Muskoka Outdoors

Live the adventures you read about in Outdoor Canada Magazine on November 26 – 28, 2010. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to meet, and learn, from the magazine’s outdoor celebrities and exhibitors at the International Centre in Mississauga (6900 Airport Road).

The Outdoor Canada Show is one of four jaw-dropping outdoor shows that are colliding under one roof to bring a myriad of technologies, seminars, and multi-media presentations to all aspects of the outdoors. That means you do not have to hunt and fish to get excellent value for your admission dollars. The other 3 shows include the Fall Cottage Life Show, the Explore Adventure & Travel Show, and the Canadian Home Workshop Show.

Admission is currently set to be $15 at the door or $13 dollars online.

On the Saturday of the Outdoor Canada Show, be sure to check out the Fishin’ for Answers Quiz Show that will feature angling greats like Bob Izumi, Angelo Viola, Pete Bowman, Mike Miller, Leo Stakos, Dave Mercer, Ron James, and U.S. legends Roland Martin and Jimmy Houston.

The show’s hub will be the Outdoor Canada Lodge and will be providing filleting demos, sampling of wild game, shore-lunch tips, fly-tying lessons and antique decoy appraisals with expert Steven Lloyd.

Visit The Great Outdoors and DIY Weekend website for all the exciting details

SHOW DAYS
Friday, Nov. 26: 11 am–8 pm
Saturday, Nov. 27: 9 am–6 pm
Sunday, Nov. 28: 10 am–5 pm

November 26 - 28, 2010

Dear Wife: If you have not purchased my 52 inch plasma TV or a Polaris ATV for Father’s Day yet, you could consider some of these ideas (Don’t worry – I don’t make money from the links unless you happen to by a Cabela’s gift card. These are all items I would want for father’s day):

• Spool of Berkley Vanish 2lb test for fly fishing tippet
• Spot Satellite  Messenger – The concept of these things is cool
• Virtual Gift Cards from Bass Pro Shops or Cabelas (I can shop online)
• Subscription to Hunting or Fishing Magazine like: Outdoor Canada, Fly Fisher Magazine, Northwoods Sporting Journal

If you want some more ideas – Here is a listing of Father’s day gift ideas from some of my contacts on twitter.

• Wildlife Prints – These would look great anywhere! Suggested by: @shustonphotos
• Handmade Hunting Knife – Something to hand down to future generations. Suggested by: @studioelan
• Membership To Quail Forever - There is a Fathers Day Special on right now! Suggested by: @quail4ever
• Florida Fishing Trip With Dad – A contest sponsored by WFN. Register Now! Suggested by: @WFN

I had a fun opportunity reading through some flyfishing books over the last few months. As some of my visitors know, I asked the authors several questions and one of those questions was as the title of this post suggests – perhaps not as informal. What follows is the flies that they would use on unknown waters. I also threw in the added twist of saying they could only use one fly…

Mr. Mark Williams suggests:

After two and a half decades of traveling, there are still so many rivers and fisheries I don’t know but the numbers are dwindling. In many ways, each trout stream is similar to other trout streams. They’re cold, the trout find the easiest habitat to lair, and so on. But as any angler knows, the same stream differs from day to day, hour to hour and becomes different from itself. So to answer your question all trout rivers are both familiar and unfamiliar. My two common fishing buddies, my two brothers-in-law,
Kenny and David, call Henson Creek a Yellow Humpy water. And it is. But in the early 90s, Kenny called it a Goddard Caddis water. And it was. More recently, it’s been both a yellow Stimulator water and a red Copper John water. A lot of patterns work on a lot of waters but even on the same stream, one pattern works sometimes, not others; and many patterns work as well as the one you are using. I know that I can catch more trout under water than above and a beadhead Hare Ear is as good as any nymph gets. But I choose to fish this unfamiliar water with a dry. I could claim, with positive research and anecdotal proof, that an Adams is as deadly on a Montana stream as it is on a Michigan river or a New York creek. I could offer that I like an Adams Wulff or Parachute better than the standard pattern and no one would quibble. The brown trout in Europe eat up the Adams and its minimalist design. By the same token, I’ve caught trout on these same rivers, consistently, with a Stimulator, with a Renegade (Lord, how we used to fish with a Renegade, an Asher, a Bloody Butcher), Elk Hair Caddis, Royal Wulff, Patriot, even a House and Lot. I hate to be cornered into fishing a river with just one fly. It’s hardly fair to take away from me the boxes and boxes of flies I’ve tied and collected over the years. Rivers change hour to hour and you’re going to stick me with just one fly? Fine. I’ll take a size 12 Ausable Wulff and I’ll catch plenty of trout. But I’m stashing a Rio Grande Trude in one pocket and a beat-up Goddard Caddis in another.

Ed Quigley likes to use:

Probably the Muddler Minnow because of its versatility. If gooked up with floatant, it can be used as a dry fly with what I call the ‘plunk-and-twitch’ effect on smooth water. In other words the plunk gets the trout’s attention; the twitch says, “I’m alive!”.

Without the floatant, it becomes a streamer cast either upstream or down-and-across.

Randall Kadish would choose:

Initially, I would have two choices: An Adams, which takes fish on any river, or a Woolly Bugger. Because, I don’t know the stream, and because most takes are subsurface, I’d choose a Woolly Bugger and cover as much water as possible.