Extended Christmas Hours

In addition to our regular winter business hours, Country Pleasures will be open on the following days for your convenience:

Sunday, December 5 - 10 AM to 4 PM

Sunday, December 12 - 10 AM to 4 PM

Sunday, December 19 - 10 AM to 4 PM

All the best of the season to you!

Twelve Days Of Christmas...On The First Day

To keep things kind of fun were doing a little thing called the "Twelve Days Of Christmas".

Between now and Christmas we'll have the twelve days. Christmas specials on items for the fly angler on our list. They'll only last for a day or two, and be on various, selected items for the fly fisher.

To start, A Partridge In A Pear Tree....and since there are no pear trees around here that we know of and it's not Partridge season try these:

All Patagonia Island Hopper Shirts (L/S and S/S) 50% OFF

Simms Guide Windstopper Jackets 25% OFF

Patagonia R1 Pullovers 25% OFF

Casio Pathfinder 1500 Tide Watches Reg $395 NOW $250!!!

Simms LED Keychains $9.95

Limited supply, drop by the shop to take advantage.

We'll see where we can find some Turtle Doves and update in a few days.....

Zach Southgate going to the World's

Been meaning to do a post on Zach for a while now. For those of who don't know Zach,

he's been a summer employee at the shop for 3 years now. He, like a few of us around

here is kind of a fish bum. Actually, he's maybe more psychotic about it than most of us.

There are a bunch of Brown Trout on the Bow that wish "he would just go away!"



Anyways, back to the post. Wanted to congratulate Zach on being named to the Canadian

Youth Fly Fishing Team. He will be part of the team going to Italy in August 2011 to compete

at the World Championships (if I give him the time off! Ha Ha!).



Good luck to Zach in Italy! If you're in the shop from late June until he leaves for the Worlds

you'll likely meet him. He's a little shy but he knows his stuff and can fix you up with the right

gear or information.

2010 Year In Review Part 3

Some freshwater stuff of note from the past year......

Tim Swailes with a nice Babine Buck. Very deep fish for it's length.

Jim Embrey with guide, Joe Buck and a fat, foam bug Brown.

Wanna catch Brown trout close to 30" long, on #10 Fat Alberts, in a spring creek that's 15 feet wide? Southern Chile is the place for you! Maureen Gifford with a dry fly Brown.

Frank Somer, on his very first Steelhead trip. None of those two handed rods for this guy. He kicked their asses with the single hand stick all week.

Julia Hirst with her very first ever Brown Trout (actually first ever FISH!) caught on a fly rod. Took a day off hiking the rain forests and photographing Condors to outfish her husband this day in Chile.

Bert Kutos with a big Bull. Had to self photograph with the camera on a rock. Sorry about the photo quality but had to add to this post. It's a really nice Southern Alberta Bull.

Darren Wright with a pretty Babine Buck. Darren is one of the guides at Babine Norlakes Lodge. He qualifies for this post as he was on his day off and we were performing "research and development".

I might as well admit that "the bastard" stuck this one right behind me!

Intruder Alert

The re-stocking production continues...

Here's a few more:

2010 Year In Review Part 2

Over the last year several CP customers caught some pretty nice fish on our trips. Here's a few more:

Sean Furlong with a massive Cubera Snapper. This fish was not caught off a reef! It was hooked and landed on Sean's Tarpon rig (and fly) up high on a flat in just a couple of feet of water.

If you've caught decent sized Cubera before you know this thing is awesome! This fish is almost impossible to land on light tackle fly. Lucky for us, and Sean, the old devil made a few mistakes.

Darren Soice with a very nice Florida Keys Permit. And in a cold front too!

Curtis Bartlett with a fairly large Tarpon. Any larger and Curt would be having hernia surgery right now. Note the fatigued grimace on the angler. God, Tarpon are fun!

Caitlin Gifford and a fairly hefty Bonefish. This fish was slightly more hungry than the 20 lb. Permit it was following. Two and a half seconds where the guide and I thought she had caught her first Permit, followed by "f^%$%ing Bonefish". However, this fish is no slouch.

And I got to share a skiff with my kid for a week, not a common occurrence anymore.

Chad Dillabough releasing a very nice Tarpon. Note the width across the back (on the fish, not Chad). This guy is an absolute Tarpon hound. I thought I was bad, Chad is absolutely obsessed!

ONLY A FEW DAYS LEFT!!!

The CP Fly Tying sale has been busy, lots of fly tying stuff heading out.

30% OFF Everything Fly Tying. Materials, Tools, Everything!

Like all good things, this too will come to an end.

This sale only runs through Saturday, December 4 so if you

need to stock up on supplies now's the time!

Getting Ready To Travel-Maintenance Kit

Over the next while we'll have a number of posts to help you out (hopefully) getting ready or that big fishing adventure abroad. Tips on what and what not to take, packing, you name it.

The first covers a maintenance kit. When you're out and about fishing around the world it's pretty tough to run down to your favourite fly shop to get something tweaked, tuned, or fixed. So it's a good idea to carry a kit with you just in case.

You don't need to go hog wild and carry a portable fly shop but a few key things may mean the difference whether your trip gets affected. The items I list are what I've come to want at some time over twenty some years of fishing travel.

First thing is storage. I put everything in a Pelican 1060 case. Fits everything I need but small enough to conveniently go in my travel duffel and then my boat bag. Now for what goes in it:

- Zap Gel... Great for that quick, on the spot repair. Nice thing about the gel is it goes where you want it and doesn't run everywhere. Make sure never to use Zap or Krazy glue on mono, it severely weakens.

- Line Cleaning Kit...lines get sticky, especially in the salt. A quick cleaning every couple of days makes your life a lot easier.

- Lubrication Kit...includes synthetic grease for things like engagement pawls (ie: Tibor reels), synthetic oil is a must for that cork drag that gets finicky, and cleaning items like q-tips.

- Spare rod tip tops... break the last 3 inches off the rod, don't have these, you're screwed.

- Tools for reels... Most of the best sealed drag reels don't have much that can go wrong but if you have a certain reel that requires a tool to work on it, carry that tool.

- Spare reel handle and hardware...you can order these from your reel dealer for whichever reels you carry.

- Eyeglass repair kit...Canadian Tire has these up by the checkout all the time and cost about $2. Contains sunglass/eyeglass parts with a little screwdriver. Has every size little screw known to man. I've made use of this kit for sunglasses and a whole bunch of other repairs. Very handy!

-Nail Knot Tool... never know when you might need a nail knot. Repairing a fly line loop, etc.

-Ferrule wax... that rod tip keep coming loose? A little wax will help.

- Aquaseal...fixes so many things.

- UV wader repair and UV light... Need a super quick fix on waders? Got a small rip in your flats boots? This will fix it.

- Scrub brush...actually an old tooth brush. Seems silly but works great for cleaning out hard to get places. Get sand in your reel? This will fix you up.

- Everything packs up neat into the waterproof case for your trip.

Got any ideas we might of missed? Send us a note.

2010 Year In Review

Over the last year several CP customers caught some pretty nice fish on our trips. Just a quick "grip and grin" salute to them.

We had quite a number of customers achieve a Grand Slam in 2010. Some their first, some not.

A Grand Slam is when an angler catches 3 species consisting of a Permit, a Tarpon, a Bonefish, Snook, or Mutton Snapper in the same day ( I know, most of you know that, but some don't).

Here are a few (most photos of the Permit, that's the hard one!)

John Bonin with the Permit from one of his Grand Slams. I think this was also a Super Slam (Permit, Bonefish, tarpon, and Snook in the same day)

Mike Schaalje, not his first Permit hooked but first landed.

Dave Addie....Dave actually hooks more Permit than any six anglers, it's amazing. Only problem is he is continuously figuring out new ways for them to come unbuttoned.

Greg Moffat's first Permit and GS. He was a little happy, calling me on the skiff radio to tell me all about it.

Steve Doolan with his first Permit and Grand Slam. He caught this fish within a half hour of Greg Moffat, his skiff partner catching a Permit. Not bad for a morning.

Eugen Helzl, the Austrian fishin' machine.

Dave Pryce, not his first Permit but his first GS. I got to watch this one, he was my skiff partner. I like to watch!

Sean Furlong giving us his "No Big Deal, Is my shirt pressed?, How's my hair?" look.

It was pretty cool being around for all of these. The "first time Permit" were great, the grins never get old.

There was a whole bunch of other cool stuff that went on around the world on our trips in 201o. we'll have more coming.

As seen through the eyes.....

The contrasts of Tarpon....

The highlights of Turtle Grass.....

Anatomy we don't look always look at......

Bringing out the fall colours in a fall Buck.....