Thursday, October 28, 2021

Last Shot at the Eastern Slopes Before Halloween Closure


Doug and I wanted one last crack at one of our blue ribbon Eastern Slopes rivers before they are closed until next June 15th. The weather forecast encouraged us to make today the day. Snow was in the forecast and Doug had his snow tires on and ready to go! Doug picked me up at 7 am and off we went. We were fly fishing by 9:30 am when it was a frosty -5C. Iced up guides and nymphing was going to be the order of the day. We had our layers on. Doug is an experienced steelheader so he knows how to stay warm on the coldest of days! Our day started off slow. We were probably a bit early. We hooked a few cutthroat and they all shook off. After walking to two other runs, we came back to our starting spot and the cutts were active. Our best fly was a size 18 red brassie on 5x tippet. We connected with a lot of our prized west slope cutthroat. By 2 pm the action was mostly over. As Doug said, the window seemed to shut! We had already done very well and as we packed up we paid homage to one of those special places that we love until next June. We packed up and made our way back to Red Deer. It was a perfect way to close out our cutthroat fly fishing season. 

We still have several lakes that we can fly fish until freeze up and the Red Deer River below the dam and of course parts of the Bow River and the Crowsnest River are open still.  Remember that Sylvan and Gull Lakes are closed on October 31st until December 11th.

Still lots of fly fishing to be had! Bundle up and get out there!












 

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