Rocky Mountain Whitefish on the Red Deer River

Rocky Mountain Whitefish are usually not on the radar of fly fisherman. Karen and I love to chase rockies, especially on the Red Deer River. Today we decided to spend a few hours trying to catch whites. We had a blast too! The river flows are near perfect! We wandered to a run where we have found rockies in the past. We rigged up with Wiggle Worms and Rainbow Warriors. We have had a lot of success with that combination before. We fly fished through the run extensively and caught nothing. Hmm, what to do. We decided that maybe our flies are not deep enough so we decided to add split shot. We usually set our strike indicator at about 2 to 2.5 times the depth of the water. We went a bit deeper. Well we started to connect with rockies after we added the third and fourth split shot onto our leader. Finally we were in the zone. Lots of mending helps the flies sink down too! 

Where do you find rocky mountain whitefish?  Riffle water and a riffle with a drop. The surprise of the day occurred when Karen decided to fly fish with Lance Egan's Blow Torch. The whitefish certainly liked to chase this fly. Often, all you need is a Wiggle Worm and a size 16,  Rainbow Warrior.

Blow Torch (Lance Egan)

Karen did connect on a decent brown trout today. It shook off but browns will certain respond to these nymphs. 

Rocky Mountain Whitefish are definitely worthy adversaries, give it a try!

The Golden Stone hatch on the RDR must have been decent this year!

 

Back to Birch Lake

Karen and I enjoy fly fishing Birch Lake. Today we made a return visit. The water temperature was a bit high but still within the acceptable range. The challenge of Birch Lake is getting on the water. There is a nasty hill to negotiate. We finally bought a frame with wheels that is used for moving kayaks around. It worked great getting our pram down to the water. You can buy these frames on Amazon or go to Canadian Tire ($60-$75).

We were set up quite quickly. We tried several places on the lake that had drop offs. These drop offs were quite productive for us. We used Tokaryk Specials, Ice Minnows and Flashbacks (size 14). Our typical depth was "Bernie Water." That is 12 feet of water for those of you who never fly fished with our late friend Bernie Peet. The surprise of the day was a throat sample with lots of tiny pin fry (minnows). Small ice minnows helped us connect with a lot of rainbows. Karen landed a decent brookie early in the day. We called it a day late in the afternoon. When we got to the boat launch, we knew we had to haul our gear back up that darn hill. Luckily we had our new kayak frame with wheels. It is still a grunt up the hill with our pram but it sure beat carrying it!

 

Fly Fishing Using an Electric Mountain Bike

In the space of the last 10 days, I have encountered two trips where mountain bikes were used to get to the water that was fly fished. Electric mountain bikes can be a great mode of transportation. Do a little research with Google Earth and you can find some gems to fly fish by using pedal power. Well done Colin and Bruce! I bet you two were hungry after that fabulous adventure!