The Red Deer has fished fairly well for Darren Petersen this past week.Darren loves the mixed bag available on this river. Find a slow silty spot with a bit of depth, maybe a back eddy and some foam and your sure to bump into some goldeye, pike and maybe a walleye. The runs and riffles have plenty of willing rockies of decent size and the browns can be found almost anywhere but especially where there are edges. Darren enjoys searching the Red Deer for it's browns using both streamers and stonefly nymphs, plying the water for it's relatively uncommon treasures. One can make a lot of casts searching like this before the surprise encounter happens but it doesn't take long to know that you are into a brown and not one of the other less vigorous species.
The browns Darren has caught recently went ballistic upon being hooked, great aerial displays showing off their golden hue and leopard spots.
Good numbers of caddis hatching, some small stones and mayflies and a handful of mature salmonflies airborne and up in the streamside willows. Unlike last years opener Darren has not encountered any adult skwalas yet.
The most interesting "hatch" Darren encountered the other night was a bumblebee sized beetle flying around the Saskatoon blossoms up the river bank at dusk. Dark amber brown colored, fairly adept fliers, He captured a couple to have a closer look the next day. These appear to be May Beetles (a terrestrial not a water beetle), like mayflies the adults don't eat, not sure why they seemed to be attracted to the Saskatoon blossoms although they might be drawn to the scent, perhaps a romantic setting to meet up with others for mating (pure speculation). Anyway, there were a number of them so if any found their way into the river they would provide a sizable meal to a fish.
Thanks for the beautiful pictures.
...also Steve, Troy and his son, fly fished the Red Deer River using Water Masters. You can see Troy's son picture holding a nice gold eye. Way to go guys!
