Spectacular Michele Lakes-Golden Trout

A fly fishing trip to Michele Lake is one of my favourites. You can hike in by following a challenging trail up Owen Creek or you can head in from Sunset Pass area in Banff National Park. Or, ... you can helicopter into Michele Lakes from Cline River with Rockies Heli Canada. I have done the hike over Sunset Pass and I have survived the arduous grind up Owen Creek! These days I opt for the 20 minute flight along the eastern slopes. Michele Lakes is situated behind Mt. Wilson at 2300m. You can definitely camp at either Upper Michele Lakes or Lower Michele Lakes. There are bear lockers at the upper lake.

Only Lower Michele Lakes has golden trout! It is open for August, September and October for fishing! Please put them back! Catch and release will allow these goldens to thrive for years to come!

I love the beautiful colours of the golden trout! I have had lots of success using tiny brassies, micro leeches and tiny ice minnows. Yes you can catch them on dry flies too! Small parachute flies and griffiths gnats will definitely get the attention of the golden trout!

Karen and I love to hike in this area too! The chances of seeing wildlife is excellent and you definitely need to be bear aware!

Take a look!

 

Windy Sylvan Lake

Karen and I sure hope the wind settles down soon. It is limiting where we can fly fish! Well we got to Sylvan Lake a bit late. That was just fine. The north west wind was whipping up everything but we knew where there was a potential spot to get out of the wind and fly fish for lake whitefish! Once at the lake, we saw that nobody was brave enough to be out there. We bundled up and tucked into a moderately windy area. The water temperature was 54F, that was excellent. We knew the lake whites would not be deep.  We had to let out lots of extra anchor rope so we would not drag. That worked reasonably well!  Karen caught one first cast. She had an excellent day. I was not having the same catch rate until I changed from a point fly and tag fly to two flies tied in one after the other. In other words, one fly's tippet tied to the top fly, then I was doing great too. We could not figure that one out but it was worth the switch. 6-7 feet of water was the depth that got us decent action. The strange thing was how many times, the wind changed direction. That at times made setting up the boat a challenge.  We fly fished with our usual rig. Look at the pictures then you will know too.

The wind may settle down on Wednesday. I sure hope so!

 

Two Excellent Chaoborus Fly Patterns

After Encountering chaoborus out on our local waters, I asked Rick Miyauchi to suggest some patterns. Below is what Rick has in his fly box. I will definitely add these to my fly selection.

Here are the two patterns I use when tiny granny apple green chironomids or chaoborus are on the menu. Top pattern is Gord Honey’s Cousin. 

Top Fly in Photo

Cousin (Gord Honey)

Hook: #14-#18. Your favorite chironomid hook style.

Thread: Brown.

Body: Krystal Flash, Lime Green. 

Rib: X-Sm, UTC copper wire. Alternative material Sulky Holoshimmer or Sliver Metallic sewing thread Copper. Sulky threads are finer in width to Flashabou and make excellent rib material on very small patterns keeping patterns slimmer than wire may produce. 

Bead: Copper 

Pattern history and tying instructions can be found in Phil Rowley’s book, Stillwater Selections. 

Bottom Pattern is a wire worm variant. 

Hook: #16-#20. Your favourite chironomid hook style. 

Thread: Brown. 

Body: X-Sm, UTC chartreuse wire. 

Bead: Copper 

Tying instructions: This pattern is tied in the fashion of ice fishing wire worms that were developed here in Alberta for lake whitefish.

Step one: Leaving a two inch tag or so. Start winding the wire body from the bend of the hook to the bead. Keep close touching turns until a body of the desired length is formed. From the bead side wiggle the wire until it breaks off. Slide body into bead then firmly hold wire body and wiggle the starting tag. It is IMPORTANT to hold the wire body firmly to prevent the body from unspooling when breaking off the starting tag. Start thread just behind bead to create a thorax. Once completed whip finish and cut off. Coat entire fly from bead to end of body with your choice of body coating. Sally Hansen’s or UV resin. 

Note: Let your creativity go wild with different size hooks, wires sizes and colours, beads (brass or tungsten) and bead colours. Two or even three different wire colours can be used to create different visual blends of colours and using for example two (extra small) wires and a third (small) wire creates a segmented (ribbed) effect. This pattern is best suited to indicator fishing (or ice fishing) as the finished product can be very heavy.