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.