Sunday Afternoon at Dickson

 It was busy along the shore today at Dickson. Little to no wind on a sunny but smokey afternoon. By the time Karen and I got there it was noon and the parking lot was full. Most people were bank fishers.

We launched the pram and looked for some mid lake structure to fly fish! That ended up being an excellent strategy. The water was 64 F and still looking great. Our best fly was a Tokaryk Special and a Glen's Leech. We did catch some on chromies and olive and copper chironomids.

Throat samples were all over the map. Daphnia, chironomids, leeches and cased caddis.

I did strip flashbacks for a while and connected with several trout! We did see lots of adult damsels and dragon flies and a few caddis just off of the surface.

Take a look at the throat samples. They certainly help you decide what flies to present. We fished mainly in 12 to 13 feet of water setting our depth around 10 feet!

Mid lake humps can have active fish feeding!

Cased Caddis!

Kananaskis Lakes

What a day! The weather and the scenery were amazing in Kananaskis Country today. We were lucky too because we beat the road closures for the G7 Summit Conferences that will shut down the main access to K-Country for almost 8 days starting next week! The F-18s were flying over the lakes and the police presence was everywhere on the roads in preparation for many world leaders to meet at Kananaskis Village next week!

Well Rick, Karen and I loaded up our truck and took the 1756 G3 on its first trek of the season. We spent the day at Lower Kananaskis Lake. We had a decent day out on the water. Rick landed a legitimate 30 inch rainbow that I measured. The rainbow Karen is holding above is the trophy that is back swimming in the lake. Rick caught it on a chironomid! That was a great moment!

We caught rainbows, a cutthroat, a sucker and I lost a rather large bull trout at the end of the day! Oh well, next time! Karen even caught a rainbow that jumped right into the boat!

Today was a blast. The scenery, fun on the boat with Karen and Rick, as well as connecting with some dandy trout, (ok a sucker is not a trout) made for one of those days not easily forgotten!

What a view!

Dandy Cutthroat

Now that is a full Moby Net

 

Sight Fly Fishing for Lake Whites-Finally Very Little Wind!

Thank goodness the wind finally sat down today. Karen and I jumped at the chance to get back out to chase lake whites at Sylvan Lake. The morning was just plain pleasant. Karen took the time to get her bird calls APP out. There were so many birds singing. I loved hearing doves and the spectacular eagles and osprey cruising on the wind currents. Loons stopped by to see how the fishing was. We saw large schools of perch. I hope the loons chowed down on them. 

The whites were hungry and we connected on lots. After a while, we decided to sight fly fish. We motored over to a shallow area in 5 feet of water. We set the pram up to drift over the shallow water. When we saw lake whites, I dropped the anchor and then we cast to the shallow feeding fish! Again bloodworms worked great although there were definitely chironomids on the water. 

The water quality at Sylvan is excellent and because of its sheer size, the water temperature stays down this time of the year. Next time we will try for walleye on the fly!

We left in the early afternoon so we could get some chores done, then get ready for the Oilers game. Go Oilers!

Again today, some inconsiderate fisherman cleaned their fish at the boat launch. They left quite a mess. It is not hard to properly dispose of the entrails after the fish have been cleaned. I hope fishermen of all sorts practice catch and release. There is no problem retaining fish. Retaining the maximum limit on a daily basis is not a good practice. 

Great weather ahead! Enjoy!