Tag Archives: alberta scenery
that oldman river keeps rollin’ along..
september photos
“It’s not down on any map; true places never are”–Herman Melville, Moby Dick
Rainbows taken on small dry flies in mid- September…
riverside photos
alberta bonefish flat
sheds
Here are some mid august photos of riverside sheds. The trout featured were caught this past weekend on size 20 and 18 Trico dry flies.
abby
clean water officer
august fins
“August is like the Sunday of summer”
We’ve had some clouds, some summer storms, some sun and cool nights and therefore river temperatures have remained alright even though the water is low. It looks like we might get through August without any angling restrictions. South of the border (Montana) the situation seems quite different.
I’ve been sight fishing small terrestrials and on one river Tricos; one of my favorite hatches. It’s a good time of year as a few trout are rising and the Blue Jays (baseball) are in the hunt for the playoffs. I want to see Jose Bautista hit a late game homer and fling his bat again…the best “take that!” moment in baseball I’ve seen in a long time.
Here are some river images from the past couple of weekends…I struck out several times but did manage to hit a few long ones…
abby
round up
cuttbow
double trico
le soleil
“It was so hot I saw a roasted turkey fly by”
Summer finally returned after a cool spell and it was nice to wade in shorts and river sandals after spending three weeks in waders. Local rivers are low and heating up (temperature).
I was able to take advantage of the blue sky and full sun to spot some great fish and fool a few. It is amazing how tight you can get to a feeding fish in shallow water if you have the sun at your back and wade carefully, even on down and across presentations where you are in front or above the fish, not behind.
I learned how the sun can “blind” fish on the Missouri river many years ago while casting to a roaming pod of sipping trout. By standing still with the sun over my shoulder I watched a dozen large fish feed just a rod length away. They were oblivious to my presence.
For me, so much about fly fishing has to do with light; they are intertwined.
My favorite sight fishing river had few PMD’s on it this weekend and no other hatch. In response I fished beetles and crickets… my favorite way to go. I had the place to myself in spite of it being peak holiday season; lots of people on the road; local fly shops busy. The river was mine for a day. Amazing!
Here are some landscape and trout photos while sight fishing the past week. All fish caught on dries.
abby
spotting trout
big sky joe
” The towels were so thick I could hardly close my suitcase”
-Yogi Berra
I just spent five days in my region watching water with a visiting friend. We stuck with one river because we kept locating trout. They were mainly on mayfly emergers and being very, very selective. As usual, as on most tail-water rivers, it was challenging angling. The more we watched the more we saw and learned. The drift boat anglers that floated by didn’t even notice what we were experiencing. They covered the water we fished in seconds whereas we did it in hours. They were probably thinking about what was up head; the promise of water beyond. We were thinking about what was right in front of us. There is something special about picking a small stretch of interesting water, staying relatively still, spending time and simply watching it for signs of life. We did that on two different short sections of the same river for five days. In total we probably only covered only 100-150 yards; however, we caught some beauties. It wasn’t “numbers fishing” although one day we did have that. It was more quality over quantity. Great trout on size 20 and 18 flies. All tiny stuff and all sight fishing. Sometimes the slower you go the more you see…and we went slower than stop!
Here are some images…
bifocal trout spotting
trout spotter extraordinaire
back eddy fins
the big wide open
cutthroat caught by Joe f.
the bonefish flat
early summer, long days
Overheard at a Baja taco stand:
” You know why I love this place Frank? We’ve been here for a solid week and I haven’t seen one person wearing Lululemon! Absolutely nobody! And we’ve been here for a week”!
Some riverside photos from past two weekends in SW Alberta. The trout were caught sight casting, Pale Morning Duns, size 18 and 20…small stuff…and one fish on a beetle. The trick was landing them while an eight month old retriever new to the game was in hot pursuit.
riverside trout bum, trout chaser
drive back to mountains
Roman’s Royal Coachman
“If the world were perfect, it wouldn’t be”.
-Yogi Berra
roman
The last couple of weekends I’ve fished a local tailwater river 2 or 3 times. Hatches have been sparse with the bright sun. Due to the same weather conditions and clear water, however, spotting trout has been possible. And fortunately some have been willing to rise.
On my last outing I was with a friend, Roman, who was visiting the region. Early on he landed a great rainbow on a black cricket like pattern. Later on we located several large bank fish that were feeding inconsistently. They were picky and rejected most of what we tossed their way. Bug life seemed minimal and their feeding behavior was somewhat of a mystery.
Roman changed flies several times and then pulled out an old attractor fly pattern, a Royal Coachman, from his Magician’s top hat and started casting it with authority as if commanding the trout to rise. And they did. Mesmerized, they kept coming to the fly.
Then he reached out, his hand palm up and said, “try this”. It was another Royal Coachman. I tied it on and then magically, Presto, just like that, landed a large rainbow with the fly.
We missed several others that day but the fish we landed were very spectacular. All were caught sight-fishing with dry flies.
Here are some photos from the Royal Coachman day and from the weekend before when there was more cloud cover.
