Windy Day on the Prairies

The wind was rocking yesterday. Karen and I knew that we could shore fly fish if we had to. When we arrived at our destination, we had to laugh because the wind was roaring. When we rigged up, we talked about how to modify our set up so we don't spend the entire day dealing with tangles. The first thing we did was cut off our dropper. We then shortened our leader. We fished with a 7 foot leader to a single fly. It looked kind of odd to fly fish with such a short leader but it definitely helped both of us a lot. We wanted to cover the water along the edges. Yep, we tied on a Tokaryk Special and pretty much stuck with it all day. We did not have to change to a different pattern. There were times that we had to wait for the wind gusts to settle before we could cast. We did find some deflections that had a bit less wind so our Tokaryks didn't slide down the lake at mach speed. 

We were amazed at our success. We caught lots of trout and even a bunch of pike.

At one point during the day, I saw a deflection that created a wind lane. I fly fished the wind lane where food for the trout can often accumulate. I had a lot of success fly fishing 4 feet down in the wind lane. When we walked the shore, Karen and I had to give a wide birth to bird nests on shore. The coots had several nests and they were full of eggs.

We caught a lot of rainbows, mainly stockers; a few tiger trout and several browns. Yes there were also pike present, mostly tiny pike but Karen did land a better one.

Our throat samples consistently had daphnia in them. Many of the takes were hard. We figured the trout were straining the daphnia. The trout swim with their mouth open and just scoop up the daphnia. 

We had a blast heading home. We had to dodge several thunderstorms but our day was amazing. 

Daphnia in the throat samples

Yep a wind lane

Coot nests were all along the shore

I love tiger trout!

A nice surprise at the end of the day!

 

Fly Fishing the Edges

Karen and I knew we were going to get out to fly fish today. We had a plan to head west but the weather radar pushed us east! We were pleasantly surprised to see so much water in the fields east of Red Deer. The sloughs are filling up and the pot hole lakes are in great shape. Where we went, the water temperature was 58F. We were pleasantly surprised. ...and the trout were actice!

Today was quite interesting. Many of the fish, especially the nicer fish were caught on the edges. We caught several in 2-4 feet of water right along the banks. We used Tokaryk Specials most of the day. There was a caddis hatch in the early afternoon. The fish were greedily sipping the caddis flies down. I did fly fish with a smaller sedge like pattern. I did get two takes. I will be armed with my caddis fly box next time!

Daphnia in most throat samples!

 

Lower Kananaskis Lake

Yesterday, Steve, Pat, Reese and I headed to Lower Kananaskis Lake. Both Steve and Pat are still working so our window to go was on the weekend even though the weather was not favourable. The high was 6C and it snowed on us a lot! Well we tried several spots and many different stategies but we came up empty. You are not going to catch big numbers at Lower K but you do have a chance at a big bull trout, rainbows or cutthroat trout! Today was not our day. No matter. We had a great time on the boat. We did have to bundle up. It was awesome to catch up with my friends. We laughed a lot!

We did encounter 7 grizzly bears including two right at the boat launch! You must carry bear spray and use common sense to avoid bear encounters. Keep your distance from bears.

If you do go to Kananaskis Lakes, check weather and wind. I did see a fellow on shore catch a few trout. He was working right along a drop off looking for cruising trout!