“Excuse me while I kiss the sky”
-Jimi Hendrix
The room I get to play in on weekends is very, very large and it has a limitless ceiling; and it has rivers flowing through it; and if you search in the four corners you’ll find trout.
cutthroat caught on size18 PMD
swirling trout caught on dry fly
rainbow trout caught on PMD spinner
rainbow on dry fly
road home
lower oldman river
I managed to hit a local tailwater river after work the other evening. It is one of the few waterways in my region that has insect life. Some PMD’s were hatching and spinners falling. The river was low so it was perfect for searching for rising trout and trying to spot some good ones.
cutthroat
Most of the larger trout appeared to be on emergers. I fished a pattern that floated but had a dangling body (Klinkhammer style): deer hair wing tied forward for flotation; thorax dubbed a PMD yellow/cream color; rust colored body with gold wire ribbing to add weight so part of the fly broke through surface; an amber/golden shuck for the tail (zelon/antron). I spread some saliva on the body and tail to help it protrude through the meniscus.
The fish were on it. I spotted several nice ones while searching the shallow flats in a foot or less of water, and a few took me into my backing. Trout hooked in skinny water take off like a dragster. Here’s a couple photos of one of the fine trout I caught.
cutthroat on size 16 pmd
prairie river
I hit three rivers this weekend. It wasn’t because I was feeling energetic. It was because things were slow due to the intense heat, so I kept searching for productive water. Give yourself enough time and pump enough gas into the tank, and you’ll probably find a spot that is producing. Trout fishing is rarely ever easy: too cold; too hot; too much wind; too much sun; water too high; water too low; water too turbid; too many anglers; not enough bugs; wrong flies; and the beat goes on.
riverside potato field on prairies
oldman tailwater
One of the prairie rivers I fish seemed abandoned. It turned big time off. Last weekend was excellent. This weekend was dead. It was a ghost town. The trout apparently left the main floor and headed for the cool of the basement. They must have been deep. I never saw a decent fish. Heck, I never saw a fish! I was so hot my cheese sandwich grilled in my backpack.
crowsnest rainbow on dry
crowsnest river side channel, no bugs, no fish
So I drove to a nearby tailwater that always runs very cold. It looked promising but… no bugs. The PMD’s didn’t show when I was there. Maybe they were congregating high up in the mountains which is where I should have been. A Cutthroat stream would have made more sense than heading out on the flats where in the shimmering heat I think I spotted a camel near a place called Standoff…or was that a llama? Anyway, it was tall and had a long neck, and my head was hot. On the tailwater I prospected with a big dry fly, walked a mile and caught a few.
crowsnest river bow on dry fly
Then the next morning I got up early and fished the Crowsnest river which is right by my house. It fished alright…not great but ok. It was the best of the rivers I had been on. I caught a few sippers in a big back flow. Challenging fish that had spectacles on (tinted due to the bright sun). They inspected every fly in great detail. The hatch was in the weak to moderate range. It got under way at 10:30 am but fizzled in an hour or two. The only place I could find surface feeding trout was where bugs were collecting in slow back eddies, etc. No risers were spotted anywhere else such as along banks, in the big pools, along current lines, etc.
crowsnest back flow
The Crowsnest (Crow) river has some of the best looking rainbow trout found anywhere…all fins intact…all wild fish. The Crow is really just a stream but it holds some fine fish for its size. I don’t mind mentioning it as it is so well known. I wrote a little story about it several years ago in an old blog….if interested google: Flyfishing the Crowsnest River, Small Fly Paradise.
crowsnest river rainbow on dry fly
sheep creek rd
Sheep Creek road; North Picabo road; Kimpton bridge road; Spring Coulee road…and the list goes on and on. What they all have in common is they are dirt roads; back roads. Follow them and like the North Star or Southern Cross guide an ancient mariner, they deliver you to rising trout. All are in the middle of Nowhereville and Nowhereville is always a good place to be if you are into trout. Here are some photos taken while casting dries somewhere up Sheep Creek road.
rainbow trout caught on micro may fly, size 20
river side cottonwood shade
travelling light
sheep creek rd, wet sock on dashboard reflection
brown trout on dry
brown trout on dry fly
crocus
“I once gave up fishing. It was the most terrifying weekend of my life”.
-Anonymous
Skwala! Not many around but enough to get some trout looking up. Bugs are always appreciated as this is a blog about dry fly fishing, and I need them if I’m going to have material; something to write about. I’ve been going out a few evenings after work looking for rising trout and also checking things out on weekends. It has been an early Spring in SW Alberta but my home rivers have been quiet. Usually I’m into surface feeding fish at the beginning of April. We are in the third week and things still aren’t under way in spite of the Crocuses being up; calves spotted streamside; campers running the highways; neighbours aerating their lawns; some midge flies in the air in the evening and even some olives riding the currents in the afternoon. It was the Skwala (a stonefly) that got the attention of a few trout on a local tailwater river this Saturday and I managed to hook several mid-sized fish. Here is a picture of the best one of the bunch.
oldman river tailwater section
riverside standoff
rainbow trout on dry fly
deer on crowsnest river
crocus
“Oh, I wish I lived in a caravan! ‘ said Jimmy longingly. ‘ How lovely it must be to live in a house that has wheels and can go down lanes and through towns, and stand still in fields at night!”
– Enid Blyton, Mr Gilliano’s Circus
Some western scenes while driving or walking to some of my favorite trout streams somewhere out in the fields…
sw alberta cabin
Patagonia, chile
field path to river, idaho
coleman, alberta
coleman, alberta
near waterton, alberta
shreddies
a little religion, sw alberta
rodeo stands
Idaho field
glenwood goats, alberta
Most of the streams I fish flow through arid sun baked terrain. The edges however are often lined with tall grass growth. They shoot skyward with the summer warmth, stream moisture and nutrients. These edges are places of life: waterfowl, insects, eggs, feathers, even the odd golden retriever…
Trout prowl the aquatic side of these edges. I often sit hidden in the grass and watch the water for movement; for trout. If you sit still long enough the flowing water and swaying grass become mesmerizing. Then a soft rise or flash of a feeding trout wakes you up.
Here are some pictures of soothing creekside grass taken along the rivers I fish.
creekside grass
smelling creekside grass
feather found in streamside grass
trout caught next to creek grass
found along grass bank
creekside trail
goose eggs in creekside grass
The wading boots are hanging in the shed. Instead, I’ve been hiking on weekends. Next week I’ll toss flies again. The local ski hill is closed for the season and it’s only Feb 16th; no snow; go figure. They’ve tons of it back east; none here…yet.
“Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe”.
-Voltaire
brown trout
MID-WEEK I CHECKED THE WEATHER REPORT FOR THE WEEKEND. It predicted temperatures around zero or slightly above for Saturday and Sunday. Next I looked at the wind chart as mild temperatures usually mean a big blow along the eastern slopes. That’s what was in the cards: a wind warning. Saturday looked a bit sunnier and seemed like my best opportunity to fish. Besides on Sunday there were two good football games scheduled.
side channel
I never really watch a complete NFL game. I just kind of listen to it, do other things and then pay close attention when there is a big play. I’ve learnt that the Championship games are often better than the Super Bowl. Last year the Seattle versus San Francisco game was a classic. In comparison the Super Bowl was anti-climatic.
So, Saturday it would be. I was into it as I hadn’t been out since before Christmas as the weather had been arctic like.
side channel
I went to my local tailwater river as it doesn’t ice over, and swung flies real slow near the bottom while the wind whistled in my ears. The fish weren’t active. I’d often get a slight “tap” but with no hook up. I did best by swinging my fly back to the spot where I had found some life. Sometimes I had to pass the fly through several times before getting another “hit” and the occasional hook up. I caught some rainbows this way.
rainbow trout
In a side channel I got my first good aggressive strike but no hook up. I kept tossing my fly through the same spot hoping for a repeat hit. After a dozen or so swings, “fish on”; I had made a connection. This one didn’t make the standard run. Instead it tugged a lot, shook its head, stayed deep and zig-zagged. I thought ” brown trout”.
brown trout
When winter fly fishing you gotta have faith.
brown trout
It has been too cold around here to put on felt sole boots. I’ve traded them in for snowshoes this weekend. Here are some pictures taken while driving to and chugging along the snow trail.
wind generator in the valley
x-country tracks
snowshoe tracks
ribs along the trail
high above valley
portable corral
portable corral
entrance gate to acreage
trout on dries 