Shadows are long mid-afternoon. Transition time (Autumn) tends to be swift at latitude 49 degrees. It roars in. There are more leaves on the water than mayflies. The Brown trout are on redds. Dry fly angling is almost non-existent on the rivers I frequent. Maybe there are a few more good days left? Maybe. Probably just wishful thinking.
Shadows are lengthening; shadows created by light…
Crisp in the mornings. Sun is arcing low. Noticeable long shadows mid-afternoon. Still windy. Still mainly hanging out in the mountains trying to escape the wind. Still fishing dry flies. Did spend one half day on a tailwater river out on the Plains sight-fishing a slightly sheltered back bay.
Some October photos…a lot of shadows.
WIND. It has been making rivers out on the Plains challenging. Top water angling out in the great wide open has been poor. So I’ve been looking for calmer conditions, some shelter and hopefully some sight-fishing opportunities up in the forested mountain valleys. Here are some nice cutthroats and hybrids (cuttbows) found in some sheltered streams caught on olives, small and mid-sized drakes, and beetles…
When you head out to a river for a day or evening of angling you often have a set of parameters that you operate by. For some people these criterion are broad. For some they are very narrow. The longer you’ve been at something like fly fishing, or any other pursuit, the more you have probably refined the way you practice it; the way you go about it; the path you chose to take. Over time you focus more intensely on some things and discard much of the rest.
Here are some fine trout fooled with small dry flies: mostly ants, beetles and pmd’s in contrasting landscapes and rivers. Some wide flat flows in open austere terrain and smaller clear ones in a treed mountainous landscape. Trout, from the Plains to the Rockies…
Cooler air and water lately and improved flows with some rain. Mornings chilly. Afternoons really perfect. The wind has been in check. Fewer people around. I’ve been on some creeks and a wider river. A great time to hunt for rising trout in the slower sections. Some found. My success has been with small stuff: cinnamon ants, a hacklestacker pmd pattern, some emergers and most importantly a lucky hat…

Due to the drought and intense heat, local reservoirs have dropped significantly. Agricultural irrigation (the aqueduct system) is the priority not main stem stream flows. Low reservoirs mean whatever is released to the rivers now often contains silt which of course affects sight fishing and fishing in general. Two of the three tailwater rivers I fish have been affected.
The good news is we just had a solid 24 hours of rain and lower temperatures. There is even some snow in the high peaks.The intense smoke is gone at least for now.
I’ve been walking a variety of rivers (contrasting water and terrain) and spotting some rising trout….they have been selective, especially on tailwaters…
Some friends recently showed up in town. They drove a dusty campervan and a truck camper. After a brief pit stop on main street for supplies and several cinnamon buns and strong coffee, they went up into the mountains in pursuit of cutthroats. Town folk breathed a sigh of relief when they headed to the smokey high country. Up along the Continental Divide the visitors threw tight loops all day and wrangled with some beefy cutts and rainbows in the emerald rivers. Their ammo: foam terrestrials and pale morning duns. They showed no mercy. All caught. Then after a week they holstered their fast action bug launchers and just as quickly as they arrived, they left. A dusty trail was seen heading east…
The heat is back on. The smoke is also back. No rain. No moisture. Things crackle when you walk riverside. The sky is an eerie orange at sun set. I’m casting small stuff on the tailwaters I fish. Big flies are generally being ignored. The trout are selective. I have been tying small emergers, size 16 and 18: A shuck of Antron or CDC at the tail; some wire ribbing over thread body for weight to break the surface; dubbing on thorax region; a white or black polypropylene wing at the head for flotation and most importantly visibility. I wet/saliva the shuck before casting. Here are some photos from my last few outings. Trout taken on the emergers.
Went to my favorite river real early. Slightly cooler lately. Cool in the mornings. Felt there was opportunity. So I did the long drive. Fog was mixed in with smoke. A large coffee helped me get there. It kept me on watch for roadside deer in the low light. Water temperatures were good in the river flow; marginal in the shallows. Water levels were the lowest I’ve ever seen. A lot of standing water. A lot of mosquitos. The sun came out when I arrived. I figured I’d give it a few hours and then leave and fish another river on the way home. In SW Alberta you always have angling options. A fellow from B.C. arrived right after me. No other anglers were around. He parked his vehicle one pool upstream from me and started fishing it and then worked his way further up. Hmm….
I carefully walked the long pool I was on from the tail to the head. There were some smaller fish at the bottom end rising. I watched them and figured things were going to heat up fast (air and water temperature) so I decided to focus and search for a good one. The light was good for spotting. At the head of the pool, just on the edge of the flow, I saw a good trout. It was moving around (feeding); nosing into the shallows with a decent flow; working its way right to top of the pool with the best flow (oxygenated water and food) and then cycling back. Several times I lost sight of the trout due to its movements from the shallows to deeper water and when moving over darker bottom sections.
The fish ignored a small hopper. Maybe it didn’t see it. A few casts later it took a black beetle. A lot of splashing when I finally landed it. My camera lens got soaked so many blurry pictures but I think it made the fishing net photo even more intriguing. One pool, one fish, a couple of hours and then it was time to go. The fellow from B.C. had left before me.
A bank feeding trout. An impressive one. Spotted last week rising to a sparse hatch of Golden Stoneflies and other insects. It ate my offering then but no hook up. I returned this week to the same location hoping it would be there and watched the water under a heavy smoke filled sky. Hundreds of fires are burning west and south west of here. We need rain. A lot of it.
While stalking the trout a few angling boats drifted by. I protected my spot and pretended to watch the bank downstream of me instead of upstream where the fish had been. River traffic has increased the past few years. Sometimes you have to deceive other anglers while trying to deceive a trout. It’s getting tricky out there. A few days ago a Drone flew over my head.
The trout made an appearance mid day when the river started to liven up. It ignored the smaller insects but broke the surface for the mid-sized and larger ones. This time I made a connection. The large stone fly impression held when the fish went downstream through a series of fast riffles with me and a retriever in pursuit. A long 13 foot knotted leader and a steep embankment made landing it challenging. Seconds before netting it I had to grab my leader mid-way to guide the trout to within reach. It’s an angling move that can often result in a lost fish. I had no other option. I got lucky…
