Fall in the Parkland Region of Manitoba

Fall is a time of change. Winter is coming and the fish know it! The rainbows, brookies, browns and tiger trout start to feed knowing that winter is not far away! As the water temperature starts to drop, daylights hours shorten and frost greets us at the start of the day, we know that the fly fishing can pick up. Of course the fall colours can be spectacular and the geese are heading south just ahead of winter. Your senses certain come alive with all the things that are going on in nature!

The trout start devouring leeches, forage fish, blood worms, boatmen/backswimmers and scuds. That makes the fly fishing quite fun. I also love the spectacular colours of the tiger trout and browns. Their colours alone are worth the trip to try and tangle with them!

Well take a look at all the action from past years. I will have this year's pictures posted in about 10 days!

Northern Alberta Fly Fishing Adventure with Brandon Fawcett and Steve Leuthi

You can always count on Brandon and Steve to get into a real adventure. Two years ago, the guys headed to Northern Alberta to fly fish. Well the dynamic duo decided to go back to the north and do some more exploring. As you will see, they ventured into several narly places. The mud bogging was challenging and they legitimately became stuck and fortunately a good samaritan came by and helped them get out of their predicament!

The bull trout, grayling and athabasca rainbows were a great reward to their wanderlust and adventurous spirit!

Way to go guys! Love the macro shots of the grayling Steve!

Take a look! All of the pictures are courtesy of Steve Leuthi!

Last Days at Plummer's Arctic Lodge

The last day of fishing actually ended up being the last two days. The weather turned nasty and the turbo prop plane that was supposed to pick us up could not land because the cloud ceiling was too low for a visual approach at the 5500 foot gravel runway! Rain pelted down us and the cloud ceiling was about 600 feet.

Everybody in camp that was supposed to fly out had to get on a satellite phone and reschedule their flights out of Yellowknife. West Jet was awesome for us. We just ended up being delayed one day!

The good news was we got some extra fishing in although the conditions were foggy and rainy. Thank goodness we had GPS to navigate to the Narkay Islands. The fishing was slow. We did tag some medium sized lake trout. It was definitely better than waiting at the main camp for the plane.

It was the last week of the 7 week season for the Plummer's Lodge. There was not a lot of food left in camp but the Plummer's head chef did an amazing job feeding us for an extra day. The beer was gone and everybody was scrambling around to find a drink or two and smokes (those who smoked).

This travel delay due to weather has never happened at Plummer's lodge on the last day ever. They had a weather delay only once before in the last 30 years. Amazing!

We did go and see the wolves that hang around camp. We saw 8 wolves. Their pups are adorable. This pack has stayed around the camp for almost 40 years!

We also got a chance to see the famous barge that moves the fuel and lots of equipment from almost 130 km away to the lodge.

Well we finally got on our way back to Yellowknife. Chummy Plummer and Chuck were right there to shake our hands just like when we arrived. 

An absolutely fantastic trip that we hope to do again. We had an amazing adventure.

A Redfin Laker that was probably 30 years old!

Bacon Carbonerra with Lake Trout, so amazing!

Wolves hung out around the camp!

Rick all bundled up but still catching lakers on the Deliveryman Fly

As you can see, the final day was miserable.