Archive for the ‘Travel’ Category

Previously, I made almost once a month trips to Whitecourt, AB. However those trips have not been as frequent for the happy (for me) reason that Colleen finally was able to move to my Province.

On my trips to Whitecourt, I was able to get in some fishing at Carson Pegasus, the Freeman River, and in the McLeod and Athabasca Rivers. Not as much as I would have liked and I still hope to go back to the area and do more exploring, especially of the Freeman as well as waters up by Fox Creek.

I had also hoped to get the chance to meet with The Whitecourt Fly Fishing Club, but schedules conflicted and I was never able to do that. However, this past weekend, Colleen surprised with a plane ticket to Edmonton. It was a short trip where we spent most of our time in Whitecourt, but I also finally was able to meet Ian Bews of the Whitecourt Fly Fishing club.  Ian and I had talked on the phone previously and have shared emails but have never had the chance to meet.

On very short notice, Ian and his wife graciously had me over to their home for a quick visit.  I envy Ian’s fly tying area! A beautiful room with a fly tying desk as the centre of attention with lots of fly fishing paraphernalia hung on the walls including an old prized split cane rod.

While talking with him, Ian showed me an interesting chironomid pattern tied up by John Kent of Fox Creek, Alberta. I won’t say just yet what interesting material is used in this pattern – hopefully John will send along his tying instructions for it.  The pattern is about 3/4″ long which apparently matches the length of some of the chironomids that are present in the lakes at Carson Pegasus Provincial Park.

I’m back now in Ontario and am itching to get out in the next few days here. But in the meantime, a big thank you to Ian Bews and his wife for their hospitality on such short notice – and during the Montreal/Pittsburgh playoff game to boot!

Do you get the National Geographic channel? I enjoy watching it from time to time and this afternoon, there was a very interesting program about the Taimen Trout of Mongolia. These things are monster trout!

A conservationist traveled to Mongolia where he is studying the Taimen and has been tagging them for the past several years.  The “easiest” way to catch them apparently is by fly fishing. It looks like an amazing place and a trip of a lifetime to take a fly fishing trip to Mongolia! The scenery shown in the program was beautiful and the river being fished, pristine.

Apparently, Taimen trout can grow up to 200 pounds and live for 50 years in the wild. Voracious eaters, they will eat other taimen that are not much smaller than themselves in addition to ducks, rats and bats. From the footage in the program, they look like they are powerful fighting fish on a fly rod as well!

According to the National Geographic page on Taimen Trout, they used to be found throughout what was once known as the Soviet Union but today, they are considered threatened.   The narrator on the program I watched indicated that gold mining in the area could also further threaten the existence of taimen trout in parts of Mongolia through water pollution.

A quick search indicates that there are a number of operators that specialize in providing guiding services for taimen fly fishing in Mongolia, and anglers travel from all over the world, spending thousands of dollars for the opportunity to catch and release them.  It’s becoming an important part of the economy of some parts of Mongolia.

I’d love to have the opportunity to fly fish for taimen trout. I’d settle for a few thirty six inchers but one of those two hundred pounders would be amazing!

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.