Gravel Roads, Dust, Mud and Westslope Cutthroat

Karen and I love to river fly fish. We are lucky to have several blue ribbon cutthroat streams in Alberta. Almost all of them require a gravel road that is dusty and at times quite muddy! Well yesterday we ventured down one of those roads. Big rocks to dodge and a lot of dust. Our truck had dust on everything. That is a small price to pay to enjoy a beautiful day outside and having the opportunity to tangle with westslope cutthroat trout! We do not mind walking to get away from the road fly fishermen and we did exactly that yesterday.

The river flow was perfect and the water gin clear. That made for some spooky trout! That was ok. Longer leaders, good presentation and thin tippet certainly help in those moments.

There were no major hatches although we encountered Blue Winged Olives, Flavs, and a few PMDs (very tiny ones). We used good old Orange Crushes, Flavs (dry flies), green drake emergers, tiny chernobyls (size 18), PMDs, Lance Egan's Blow Torch and a big ass black stonefly nymph!

The neat moment of the day was a very small slot across several conflicting currents where Karen was able to catch a large cutthroat with a green drake emerger. That was cool. I also saw a larger cutt that was not moving for anything. I resorted to a gigantic black stonefly. The big cutt wasted no time grabbing it!

Well I have to wash the truck. Even the inside has dust everywhere. That is a small price to pay to have a great day out on the water.

 

Freshwater Conservation Canada Flyathon-Red Deer September 12th

Karen and I along with many individuals are supporters of Freshwater Conservation Canada, formally Trout Unlimited Canada. FCC (Freshwater Conservation Canada) is a leader in protecting, and in many cases, restoring creeks and rivers to their pristine condition. Our Central Alberta Chapter of FCC is a small group but we get quite active when projects are ongoing in Central Alberta.

FCC is putting together a very unique event that is going to be set up right at Canada 150 Square in Capstone in Red Deer. It is called a Flyathon. Flyathons have been very successful in several locations and FCC is organizing one right here in Red Deer.

The event is simply run/walk 5 km and fly fish. It is a fundraiser for many the many projects that FCC works on. Karen and I are going to be participants and we hope others will too! Karen and I are looking for sponsors. All the proceeds will go to FCC.

A walk/run 5 km will occur in the Capstone, Bower Ponds area and then the fly fishing will be in the Red Deer River or Bower Ponds.

The event will also need some volunteers. It is just an afternoon event. 

After all of the fun, we will be heading to Troubled Monk to celebrate! Troubled Monk is one of the sponsors of the event!

How can you sponsor Karen and I and others? Well head over to the links below. Our goal is to raise $250 or more each for FCC.  A sponsorship of any size is much appreciated.

Let's get behind a great organization! Their conservation efforts are amazing! It is all about freshwater!

Here is the link for Bob's Fundraising efforts for the Flyathon!

Here is the link for Karen's Fundraising efforts for the Flyathon.

 

Water Temperatures in Central Alberta

When I poured myself a cup of coffee this morning, it was 3C at the Red Deer Regional Airport. Hmm, that made me smile. Overnight temperatures are definitely dropping to a point where our local lake water will slowly cool down at night. I am always concerned with water temperatures. Yesterday Karen and I drove out to a local lake to fly fish. Well we were not really sure we would fly fish if the water temperature was too high. The first thing we did was get out a thermometer and check water temperature. It was 67F on the surface. We decided to fly fish but no fish would be out of the water for more than 5 seconds for a quick picture. We also beefed up our tippet a bit so any caught trout were landed in a timely fashion. We kept our expectations low and we were pleasantly surprised with our success. The interesting thing was we were catching trout 3 to 5 feet below the surface. That surprised both of us. I talked to a fish biologist yesterday who said trout will adapt to water temperatures (to a point). The trout we caught yesterday didn't swim away, they bolted away with a feisty kick! We stopped fly fishing at 1 pm. The surface temperatures were edging on too high for our liking so we called it a day!

Do carry a thermometer in your kit.

If you are hitting your favourite lake, go early and monitor water temperature. My good friend Phil Rowley did an interesting water temperature check. Phil monitored water temperature at different depths. Some lakes definitely had a thermocline where water temperatures dropped a lot, in other lakes, the water temperature was almost uniform throughout the water column. Phil steered away from the lakes with the uniform water temperature, they were way too warm.

We also found a moderate chironomid hatch too. That was fun!

This time of the year I like to anticipate the water boatmen/ backswimmer activity. These little morsels are loved by both the trout and fly fishermen. Better get at the vice and stock up on your backswimmers and boatmen flies.