Central Alberta Fly Tying Club: Backcountry Brook Trout in Banff National Park

Sunday, August 23, 2020

Backcountry Brook Trout in Banff National Park

Steve Luethi photo

I love brook trout. Especially high country brookies that seem to be always dressed up! Steve, Hayden, Pat and I decided to make the long trek to two lakes to fly fish for these beautiful fish! Steve and I headed out at 4 am to pick up Hayden and Pat on Highway 1 at the Petro Canada at Cochrane for 5:30 am. We started our hike at 7:30 am after a drive through a nasty thunderstorm as we passed Canmore and Banff! It took a bit more than two hours to get to the lakes. The wind was blowing hard and it was cold. Time to layer up. The young guys tied on chernobyls and they were into the bright beautifully coloured right away. I tried nymphing with moderate success. The brookies wanted chernobyls at 7400 feet. Crazy! We fished along rocks that had a great drop off. Yep the brookies were there! The wind, ya the wind continued to intensify. I had my winter coat on, a sweater and wind pants. The wind was bitter.

We decided to head to the next lake that was merely another km away although it required a good climb! The brookies were a bit larger. The good news, we were out of the wind for the most part! We were quite successful there too.

After a few hours at the upper lake, I went back down to the lower lake. The brookies were still quite active.

As the afternoon wore on, it was time to head down. Hayden and Pat were having a snooze. Steve and I fly fished back towards them. We caught several more gems.

There is talk that Parks Canada may kill off the lakes we fished. That in my opinion would be a tragedy.

The hike out is a steady downhill grind. The muscles were screaming and we all are deydrated from close to 30 km of walking. Well worth the effort in my opinion. After getting to the car, we headed to Canmore to enjoy burgers and fries and a pint.

The guys insisted that we have dessert. They wanted to have "Cone on the Cob." What? Well you get two ice cream cones, flatten the top and stick two ice cream cones together. Viola, "Cone on the Cob!" Then brain freeze!

What a great trip.