Author Archives: troutondries.com
SW Alberta Skyscapes
SKY SHOTS WHILE WALKING THE CASTLE RIVER valley and along the Crowsnest river.
Cutthroat Surprise
“I’m gonna win. There’s no way I’m goin’ down. I don’t go down for nobody”.
-1940’s Boxer, Jake LaMotta
A local tailwater river that I frequently dry-fly on has a healthy population of sizeable rainbow trout. This is not surprising as they are the predominant trout species in my region. It also has a good population of brown trout. Also not surprising.
What is surprising is that in spite of this river section being a fair distance from the mountains and the water quality being far from pristine, it has some very healthy Cutthroat and the hybridized Cuttbow trout. These fish can be quite large but what is extraordinary is that they are especially robust. Hook into one on a broad section of the river and they race for the horizon, and can take you into your backing.
I go there when I expect a hatch and look for surface disturbances. It is “technical” water: whether it is rainbows, browns or cutthroat, or a hybridized version, you have to pay attention to what the fish are focused on (eating) and also their rise forms to figure out whether you fish on top, in the film, or have to go slightly subsurface. I sometimes get the subsurface feeders to tip up and take a dangling, klinkhammer style fly, or a helpless easy floating target such as a cripple pattern. Some people have success using soft hackles in this situation.
The river has very impressive rainbows and brown trout but I consider the cutthroat and their hybridized brethren to be the “Raging Bulls” of this neighbourhood. Think Jake LaMotta… they just don’t give up.
Here are some pictures of these fish caught (this and last summer) on small dries: size 16 and 18 pmd’s and one fish on a tiny beetle. All fish photographed on this blog have been released.
Weekend Hiking Snaps
” It’s gettin’ harder and harder to cut wood out there. You need all sorts of permits and there’s all sorts of restrictions on where you can, and can’t cut. Pretty soon you won’t be able to cut at all. You won’t even be able to touch a tree. They say they are protecting the wilderness for the animals. Animals…how about us! Pretty soon they’ll be makin’ beds in the woods for the Grizzlies so they can get a good night sleep! ”
Local Fire Wood Cutter
frost covered frozen shirt and bone
alberta sea anemone
mini donkey
Eastslope Grasslands
I put the dry fly rod away in its quiver for another season. Walked along the lower Crowsnest river valley and took some pictures of the rolling grasslands.
Halloween
Overheard at a pumpkin bin:
“Look at all the pumpkins. You know they’re not just carving them anymore…they’re painting em too! They’re painting em! Isn’t that something?”
Here are some pictures taken while driving around and trout hunting the past couple of weekends. A tough Autumn for taking trout on dries. Few bugs. A real absence of BWO’s and a lot of wind. There has been a different hatch: jack o lanterns.
carving by r dewey
rainbow on dry fly
Wild Rainbows in the Coulees
“And Fall, when yeller harvest moon and the hills growin’ brown and golden under a sinkin’ sun.”
Roy Bean
wild rainbow trout
wild rainbow trout
Coulee Landscape
Some of my favorite sight fishing trout rivers run down in coulees out on the high dry plains. Here are some landscape photos from my last outing.
Coulee definition: Kind of a valley or drainage zone. The word comes from the French Canadian coulee, from the French word couler meaning “to flow”.
searching for trout, looking into the flow
looking up
still looking up
gull skull
beautiful trout dorsal fin
The Beach
LOW WATER. FINALLY CLEAR WATER. No bugs. Still windy but not gale force like on the weekend. Sunny and some high clouds. In fact, beautiful clouds. I started seeing a few trout mid afternoon. The lighting was good but past prime time; the dimmer switch was being dialed down. Days are short in mid October. The first trout I missed. He ate but the hook didn’t set. I thought, “my one chance”. I soon spotted another but he bolted before I could exhale. Two strikes, one left! I then decided to walk a river section I call the Beach. It’s a perfect late day spot: the sun over your shoulder; shallow water; consistent light colored bottom. I see well there and it’s all about seeing. Trout sometimes prowl the shin deep water along the Beach. They inch up the river with the sun in their eyes, blind to an angler just upstream. I walked softly on the pebble edge, controlled my shadow and spotted one. A downstream cast…feed line. Slow current, slow drift, slow motion rise to the caddis imitation. Then four high speed runs. Two right across the river. The trout didn’t want to give up.
the beach
Plan B
“You better cut that pizza in four pieces because I’m not hungry enough to eat six”
-Yogi Berra
river path
Sight fishing is generally not easy. You need the right conditions to be successful and rarely do all the stars align. When things do come together it can be quite memorable; it makes your season. Lately the sight fishing in my region has been real challenging. Of my three favorite tailwater rivers, two are off color and the third, every time I go there, is being wind beaten to a froth. The reservoirs that feed two of the three rivers are so low they are releasing cloudy/silt-laden water, and it is going to remain that way until next season. Too bad. The visibility on them is only about two feet. That’s a huge limitation when you’re trying to sight fish.
silt flow
brown trout
On Saturday I hiked a lot, covered a few rivers and did manage to locate one good fish in spite of the off color water. I couldn’t entice him to take on the surface. After several casts he moved off and disappeared. I returned the next day with a different strategy; Plan B. I showed up around the same time and found him subsurface feeding in the same area. Like us, trout have their feeding spots. This time I tried one pass overhead with a grasshopper pattern. Like the day before, no reaction. I tied on a small bead head nymph (fished subsurface) but had no success. I then tied on a larger heavier nymph and connected. As Yogi Berra said, “It ain’t over till it’s over”.
brown trout
It was a tough weekend. I covered a lot of water in high wind and connected with only one trout…but it was a good one.
cloudy water
road out of river valley
“He hits from both sides of the plate. He’s amphibious”
-Yogi Berra
trout on dries 