Central Alberta Fly Tying Club

Bruce Tilbrook Fly Fishing the Catskills

Hi Everybody!

Bruce Tilbrook sent me a neat set of images from a recent trip he took to the historic Catskills to fly fish. This is an area deeply rooted in history. Fly fishing in the Beaverkill River started in the late 19th Century! I can tell Bruce was enjoying not only the historical significance of the area but the neat characters he meet on his journey.

Bruce had been asked last January by a friend from Ottawa to join him with 3 of his Irish friends to fly fish the Delaware this spring. It was annual event for them for a number of years. The results were these pictures.

Bruce's buddy knew he had always been interested in fishing in the Catskills. Bruce had read many articles and stories over the years from guys like Harry Darbee and Lee Wulff. Considering this was basically the birth place of American fly-fishing and the original area where Theodore Gordon casted his quill flies, made it easy for Bruce to make the trip back east!

At the town of Roscoe, Bruce even had a look at the fly-fishing museum that Lee Wullf started and is continuing with the help of other anglers and donations. Looking at the various bits of tackle, flies, and writings, one does feel rather close to the 1800s when the streams were literally over run by brook trout (early 1800s). Brook trout virtually disappeared from the areas' streams by the mid 1800s and then stocking began with browns and some rainbows in the late 1800s. A terribly interesting place, even if you don't fly-fish.

Bruce and his friends angled the Beaverkill, Willowemoc and the East and West Delaware. Some of the pools were named on behalf of anglers like Darbee and Wulff.

Bruce caught browns but there were also rainbows present. It was mostly walk and wade but by this time of the year the anglers were many...almost too many. Something we here in Alberta are not used to such crowded water!

The reason for the fly-angler to visit this area at this time of the year was the Hendrickson hatch and tens of thousands were seen every day...along with 2 or 3 other mayflies, stoneflies, caddis and midges. Fishing was tough to say the least. .

Bruce says that he would go again in a heart beat. It is easy to see why!

...take a look!

Bob

This brown was 21 inches long and a fat 5 pounds! Bruce managed to fool him on a float trip on the Delaware. He was hooked on a size 20 parachute adams-6x tippet! Before Bruce arrived, one of the Irish fellows hooked and landed a 25 inch brown on a Quill Gordon size 18.

Fish Rescue at Bullshead!

Hi Everybody!

Every once in a while you meet a very dedicated passionate person who wants to do what is right! I knew Jeff loved Bullshead. He is affectionately known as "Beadhead" on a forum I occasionally check out. Just before heading to Bullshead, I wandered by the Fly Fish Calgary Forum and found out that Jeff was organizing a fish rescue at Bullshead right while we were there.

During the spring melt many rainbows in the reservoir took a crazy trip over the spillway and into the creek below the reservoir. Jeff realized that there were lots of rainbows just below the spillway and he hoped to capture many of them and get them back to their rightful place in the reservoir above.

Jeff was able to get the farmer of the surrounding land to lone a quad for the first day. Jeff was able to get special permission to conduct the rescue. There was a great crew on the day of the rescue. Unfortunately netting the fish did not work out so out came the fly rods to capture the rainbows. At the end of the day, 99 rainbows made it back to the lake; many of them were very impressive in size.

Jeff and his buddy John, meet Larry, his brother and I on day two. We had no quad so the work was going to be tougher. We did get close to 35 rainbows back to the lake before we ran out of energy. You can tell that catching the fish was the easy part. Humping the fish back up the hill to the lake was serious work.

Unfortunately we had to head home at short notice because of a family matter. 140 plus rainbows made it back to the lake and I suspect that Jeff will be at it a few more times.

I am sure that many of you have heard the "star fish" story. Putting a single star fish back into the ocean made a difference to that star fish! The last few days 140 plus rainbows made it back to a quality fishery. Those rainbows will grow large. Some will be harvested once they get to the 50 cm mark, many will enjoy being in the reservoir!

Way to go "Beadhead", I appreciate your passion. You made a big difference.

Jeff and his buddy John heading up the hill with a cooler full of rainbows.

Jeff and John releasing 5 more rainbows back into the lake!

Bullshead Reservoir

Bullshead Reservoir should definitely be on your to do list for fly fishing. Bullshead is in the Cypress Hills just outside of Medicine Hat. The reservoir is large with a main lake and a pond that it is connected by a large culvert. Yes it can be greatly affected by wind although when we were there, that was not the case. We caught decent numbers of fish using Glenn's Leech, "Rick's Special and chironomids. In the chironomid department, blood worms earlier in the day and a grey chironomid later in the afternoon and evening were the ticket!

There is lots of room to fish. It was not that busy when we were there!

The Cypress Hill are beautiful. The views are amazing. The reservoir has lots of fish, many of them are impressive in size. If you go, right after ice off until mid June is great and then in the fall. The triploids are getting large.