“We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails”.

Dolly Parton

There was a wind warning today. I saw part of my neighbour’s eaves trough tumble down the road. At least I think it was his? I should check mine!

On the eastern slopes of the divide in SW Alberta it’s always windy and if you don’t fish in the wind, well, you’re not going to get out very often. So I decided to go and just deal with it. I’d be casting a streamer and figured if it got real bad I’d just flip the fly and feed line or roll cast a lot. My plan was to fish a section of the river that is braided so I’d could find some protective areas behind islands and gravel bars.

late november brown trout

If there is anything good about the wind around here, it’s generally predictable: easterly. The other good thing is that in the summer time it blows terrestrials (grasshoppers, beetles, etc.) into the water. None of that today as we have transitioned to winter.

rainbow trout

I thought that if things became unbearable out there I would pretend I had travelled a long, long way to the Rio Gallegos in southern Patagonia where sea run brown trout and gale force winds rule the river, and you deal with it by tugging down on your Beret and just keep casting! My shoulder still aches. I’m well past the 100 pitch mark in my 9 inning angling career.

rainbow trout

I caught several Rainbow trout and coincidently, one Brown (not sea run but resident), which was the prize of the day. I was standing on the bank four feet above the water and swung my fly through a fairly shallow side channel with an even flow. As the fly tightened to the bank a brown trout glided out from some wood structure and nabbed it. I saw the whole thing from my elevated position. It made the day. I fished until dusk and then headed home guided by the North Star, or was that the Southern Cross?

sw alberta brown trout

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