Tag Archives: B&W photography
novembuary
35C
It was 35C/95F in the river valley on Sunday. A lot of low, flat water. No bugs to speak of. No bugs for a while now. Just bright sun, heat radiating off of the river rocks and glare. A lot of walking and looking in the dead calm. Occasionally a subtle surface disturbance would bring me out of the heat induced daze. It would catch my attention. A trout or a mirage?
brown on grasshopper
beetle fly
rainbow on ant
rainbow on beetle
the road out
dinosaurs crossing the hot plains
mountains cloaked in smoke and heat
august, slow
” The horse I bet on was so slow, the jockey kept a diary of the trip”.
Henny Youngman
It’s late summer. Not much happening. Things are dry. No real rain in months. The grass crunches under foot. It’s almost the same sound as brittle snow in January. Forest fires are burning west of here. They have been burning a good part of the summer. The air has been smoky for weeks. Fresh, clear Rocky Mountain air is a myth.
smoke-filled sky
Hatches on my local rivers are weak. Eventually we will run out of Weak and then enter the Strong realm again as things cool and BWO’s (may fly) make an appearance.
Surface eating fish are hard to find during the day. You have to fish real late, on the edge of darkness, or real early. When the sun is up it means prospecting with terrestrial bugs: grasshoppers and beetles or their creative derivations.
I missed a great fish the other day. Its rise was slow and it ate my impression even slower than slow. It lingered and I struck too fast pulling the grasshopper fly out of its mouth. I’ve been doing that a lot this year. Hmm…have to pause longer before I strike…got go slow.
Some photos from past couple of weekends.
snoozing on firm mattress
man-eater brown trout
“Trashy novels always out sell the classics…tabloids out sell the Times”
brown trout on size 16 dry fly
In the past three or four years I’ve written 100 plus posts on this blog. One post, above all, received significantly more attention (hits) than any other. It simply blew all the others away…10X more attention. Was the quality of the writing that much better?…”No”. Were the photographs super special or intriguing?…”No”. Were the trout huge?…”No”. Was I giving away cash?…”No”. It was simply the title. It contained the words, “French Assassins”. The post had nothing to do with espionage, mystery or murder. I was simply quoting a phrase/term used by an author in a slow-paced, gentle fly fishing book called, Chalkstream Chronicle, by Neil Patterson. It’s a great book. One of my all time favorites.
rainbow on dry-fly, size 18 pmd
In one chapter Patterson describes how some French anglers in economically depressed war-time France, or just post war, survived by designing highly effective flies (killer patterns) for flat water creek fishing (difficult water) that allowed them to fool very discerning trout; I believe they were brown trout. If I remember the story correctly they either kept their families alive with the protein they caught from the streams or they sold the trout to restaurants in order to earn money when there was no employment opportunities in their ravaged homeland. Basically, they fished to survive and because of this they became very skilled and specialized at catching trout on their local water. Thus the term, “French Assassins”. The common feature of all of these flat water flies is that they were tied in a very sparse (airy/light) style.
Abby, trout spotting from bluff
brown trout
I wonder how today’s tabloid title, “Man-eater Brown trout” will fare? More hits? I’ll see…
rainbow, fly, size 18 pmd
Above and below are some brown and rainbow trout I caught and released over the last couple of weekends sight-fishing late July and early August. The angling was quite challenging. All trout were fooled on Pale Morning Duns (dry-fly/emerger patterns) size 18 and 16. I got lucky as some of the small fly hook-ups held. I also missed quite a few.
rainbow
simple dangling patterns, size 18, black wing for grey glare
close in rainbow
Canyon Trout
I went down into the canyon. It’s a fairly long walk. I haven’t been there in several years…beautiful place, eerie at times, especially when you’re alone. I took Abby with me.
The angling was a bit slow. We are kind of between hatches: the Pmd’s are waning and the hoppers (not really a hatch) aren’t doing the “hop” yet. The canyon can be a good place for terrestrial fishing as bugs get blown off of the cliffs and fall into the river. The trout eventually clue in to this.
They weren’t looking up on the weekend, however, I did manage to fool a few fish in the shallows that were willing to rise: rainbows. I was on the hunt for brown trout. Some fish took a good look at my fly but were skeptical and turned away. I saw several nice ones on nymphs but they wouldn’t budge from the bottom. The good thing is there were fish around and I spotted some.
Abby on the cliff
Sight-fishing in the canyon can be challenging as the light-coloured cliffs reflect sunlight casting an intense glare on the water.
I’ll go back when the grasshoppers are more prevalent (hopefully soon) and the fish are on the lookout for them and showing themselves by rising. Then my terrestrial fly impressions will be more productive.
The Sock
“Keep calm and wear odd socks”
-David Spires
rainbow caught on PMD by author
My fishing sock returned! I’ve missed it. We’ve been separated for 6 months. I accidentally left it in New Zealand in a rental car at Christchurch airport. My friend, Roman, found it when he thoroughly checked the hatchback of the rental before his return flight to Canada.
The sock travelled a great distance. It went from Crowsnest pass to South Island NZ, was worn daily on many great rivers, then travelled back to Canada with Roman to Ontario. There it stayed for several months, dry but very eager to wade and fish again.
The sock finally returned to its home, the Crowsnest Pass, when Roman came out for an angling trip, with his two boys, Christian and Daniel.
It’s a well-travelled neoprene Simms sock. Now ready for duty on my local streams. It has been reunited with the other one. A sort of balance has been resorted and all seems right with the world!
Here’s a photo of the international jet-setting sock looking happy to be home again…
This past week I had the opportunity to fish with some friends: Joe, Roman, Rick, Christian, Daniel and our four-legged tag along, Abby. All good angling mates. Fishing at times was tough but at the end of the week we all caught some fish….and a few great ones I must say. All were taken on dries, mostly sight-fishing. The weather was good…summertime in SW Alberta.
Some memories from one week in July:
-Joe’s favorite line, “Hey Bobby, I’ve got another one on”. One of his browns and a rainbow were the prizes of the week.
rainbow on a PMD dry fly
brown on PMD dry
-The boys, Christian and Daniel, double hauling into the wind. Both great casters. They picked up some nice ones and ended their trip with a multiple fish day on a cutthroat stream. Their favorite lines: “Hey Bob can you pull my fly line through the rod tip” and “My fly is stuck in a bush, can you un-hook it for me”. Some of their fish…
brown on dry
electric cuttbow on beetle
cutthroat on drake dry
Other memorable events: Rick casting from a seated position on the river; and the boys repeatedly asking their father, ” Can you untangle this”…
river crossing
Roman and Christian chasing a bull trout
the group working a pool
abby
long day
brown on beetle
rainbow on dry fly
I hope to have the chance to fish with them again next summer…in the meantime I’m going to put on that happy sock and wade a local river.
Early July, fly fishing and golf
“I’m not feeling very well – I need a doctor immediately. Ring the nearest golf course”
-Groucho Marx
It’s July. Primetime. Primetime but I haven’t seen a lot of fish up eating on the surface in spite of visiting several rivers. My favorite prairie river looks dead. Winter kill due to low water last summer, then a tough cold winter? I don’t know. I do know I covered 5 miles of it this past weekend in the heat and didn’t see fish where I usually see them. It looked empty. It was a ghost town. Music from a Sergio Leone movie started playing in my head while I walked, looked and saw nothing. Too bad. It’s the best sight fishing river around and the most challenging. It’s a place where you have to use your full skill set and fish almost perfectly in order to fool its large wary trout.
My local tail-water river is kind of producing. Early morning has been good but not at the other end of the day. No evening risers! What’s up? Not enough bugs…hatch not dense enough? I’ll try again one night this week. Maybe my last outing was simply an anomaly. It usually fishes well just before the sun goes down. It’s when big trout start munching in the shallows in locations where bugs collect.
chic drift boat
My local river, the Crow, also didn’t have rising fish the other night. Some PMD’s were out but no significant response. No large sippers. Hum!!!
The immediate and long range forecast is hot: 30 to 35C for next two weeks. I’ll have to fish early or late, or both, on my favorite rivers and fish the streams way up in the mountains mid-day. That’s the plan.
Maybe golf would be easier!?
I once met and angler in upstate New York who when asked if he played Golf replied, “Not while I have a pulse”.
dog tired, end of day
Long Days
River levels are dropping. Most are pretty clear. Insects are hatching and trout are starting to rise. Long days. Feels like summer…
The Burn
trout on dries 