Archive for the ‘Travel’ Category

For the past year and a half, I’ve been flying almost monthly from Toronto to Edmonton, Alberta.  On the majority of those trips, I’ve taken two pieces of luggage and then a third piece that either contained fly fishing rods in tubes and then packed in a ski bag, or skis packed in the ski bag.

The policy of WestJet seems to have been that they allow two pieces of checked luggage as well as sporting gear.  In my case, the skis or rods need to be checked into the “oversize luggage” counter.

Up until two weeks ago, I’ve never had a problem taking two pieces of luggage plus whatever is inside the ski bag, be it fly rods or cross country skis.  However, when I traveled to Edmonton on the 10th of September, I came across a snarly WestJet employee who told me that she would need to charge me extra because I was checking in three pieces of luggage.

It was the very first time I’d ever come across a snarly WestJet employee. I was a bit surprised as my experience with WestJet in the past has been nothing short of tremendous and and an obvious commitment to customer satisfaction. I’m not going to complain about the snarly attitude I was met with – perhaps she was having a bad day – everyone has their own major battles to contend with.

But, I did explain to the employee that in the past year and a half, I’d taken about 10 trips (20 when you include both ways) with WestJet, with the three pieces of luggage.  My main piece of luggage contains my day to day clothing and personal needs.  The second piece of luggage contains my fly fishing (or when relevant, my cross country skiing gear), and the ski bag that goes into the oversize check in, contains the rods and/or skis.  And in all of those previous trips, I’ve never been charged for an “extra piece of luggage.”  I should note that WestJet allows as standard, two pieces of checked luggage, but they also allow for checking sporting gear as well.

The WestJet employee snarled and said, “You are always charged.”

I replied, “I’m sorry, but no I have never been charged extra.  I can open the suitcases and show you that one of them contains nothing but my fly fishing gear which include waders, wading boots, vest, and fly fishing boat bag which has most of my gear, reels and spare spools.  My other suitcase is just personal items and clothing.  And of course, this oversize is my fly rods.”

The employee just stared at me.  She then said, “Well, I’m going to have to get authorization from someone else to allow this.”

She then printed off the luggage stickers and attached them.  I waited for her to call someone to authorize whatever she needed to authorize.  She never called anyone.  I was kind of confused.  She put through my two suitcases, and then growled, “Here, take this and go over to the oversize check in.”  No communication about whether fees were being waived or what.  In the end, I was NOT charged for extra checked baggage.

On my way back from Edmonton, I had a much more pleasant WestJet employee but she also indicated there should be a charge for the third piece of baggage which contained fishing rods.  I then explained to her that I found it odd that in the previous year and a half, I’d never had a difficult time and told her about the most recent experience I had in Toronto.  I told her that in the spring, summer and autumn months, I’d been taking out my fly fishing gear and in the winter, my skiing gear along with a second suitcase that contained necessary items to use the fly rods or skis.  I invited her to look inside my suitcases.

To her credit, she agreed to waive any extra fees and she even went further.  She told me that from now on, a special code would be associated with my name whenever I checked my luggage with WestJet in the future.  The code has something to do with sporting gear, and that code means that I’ll never in the future even have a suggestion that I need to  pay for a third piece of luggage when checking in.

To be fair, WestJet has generally been awesome towards me and I’ve flown them 30 or more times in the past two years if you include the return flights.  On the other hand, I’ve heard horror stories about Air Canada – one of our teammates flew Air Canada to Grande Prairie, and he was going to be charged a very excessive fee for his fly rod that was more than the value of the fly rod so he left it at home and purchased a fly rod in Alberta after his arrival.

If you do travel within Canada regularly, and need to transport sporting gear, perhaps you might want to look at WestJet’s policies and find out about this “special code” yourself to save some headaches – and the odd employee who might be having a grumpy day.

I should also point out that WestJet is not the only airline that I’ve had good experiences transporting fly fishing rods (although they are the best).  A couple of years ago when I was returning from Belfast, Northern Ireland, I had purchased a Greys rod and Air Transat did not charge me an excess baggage fee.  And instead of checking the rod (in a protective tube) in, they allowed me to carry it on to the plane where it was checked as separate cabin baggage, along with those that were traveling with baby strollers, infant car seats, wheelchairs, and the like.

As far as travel within Canada, it will take an awful lot to impede upon my loyalty – loyalty that WestJet has earned.

Two years ago to the day,  I met Colleen Rose Campbell when I was in Grande Prairie for the Canadian Fly Fishing Championships.  I’ve never been the same since!

Since that time, we’ve talked about getting Colleen into her first fish.  We haven’t had a ton of opportunity to go fly fishing together, but today, we thought we’d head up to Carson Pegasus Provincial Park, just north of Whitecourt, Alberta and see if we could get ourselves into some rainbow trout.  We had orginally planned to go up in the afternoon and rent a canoe.  However, when we arrived, we were advised that canoe rentals needed to be returned at this time of the year before 5PM.

So that wasn’t worth it, and we decided we’d try fly fishing from off the docks and shoreline.   We learned that McLeod Lake had been stocked today – depending on the reports, with 45,000 or over 100,000 rainbow trout fingerlings.  And those small fish were quite active just off the boat docks, jumping and likely enjoying all this, to them, brand new open water.

I tied on Viva Zonkers to both my line and Colleen’s.  I was disappointed we weren’t able to get out further on the lake with a canoe, but thought we might as well make the best of it and see what we could do.

Well, those brand new stocked fish sure liked the Viva Zonker, but couldn’t quite get their mouth around it. I had a ton of hits to the fly – almost every cast, and could see at times, several small rainbow trout following the fly and trying to grab it as I retrieved.

I figured that we had a very good chance to get Colleen into her very first fish – but we’d have to use something smaller and skinnier than the Zonker.  So I tied on this Chironomid pattern and showed Colleen how to fish it.   I then continued having fun with the small newly stocked rainbows that wanted to eat a leech.

A few minutes later, I looked over at Colleen’s rod and noticed that there seemed to be some bending of the tip section – not a huge amount.. but something.  “Hey Darlin’… do you have a fish on there?” I asked.

“Do I?!?” Colleen responded.  She retrieved her line a little more.

“I do!! I do!!” she exclaimed with glee and excitement.  “I do have a fish on, Ian!”

It was likely the very first time that little 5″ rainbow had ever been hooked, and it fought valiantly but couldn’t resist Colleen’s determination to catch her first fish!  And I was pretty excited as well, despite the small size, we both were very excited – that Colleen had finally caught a fish! On a fly rod as well.

The photo above was taken quickly and the fish released back into the lake.  Then a wee celebratory toast from the famous flask (Colleen didn’t even grimace this time, sipping Black Bush).

The action slowed down after that, so we decided to try some nymphs, but nothing.  Then, I put the Malteser to work.  This ugly and very poorly tied fly seems to catch fish everywhere for me. And sure enough, Colleen caught her second fish! About the same size as the first one.

The joy in Colleen’s eyes and smile – it was like a kid catching their first and second fish on the same day.  I’m pretty sure my smile was pretty big too!

Shortly after, I thought we mght have some fun with a dry fly. The small rainbows seemed to be taking midges off the surface – would they jump for anything?  I tied on a size 20 Caddis just to see, and we had a blast watching the fish jumping and trying to take the fly.  Some of them even managed to get hooked, and I brought probably four or five to hand while quite a few more entertained us with their acrobatics and frenzy for trying to eat dry flies.

I had pretty much resigned myself to thinking that all we were going to get today at Carson Pegasus were these small newly stocked fish.  However, I thought we should try some of the water off another dock just to see.  I’m glad we did!

I tied a Viva Zonker back on to the leader, and at first, felt the little tugs of small fish trying to consume it.  It was still fun and entertaining.

And then…. “Whoa!  Colleen!! This is NOT one of those small fish!” as I felt a vicious strike to the fly.  My rod bent over and I was a little more than surprised to see a good size rainbow trying to dive down to the depths of the lake before coming back up and jumping trying to shake the hook.

After several minutes, and some panicky moments when the rainbow headed for the underside of the dock, I finally landed the approximately 3 pound ‘bow with some very beautiful colourings in it.

The one thing I’ve noticed about rainbow trout from Northern Alberta lakes is their “football” shape.  They seem to have huge girths for their length.  This fish was 17 inches long and had a girth of 10 1/4 inches.

All in all, even though there was the initial disappointment about the canoe rental, Colleen and I had an awesome “2 year anniversary” celebration.

Happy Anniversary, Colleen – and thank you for a great day!! I am so glad you caught your first… and second .. fish with me!

Today was a day of firsts. My first time fishing the Athabasca River.  Kade MacKenzie’s first time fishing with a fly rod.   I really wanted to get out fly fishing this afternoon, and asked Kade if he wanted to come along. I figured his local knowledge would be a huge help as I had no idea really where to even try fishing the Athabasca in this area.

Kade didn’t hesitate in answering in the affirmative about going fishing.  So we headed up to the boat launch in Whitecourt, where the McLeod River meets the Athabasca.

When we arrived, the winds were gusting and I was not confident that we’d have any success with a fly rod after looking at the swift current of the Athabasca flowing by.  I wasn’t even sure what species of fish to target.  I knew there was Walleye in the area, but I’ve never fly fished for Walleye before.  I’ve heard there are Grayling in the area, but where exactly I don’t know.

Where the McLeod meets the Athabasca, there is a deep looking pool about 50 feet from the bank, with some currents swirling around, and I figured that would be a good target area to try.  I also thought I might as well try a large black rabbit strip leech pattern to try to get down as deep as possible.

The gusting wind made it difficult to cast to exactly where I wanted so finally, I decided to cast out into the Athabasca side, and just let about 100 feet of line drift down with the current, before stripping the leech back.  Well, that worked perfectly as about fifteen minutes after I started fishing, I felt a vicious strike and was able to bring a pike (called in these parts, “Jack”) to the bank.

Both Kade and I were not just a bit surprised to have caught a pike – me because it was the first pike I’d caught on a fly rod, and Kade indicated that he had not seen to many pike caught here recently.

The fish was about 18″ and put up a darn good fight on my 5 wt.  rod that I was using.  I was thankful that it’s teeth hadn’t shredded the 6lb leader I was using.

After the photo, the pike was released and both Kade and I were pretty excited about continuing to fly fish the leech pattern.  Not five minutes later, a monster of a pike bent the TCO 9′ rod right over and another fight was on.  But this would not be as successful as the first one as this time, the sharp razor like teeth of the pike was no match for the leader.

The heaviest leader material I had with me was 10lb flourocarbon, and I decided I should use that if I wanted any chance of success with more pike. And now that we knew there were fish in the area, I set Kade up with my other 5 wt rod, gave him some quick fly casting lessons, (he did very well for his first time, especially considering the gusting winds), and we went back to work.

About ten minutes later, Kade was shaking his head with a grin on his face as he heard me whooping and hollering – another fish on!

“Ok, Ian, I guess I’ve been wasting my time here by not trying a fly rod before,” he said as I brought to the bank … this time, a Walleye,  about 15″.

So for me, that was another first: My first Walleye on the fly rod.  And we weren’t done yet.  Over the course of the next half hour or so, another Walleye brought to hand and released, and two hooked and lost.

While Kade worked on his casting and continued to work the pool, I decided to walk upstream of the Athabasca where there was a nice looking back eddy away from the main flow of the river.   The winds still made it difficult to cast, but roll casting was enough to get my fly where I wanted it.   I worked the leech in the water, and several times had fish hit, but I couldn’t get a solid hook up.  Finally, I had a good tug where I was able to solidly set the hook and after an excellent fight, brought another Walleye, the biggest yet, at about 20″ to hand.

I called Kade over to where I was fishing as I thought he’d probably have a much better chance here than the first pool we had been working.  And I’m not sure who was more excited – Kade or me – when a very large walleye took the same leech pattern.   Kade did a superb job of keeping the fish on over the seven minutes or so that it took to bring it to the bank.   The fish probably weighed in about 4 lbs – and Kade is becoming a fly fishing convert:

So, it was a day of firsts:

1. My first time fishing the Athabasca River

2. My first Pike on the fly rod.

3. My first Walleye on the fly rod.

4. Kade’s first time fly fishing… and how can you beat… your first time fly fishing… and…

5. Your first fish – a 4 lb Walleye, on the fly rod?

A very fun afternoon/evening all round!  Thanks Kade for coming out with me! I hope you had as much fun as I did!