent road kills on a highway and caribou cows rounded up and penned like livestock to reduce calf mortality. Now the government has resorted to culls of wolves which (science has repeatedly shown) rebound to even greater numbers after the killing stops? Will the wolf kill stop when the gas field is developed? Are caribou recovery plans written by industries?
Grizzly mismanagement is following the same scenario as caribou. Stop the hunting, blame poachers and allow industries to continue ‘business as usual’. When is the Alberta Government going to implement some industrial road planning, stop the unlimited motorized access to every quarter section on crown land and recognize that road densities are destroying wildlife habitat?
Open Spaces Project implies benefits for fishermen such as better access to fishing but says nothing about habitat protection. Bull trout have been protected from harvest for over ten years, west-slope cutthroat are being considered for listing by federal Species at Risk (SARA) legislation and Arctic grayling have been decimated in the headwater tributaries of the Athabasca River. The cumulated impact of human activities on our watersheds hasn’t even been monitored. Private landowners can legally remove vegetation to the high-water mark. On public land the number of stream crossings (often temporary log/snow/dirt fills or culverts) is unrestricted and riparian buffers aren’t even required on the thousands of kilometres of small feeder streams that nourish our trout waters. For example, aerial herbicide spraying for intensive forest management (approx 30,000 hectares sprayed per year) is allowed within 5 metres of fish bearing waters and there is only a one metre buffer for ephemeral streams.
In summary, I would really like to understand why the Alberta Government is offering to use taxpayers’ money to protect habitat and promote elk hunting on private property while they squander the renewable wildlife and fisheries habitat on public lands.
As a fellow hunter, fisherman and unabashed environmentalist, I implore (from your letter, 2008) “if I haven’t persuaded you, I hope you will keep an open mind” and support a broader view of the critical habitat protection that is greatly needed and long overdue in this province.
Sincerely,
Carl Hunt
c.c. Hunters, Anglers & Environmentalists
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Looking for the Easter Bunny... again
Well, the weather certainly changed and the ice in the fields and in the rod guides never left all day, but the sun was warm and that was good enough for us, the stones, and a few browns. Once again, the myth of the early winter black and late winter black stoneflies is perpetuated. I'll take dry fly fishing, even for a few trout, before the middle of March. Another ok day on the water, clisk below for the mini gallery of the day:
http://picasaweb.google.com/jensenflyfishing/March13/photo#s5177398739393500370
http://picasaweb.google.com/jensenflyfishing/March13/photo#s5177398739393500370
Fortress lake reno's - The day the yurt went up
After all the waiting, we finally got to see what was inside the yurt packaging, and we weren't disappointed. From the first we looked into purchasing yurts to the point of finishing the first one, it was 9 months and a lot of hoops and details. We finally would get the first yurt up today. And, wouldn't you know it - after the yurt had been shipped from Oregon to Vancouver, transferred from Vancouver to Calgary to a terminal, transferred to a truck to the storage facility by forklift, transferred to the terminal by forklift and truck, then loaded onto another truck, driven to Jasper, unloaded and put on skids and slung under a helicopter to finally arrive at Fortress Lake, nothing was broken...
Until, when we finally had the first building completed and we shut down for the night, I went to close the dome in the center of the roof at night and over tightened it and cracked the s.o.b. It ain't a big crack, and it's ok, but you know how I felt right about then. A 6 foot plexi-glass dome makes it that far and I crack it? C'mon, seriously?
See the yurt go up here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/jensenflyfishing/Yurt202/photo#s5177206226074390946
Until, when we finally had the first building completed and we shut down for the night, I went to close the dome in the center of the roof at night and over tightened it and cracked the s.o.b. It ain't a big crack, and it's ok, but you know how I felt right about then. A 6 foot plexi-glass dome makes it that far and I crack it? C'mon, seriously?
See the yurt go up here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/jensenflyfishing/Yurt202/photo#s5177206226074390946
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Fortress Lake renos #2 - the deck
In this gallery, we get the foundation to the first yurt up. A perfect weather day as the sun shone with no clouds, little wind, and hot weather.
http://picasaweb.google.com/jensenflyfishing/Yurt2/photo#s5176882067712692546
http://picasaweb.google.com/jensenflyfishing/Yurt2/photo#s5176882067712692546
Orvis - Reading the Water videos
Here are simple videos produced by The New Fly Fisher and hosted in conjunction with Orvis. These videos discuss the various structures found in trout streams, why trout use them, and how to fish them. They're good videos for someone looking at learning these structures. They're also short videos, making for quick views.
http://www.orvis.com/intro.asp?dir_id=758&subject=3889&custid=964733&CampaignID=71716822&ADV=97003&cm_ite=FISHNEWS_03_06_08_A_B3&cm_ven=orvisemail&cm_cat=FISHNEWS_03_06_08&cm_pla=F
http://www.orvis.com/intro.asp?dir_id=758&subject=3889&custid=964733&CampaignID=71716822&ADV=97003&cm_ite=FISHNEWS_03_06_08_A_B3&cm_ven=orvisemail&cm_cat=FISHNEWS_03_06_08&cm_pla=F
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Stauffer today
I took a drive with a fly rod today to Stauffer. The ice at #761 is so close to coming off, it certainly won't be long.
I swung past a couple of other access spots and saw open water through most of the upper reaches and far less ice than 3 days prior. The ice melted extremely quickly.
The stream is flowing a little higher with some colour due to field runoff, however, much of the snow and ice has melted and it appears runoff will be light this spring, save for any additional precip.
I hit the water prepared and with hope. The first pool I came to I managed to spot a riser. Depending on who you talk to, Stauffer trout may or may not take the early stonefly hatch on the surface. Apparently it's a myth. Well, the Easter Bunny could have hopped past me today for all I cared. I managed a few trout, some on the surface and some subsurface. It certainly was a pleasant day on the water with a few nice trout. The Chinook arch warmed things up, then the front moved through and winds howled from the west @ 60+kmh. I stayed out anyway as the weather was simply wonderful and the weather forecast change may preclude many trips the coming days.
Fortress Lake Renovations
When you purchase a retreat, lodge, your own house, or anything along those lines, the first thing you want to do is put your touch on it, a stamp of approval once it gets to your standard. When the three of us came together to purchase Fortress Lake Retreat, we knew there would be a great deal of time cleaning the site, renovating the buildings, and building new facilities. What we didn't know to the full extent was that it would take longer and far more work than we envisioned.
We spent the first summer flying a whole bunch of left over goods out from the site and getting things in order to see what we had, what was needed, to simplify and streamline the operation. We knew we wanted to have a clean facility that was representative of the site, the Park, the mountains. We had a lot of work to do to get things cleaned up. When we first began, we had 6 people tearing into storage sheds and pulling out garbage that had been "stored" for 15 years, in some cases. We took care of that as fast as we could. It wasn't pretty a lot of the time, but we got there.
After our first season of operations, we had the site fairly clean and we had a good handle on what we wanted to do. We decided to add three yurts to replace the kitchen, dining area, and the bath house. We began to investigate alternative temporary, non fixed roof structures that met the uniqueness of Fortress Lake, met our lease requirements for Hamber Park, and that would be structurally sound for the 10 to 15 feet of snow that can fall each winter. We began our quest the summer of 2006 and spent 2 months researching various structures, deciding on Yurts. We then researched Yurt companies and found what each offered and balanced what we needed and what the budget and practicality would lead us to. We would have loved to have bought 32 foot yurts, but they required scaffolding and a fork lift on site to construct - and we weren't about to sling those in under a helicopter for construction! We opted for very practical 20 foot yurts, prefect for the number of guests we host.
We then made our purchase and the paper trail and co-ordinations began. The yurts were made in Oregon, shipped to Vancouver, BC. They were then shipped to Calgary, Alberta and transferred to a holding facility. The customs forms were a fun learning experience too. There were a hundred steps involved, getting Parks approval, duties, Forestry inspections, you name it, we did it.
So, the day finally came months later where the truck was to arrive at our storage facility to move the yurts by fork lift. We rented a lift and the company was good enough to drop it off, but they did so early and I got no lesson on how to operate a fork lift. Excellent! There I stood, a truck full of our renovations and I had to learn how to use a fork lift to move 4-500 pound crates and finesse them into the storage unit! I got instruction from the truck driver who'd used a lift once or twice and all went well.
The yurts stayed in the storage unit for a couple of months. The original plan was to fly all in to Fortress at the end of April, however, there was 10 feet of snow on the ground at Easter and it didn't clear until mid May (we originally hoped to be done building by the third week of May). We finally got the all clear from our float plane pilot just before the May Long weekend and scrambled to co-ordinate a truck for transport, driving through Calgary to pick up goods from the storage facility, Leon's, furniture stores, then on to Red Deer to pick up the couches and other furniture we'd stored. Finally, the truck arrived through Jasper, to Sunwapta Ranger station and we were ready to fly. Of course, the trucker wanted to go home so we had to unload him while loading the heli. The 5 on the loading end worked quickly to do so. I was alone on the unloading end of the world at Fortress Lake. It went quite well but there was no way we'd get all in on one day. We had no choice but to do two days of helicopter slinging. So be it.
At the end of the second day, with everything on site, it was quite exciting to see everything ready to be built!
In tomorrow's post, we'll get into the construction of a yurt.
See today's image gallery of the transport process:
Monday, March 10, 2008
New Zealand short video #2
In this video, I work a seam with two nice trout. The inside is the larger of the two but working it means lining the other - spook one and the other spooks. So, I tagged the outside one. One thing to note about this video is my casting pose. My casting arm side foot is forward and my cast stroke is a bend of the elbow. I'd never realized this was my natural pose for short in casts - it increases accuracy. The other thing to note is that my index finger is up, not my thumb. I find that the longer index finger gives a better feel for a finer touch than my thumb in these situations. I only use my thumb up on the cork for longer casts or lobbing heavy streamer and nymph set-ups. I first heard that this was the "proper" short line dry fly technique through casting instructor Chris Seipio. It's funny, as a self taught fly fisher, it takes 20 years to be told you were doing it "right" all along. It was a nice trout. Nothing out of this world for size, but look at the scenery we were fishing in.
http://www.flyfishalberta.com/video/NewZealand13/NewZealand13.html
http://www.flyfishalberta.com/video/NewZealand13/NewZealand13.html
New Zealand short video
In this video, Amelia is working a nice trout in a beautiful seam of a perfect run. She's fishing completely blind as the glare is horrible from the water. I was able to watch everything perfectly as the fish cruised and fed. Without teamwork, this trout doesn't get hooked - we'd likely spook it and move on.
http://flyfishalberta.com/video/nz16/nz16.html
http://flyfishalberta.com/video/nz16/nz16.html
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Busy Bow River
If there was ever a recipe for congestion, this was it! +13C, a Sunday afternoon, no wind, no clouds, little other open water, low & clear water, good fishing. There were 15 cars perpetually parked at Policeman's today - rotating 3 or 4 per 1/2 hour - as the conditions were ripe for good fishing in the early season. We walked a bank that we hoped to find some solace on. We arrived to two anglers in the run with two others walking past, as they played coy to wait for the run to open up. We spoke to the fellows and saw if they were open to sharing the run briefly as it was likely to be a very busy day. They let us fish, but we were a little sheepish to get too involved. I managed to hook and loose a couple of fish but we moved out as we said we'd be quick and non intrusive. We wanted to live up to that as it was a busy day. We moved up to the next good run and stopped quickly at a couple of buckets with a little success. We finally moved up to the run I had in mind but the time we got there, another fellow had moved down. Ugh! Ah well, we moved below him and began fishing, only to have our friends from the first run move in on us - we returned the favour and invited them to our run. There we were, 5 abreast on a nice run on the Bow. I've never fished 5 in 90 yards before, but it worked, it was a glorious day, and I couldn't care less as the alternative was to be enduring weather like Eastern Canada.
As it was, we managed to land some very nice trout in the crowds and enjoy our day immensely by approaching other anglers, having fun, inviting them to fish and returning favours. I think Bob landed a few whitefish and a nice brown and I guess I was somewhere in the 7 or 8 trout to hand range (who knows?), having fished follow up to everyone else all day. That's pretty good - how many other trout streams can produce like that?
As it was, we managed to land some very nice trout in the crowds and enjoy our day immensely by approaching other anglers, having fun, inviting them to fish and returning favours. I think Bob landed a few whitefish and a nice brown and I guess I was somewhere in the 7 or 8 trout to hand range (who knows?), having fished follow up to everyone else all day. That's pretty good - how many other trout streams can produce like that?
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Out west
We managed to spend the day with the three dogs on a leash as we slowly walked upstream. The day was perfect - no wind, no clouds, no people, no worries. It had to be +10C on the water and a wonderful day to be out. Just a quick update of the day through photos. Bob got the nice brown of the day - a nice 18 - 19" brown. "There's always a fish under the bridge" was the call before the cast. Sure enough, there was a nice trout under the bridge. Go figure. A nice picnic spot, and a perfect pace to a great day again!
Friday, March 7, 2008
Bow Floats
Just as a quick update - Policeman's launch is apparently useable as we saw a couple folks launch on Thurs & Fri. I suspect that if you have an inflatable you could easily make it down to MacKinnon now, though you best double check that. Confirming it on Sat or Sun but the river is wide open at Cottonwood.
Today was slower on the Bow with only a few to hand and a few other hook ups in a few hours of working. A little disapointing, but it comes and goes.
Today was slower on the Bow with only a few to hand and a few other hook ups in a few hours of working. A little disapointing, but it comes and goes.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Back to the Bow
Today we fished the Bow below Calgary and had a pleasant day. The sun was in full form and there was little wind to speak of most of the day. This was forecast but the drive from Red Deer was not indicating a pleasant day. We left in snow and sleet and thick fog. We came over a rise at the Carstairs grain elevator and there was a line of fog that opened to sun and no clouds. It's usually a dramatic temperature shift at this location, but today's line of fog was brilliant.We saw several bald eagles along the river. Far more geese and ducks were on the water than 2 weeks ago - spring seems to be winning the battle now.
We hit the river and it was certainly slower fishing but the fishing was still good with many nice brown trout to hand. Fewer rainbows were caught today.
Amelia tagged into 3 really nice browns in short order. Two came in a matter of three casts in one nice riffle.
As for me, I managed to catch fish as well. We managed to shoot some good video of the day that will be used in a future production, no doubt. The hilight today came in a side channel where literally 350 to 450 trout and whitefish in the 10 - 16" range were podded. It was a spectacular sight as the fish cruised around. We couldn't help ourselves and we managed to hook into as many of them as we chose. Surprisingly, we didn't snag one and often had fish come three or four at a time to chomp the flies. Amelia did the best in that pocket with a 16" brown screaming in from out of the blue to take 4 charges at the fly before finally getting a good hold of it on the 5th charge. Jaz & I had a whale of a time watching this all unfold. :)
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Effects of drugs on spiders
I was just going through some old emails and came across this great link. Not fly fishing, but well demonstrates that nature didn't intend for spiders to do drugs. There's a touch of hard language here, but a funny clip.
:)
http://www.break.com/index/effect_of_drugs_and_alcohol_on_spider_webs.html
:)
http://www.break.com/index/effect_of_drugs_and_alcohol_on_spider_webs.html
Please test review these videos
Rick Harding of The Fly Fishing Life emailed this morning. They are getting ever so close to launching their website, which should be very good. He asked me to share the following with you, to get reviews of their formats, quality of video, etc:
"We need your help. In order to determine the best settings to stream some fly fishing videos we need some input from several people with a variety of computers and internet connections. Please feel free to forward this to anyone else you might know who may be interested in the videos.
Could you pleas fill out the attached WORD form while you watch each of the following fly fishing videos:
1. www.theflyfishinglife.ca/mov/cutthroats6.mov
2. www.theflyfishinglife.ca/mov/cutthroats9.mov
3. www.theflyfishinglife.ca/mov/cutthroats12.mov
4. www.theflyfishinglife.ca/mov/cutthroats15.mov
You will need QuickTime player. If you do not have it you can download it free from:
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/
Once complete, could you attach the form to a return email and send it back to us at rick@theflyfishinglife.com. This is an actual video that will appear on our soon to be launched site The Fly Fishing Life .com. These links will only work until March 9, 2008. (We put the WORD file here: http://www.flyfishalberta.com/StreamingVideoFeedback.doc)
We thank you in advance for your input
Rick Harding
Russ WebbThe Fly Fishing Life .com
"We need your help. In order to determine the best settings to stream some fly fishing videos we need some input from several people with a variety of computers and internet connections. Please feel free to forward this to anyone else you might know who may be interested in the videos.
Could you pleas fill out the attached WORD form while you watch each of the following fly fishing videos:
1. www.theflyfishinglife.ca/mov/cutthroats6.mov
2. www.theflyfishinglife.ca/mov/cutthroats9.mov
3. www.theflyfishinglife.ca/mov/cutthroats12.mov
4. www.theflyfishinglife.ca/mov/cutthroats15.mov
You will need QuickTime player. If you do not have it you can download it free from:
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/
Once complete, could you attach the form to a return email and send it back to us at rick@theflyfishinglife.com. This is an actual video that will appear on our soon to be launched site The Fly Fishing Life .com. These links will only work until March 9, 2008. (We put the WORD file here: http://www.flyfishalberta.com/StreamingVideoFeedback.doc)
We thank you in advance for your input
Rick Harding
Russ WebbThe Fly Fishing Life .com
Monday, March 3, 2008
Daylight Savings this coming weekend
Just a reminder, or a head's up in my case, that this coming Saturday night/ Sunday am is Daylight Savings Time - we spring ahead one hour. When fishing on Saturday, Bob mentioned that it was to be early again this year and - lo and behold, it is!
If this seems early, it is. In 2007, the US government led a movement to have the DST moved up a month to early March in order to reduce energy consumption in low light evening hours. We're continuing this change in 2008.
It's a good thing too, because the forecast for the latter part of this week is excellent weather and late risers will have more daylight to fish - and the fishing has been pretty good in the limited trout streams that are open now.
If this seems early, it is. In 2007, the US government led a movement to have the DST moved up a month to early March in order to reduce energy consumption in low light evening hours. We're continuing this change in 2008.
It's a good thing too, because the forecast for the latter part of this week is excellent weather and late risers will have more daylight to fish - and the fishing has been pretty good in the limited trout streams that are open now.
AEG Fly Fishing Tour Show in Edmonton Canceled
Just got this note in from the event co-ordinators for the Edmonton Fly Fishing Show Tour
"Subject: Edmonton Event Canceled
Your cards will be credited within the next 24 hours.
I’m sorry for the short notice and ticket sales were low.
Regards,
Terry Wolvert"
"Subject: Edmonton Event Canceled
Your cards will be credited within the next 24 hours.
I’m sorry for the short notice and ticket sales were low.
Regards,
Terry Wolvert"
Alberta election day
We won't tell you who to vote for or what political views we hold, just to make sure you exercise your right to vote and be part of the election process. Today's the Alberta election and we encourage everyone to vote for their political party of choice.
Cheers!
Cheers!
Alberta Fishing Guide Magazine
Barry & Ann Mitchell's Alberta Fishing Guide Magazine is hot off the press and soon to be available. Barry's schedule of stops is loosely as follows, weather permitting travel:Today, Monday, March 3 - Central Alberta
Tues & Wed - central Ab and Edmonton
Monday - Wed of next week - Calgary & southern Alberta
Barry will also be delivering copies of his Trout Highway book, which he printed another run.
In this year's edition of the Alberta Fishing Guide:
McLennan - The jos of fishing alone
Fenson - Fat fall walleye
Bergman - Pontoon boating
Schwanky - The truth about pike
Jensen - Heaven and Hell on the Clearwater
Bailey - Don't leave home without them
Sliwkanich - 10 Tips for Fly Fishing Success
Schwanky - The 50/50 system for mid lake walleye
Fenson - A prescription for lake trout
Waugh - Good Medicine, bad Medicine
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Beartooth Mountains - Alpine trout video
We stumbled across this video of fly fishing alpine lakes in the Beartooth Mtns in Montana. It's 8 minutes of music and some very nice footage of cruising and rising trout. It's worth a look if you have the time to relax a little and enjoy some warm weather moments. The Beartooth Mountains aren't too far away from Alberta and are a good destination for Alberta anglers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHyilMgHl3c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHyilMgHl3c
Scientists warn of catastrophic amphibian extinctionAnne
Scientists warn of catastrophic amphibian extinctionAnne Sutherland, Canwest News Service, Montreal GazettePublished: Saturday, March 01http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=034edea5-419c-4eb2-a30d-0e89bbc6d56bMONTREAL - Frogs have been around for millions of years, but if humans keep ruining the planet, these important members of the food chain face extinction, biologists around the globe are warning.One-third to one-half of the world's 6,000 species of amphibians -- frogs, toads and salamanders -- could disappear if nothing is done, the experts warn, a loss some are calling the largest mass extinction since the dinosaurs."In the past 50 years, 120 different species have disappeared forever," David Rodrigue, director of the Ecomuseum in Ste. Anne de Bellevue, Que., said Friday.Do away with frogs and there will be more mosquitoes and, therefore, more possible carriers of viruses like West Nile, he said."When you hear less and less frog noise at the chalet, that's a sign frogs are disappearing at an alarming rate," said Rachel Leger, director of Montreal's Biodome.Air and water pollution, loss of habitat, climate change and pesticides are some of the causes for their disappearance.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Beware the Ides of March
With late February and the 1st of March being of grand fishing, one might consider the centuries old caution. As we wait for the weather's worm to turn, let's enjoy some good moments on the water. 
We were set to go back to the Bow today, but woke to snow and high winds. We opted to wait it out and "see what the weather was after Sportfishing on the Fly". Sure enough, I spent the am watching tv fishing and the call came after noon. The wind had waned some and the sun came out. Let's head west! We did.
Still frozen in many sections, we were able to find a good run ice free and began to fish. We started small, drifting small nymphs under an indicator. Nothing. I had just noticed a few trout moving below me and was set to work them when Jaz the LapLab came over to keep me company. She stood on the edge of an ice shelf that went 50 degrees to the open water. Sure enough, down she slid into the water, her 5 point (paws + nose) seal entry a gem. I also watch as every trout scurried in absolute fear. It wasn't our day, I surmised. I was able to get Jaz to swim 30 yards downstream and helped raise her hind out of the COLD water and went back to see how Bob was faring with our trembling trout. Nothing. Go figure.
For kicks, I tied on my small streamer and took a cast in the general direction I saw the masses scurry. Bang! A good hit. Another cast and a 13" brown landed.
How about them apples? So much for the fabled spooky trout of Stauffer. I asked Bob if he wanted to try the rod. "No, I'm going to try this midge pupae". It appeared to be a #26. I cast again, to the piece of water he would have cast the streamer. BANG! A good fish. I thought it about 21-1/2". It was longer and skinnier than those trout of the Bow yesterday, but what a fish. It ran and jumped, what a great moment on what was likely to be a bust day 5 minutes earlier!
Bob opted for the streamer option and never did get around to casting his midge. He landed several nice trout as well. We managed far more hits than landed trout, but we each caught very nice trout on the day. A pleasant turn around for what appeared to be a bust when Jaz swam through the pool. As I mentioned to Bob, maybe Jaz has worms and that's why the fish turned on instead of spooking after her swim - she was chumming the water. I'd like to think our pup's a touch more hygenic than that, however.
A final note is that there were a few tiny winter black stones out today and we did see 5 rises. A neat indicator to this were streamside pussy-willows. Spring is slowly coming.
We were set to go back to the Bow today, but woke to snow and high winds. We opted to wait it out and "see what the weather was after Sportfishing on the Fly". Sure enough, I spent the am watching tv fishing and the call came after noon. The wind had waned some and the sun came out. Let's head west! We did.
Still frozen in many sections, we were able to find a good run ice free and began to fish. We started small, drifting small nymphs under an indicator. Nothing. I had just noticed a few trout moving below me and was set to work them when Jaz the LapLab came over to keep me company. She stood on the edge of an ice shelf that went 50 degrees to the open water. Sure enough, down she slid into the water, her 5 point (paws + nose) seal entry a gem. I also watch as every trout scurried in absolute fear. It wasn't our day, I surmised. I was able to get Jaz to swim 30 yards downstream and helped raise her hind out of the COLD water and went back to see how Bob was faring with our trembling trout. Nothing. Go figure.
For kicks, I tied on my small streamer and took a cast in the general direction I saw the masses scurry. Bang! A good hit. Another cast and a 13" brown landed.
How about them apples? So much for the fabled spooky trout of Stauffer. I asked Bob if he wanted to try the rod. "No, I'm going to try this midge pupae". It appeared to be a #26. I cast again, to the piece of water he would have cast the streamer. BANG! A good fish. I thought it about 21-1/2". It was longer and skinnier than those trout of the Bow yesterday, but what a fish. It ran and jumped, what a great moment on what was likely to be a bust day 5 minutes earlier!
Bob opted for the streamer option and never did get around to casting his midge. He landed several nice trout as well. We managed far more hits than landed trout, but we each caught very nice trout on the day. A pleasant turn around for what appeared to be a bust when Jaz swam through the pool. As I mentioned to Bob, maybe Jaz has worms and that's why the fish turned on instead of spooking after her swim - she was chumming the water. I'd like to think our pup's a touch more hygenic than that, however.A final note is that there were a few tiny winter black stones out today and we did see 5 rises. A neat indicator to this were streamside pussy-willows. Spring is slowly coming.
It's tough to know if old Bill Matheson's, Edmonton's legendary weatherman from the old ITV studios, mantra is true about the Ides of March. The concept is simple - if March comes in like a lamb, it'll go out like a Lion or vice-versa. The Ides of March are another thing all together - the middle of the month kicks in a bit of weather. If so, we'd best get going and enjoy this fishing we've had this week and prepare to slog another day or two of cross country skiing.
Hope not!
Leaping Leap Year on the Bow
There was no better way to spend the Leap Year void on the calendar than to hit the Bow River. The weather was supposed to get windy and the Chinook arch on the drive down became darker the closer we came to Calgary. The day started off cool and cloudy but the arch moved eastward and the sun came out. Rather than getting windy as it often does as the arch moves out from the rockies, the day simply became sunny, still, and simply marvellous. This day of fishing I fished with Amelia. She caught quite a few really nice trout as we worked a few runs of the Bow. The action was similar to my day with Steve on Wed. The Bow is fishing well right now, and when the weather is as nice as it has been for the last two days of fishing, it's hard to beat. We used a variety of nymphs, streamers, and other aquatic insect imitations and found quite a number of trout stacked into wintering runs - they simply can't help but be there.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Mayflies as role models - We saw this in New Zealand and found it on YouTube
Spawning brown trout
