“YOU WILL NEVER GET THE TRUTH out of a narcissist,. The closest you will come is a story that either makes them the victim or the hero, but never the villain”. — Shannon L. Adler
CREEK WALKING. NO TROUT ROD IN HAND. Out scouting the upper reaches of a mountain stream for next (angling) season. Harper and I discover that some rolling stones do gather moss…
“I’m an instinctive caster and use whatever elements of the formal casts I need to get a good drift. I think it’s best to be inventive and flexible…I’ll cast upstream, downstream or sideways; whichever direction gets me the drift I want.”– John Gierach, Author, Trout Bum
SOME NIGHTS HAVE BEEN COLD. I HEAR the furnace kicking-in in the wee hours. Rivers are cooling down. There are fewer late afternoon rising fish. They are retreating. Bottom hugging. The big sleep is coming. I just read John Gierach passed away. A big loss. If you are a fly fisher you know whom I talking about.
A few season end images. It has been a good one. Glad I covered a lot of moving water. Glad I stood in a river and waved a stick….
THE ANGLING SEASON always draws to a close with Autumn magnificence…
Photo and Video by Vic Bergman, Fly Shop owner https://www.crowsnestangler.com/, Guide, Photographer, and Videographer, https://www.vicbergman.com/blog/…
WE POINT THE TRUCK westward. Gear for the day in the back. Big Mayflies have been tied and are in neat rows in our fly boxes. Daniel says, “You can never have enough Drakes”. True. Our rods are rigged with braided leaders for the stretch; for the give. Once at the river we select an entry point, then hike and search. The sun is on our shoulders. It’s warm. There’s no wind. A perfect day. The big bugs start. The fish begin to show. Daniel’s Butterstick bends. His Click and Pawl sings. It sings all afternoon with the strong, untamed trout running downstream and Daniel and Harper rock hopping in pursuit. An unforgettable day. It’s early September and we struck gold…
Some images of the impressive Cutthroat trout caught by Daniel, a co-worker, at the Crowsnest Angler Fly Shop.
“From a little spark may burst a flame”. – Dante Alighieri
Late August and September are a beautiful time to be on local Cutthroat rivers. There are fewer people around and less angling pressure, especially on weekdays.
With the season transitioning to Autumn dry fly angling becomes more of an afternoon event. Nights are cooler and with the sun arching lower, shadows blanket the river often until late morning, sometimes noon. Each river is different depending on the direction they flow in relation to the travelling sun and the terrain they run through. Morning shadows cover a river longer in steep mountainous and heavily forested territory.
Once the sun does reach the water it slowly warms it and energizes all life. If it’s a river inclined to having hatches then often an insect emergence occurs mid afternoon. It takes time for things to heat-up on a mountain stream. You wait wondering if it will happen. Then you see a few tall-winged Mayflies riding the current. Then a bulge in the water signifying a feeding trout. Then more Mayflies. If you are lucky the emergence becomes a flurry of activity with trout gorging themselves on the surface. “From a little spark may burst a flame.” Trout will take full advantage of the food nature is gifting and survival requires “getting while the getting is good”. That’s when you want to be present in order to witness it all and hopefully locate a few good ones in the afternoon light. And for me quality dry fly angling is all about the light. Spotting a rising fish in a pool or along a bank when it and the insects that it is preying upon are fully illuminated in the afternoon light is angling perfection. It is the most visually engaging trout fly fishing that I know. When “it’s on, it’s on” and it’s thrilling. However, in a cold mountain stream the hatch can be brief. An hour or two, maybe a little more. Once the shadows return around suppertime then it all begins to shut-down. The hatch dies-out and the trout retreat below. As quickly as it begins, it ends. The flame goes out.
Some images from the past two weeks chasing the flame…
MID -AUGUST. MORNINGS are noticeably cooler and shadows are longer around suppertime. The Corn truck is parked along the highway. Bears are foraging for berries in the river valleys. All are signs that we are transitioning into late summer. It’s a reminder to “catch it while you can.”
Some photos from recent outings where the trout haven’t been tamed…
SOME HAYSTACK/ Comparadun style dry flies for fast paced freestone water. I’ve been fishing these on mountain Cutthroat streams. It’s a simple deer hair pattern where attention is paid to basic shape/form but not the smaller details of a Mayfly. They make a significant (noticeable) and enticing impression on the water’s surface. I cast them to opportunistic fish on the feed when Mayflies are present and prospect with them in likely lies where they often “pull-up” trout. I fished them as a child and teenager on pretty little freestone streams in upstate New York. They caught trout then and they do now.
A MOUNTAIN RIVER. A pure freestone flow with a steep gradient and quick pace. Still fast, still cold (48f) even in August after a dry, scorching July. A lot of walking and wading to find little windows of dry fly opportunity. A few connections. One special one. An untouched, richly colored native Cutthroat. Treasure found, treasure returned…
SOME FREESTONE CREEK dry flies and a flawless Cutthroat from an outing last week…
HOT
It was a 30 minute drive up into the mountains and the Cutthroat river. My car thermometer read 34c/ 94f. A smoke haze was in the air from fires in British Columbia (B.C.). It made the Rocky Mountains look like they were fading away. It seems B.C. now burns every July and August, and sometimes even into September. Northern Alberta too. My dog, in the back seat, was panting even though I had all the car windows down. I never use the air conditioning (AC). One exception was when I was driving home from a fishing trip in Baja in mid- June and was stuck for hours in border traffic in Mexicali city, Mexico. It was 42c/107f that day. Abby, my last dog, appreciated the cool air blasting from the cabin vents. She also appreciated the rolled-up windows as hundreds of border vendors went from vehicle to vehicle trying to sell their wares: hats, cool drinks, fruit, trinkets. Some had nothing and were simply begging. There were men, women, young children, and even very elderly people in the late afternoon 42C plus heat walking the hot asphalt trying to make a sale just 10 yards from the California border. This wasn’t an Acapulco, Cancun or Puerto Vallarta scene. Nor was it a depiction of idyllic Mexican rural life in a Diego Rivera painting. This was a “Behind the Curtain” look at Mexico. This was raw desperation and poverty I witnessed as I inched along the tall rusted metal border wall until I reached the heavily guarded portal that delivered me to the north. Justified or not, when I crossed the border I muttered to myself that “Mexico doesn’t look after its people”.
COLD
When I entered the mountain river at 11am my water thermometer read, 10c/ 51f. Almost half the air temperature. By 2pm the river was only 54f and my feet still numb. The stream had stayed cold in spite of two solid weeks and now entering a third week of extreme heat. One small creek that feeds the river was still flowing. Last year it was dry in late July. I thought that there was probably still some snow melting up high. It was probably one of many creeks helping the river stay cold when many lower elevation rivers were warming well into the 15c plus/60f and some approaching 20c/70f. Cold water in July and August is always good for trout and fishing.
The Cutthroat that I spotted in the slower flows were selective. I was able to fool some with spring creek type (barbless) dry fly patterns. Cutthroat are often regarded as being easy to catch. That’s not always true. Each Cutthroat stream is different and has its idiosyncrasies. There are no absolutes. The one I was on is usually quite challenging, especially as summer marches on and especially in the pools and slower sections. The river doesn’t hold a lot of trout. It is a quality over quantity river. Here are a couple of healthy fish that I connected with.
Troughs along bank sometimes hold trout
quigley pattern took fooled a big fish
big horn skull
clear water
small flow from feeder creek
cutthroat trout
bergamot blooming
big horn sheep
chewed hackle stacker drake
trout on dries 