good to hear that you will have open water soon, but i remember reading in the new regs. that fishing has been closed on the athabasca due to some huge dumping of tailings from a mine. might be wrong here, maybe it's just keeping a fish to eat. i'll have to check regs again. don't fish the athabasca much.
I never caught one fish in the Athabaska west of whitecourt all year. Talked to others that had the same results. Might have something to do with that coal tailings pond spill. Can't keep any fish out of the river here this year.