Trout Spotting Under a Prairie Sky

"Man makes plans, and God laughs"

--Yiddish Proverb

I only had four or five hours to fish on Saturday and decided to head to a location at least 45 minutes away. I went as the sky was fairly clear and I was hoping to spot trout. The two pools I wanted to fish are below bluffs and are about a 30 minute hike from where I park. I knew I would have only a couple of hours to actually fish. Not a lot of time but I know the spot fairly well and felt that with the mid day high sun I might see some good fish from the cliffs, and maybe connect with one. I had been on the river last week in the evening and knew the water was just about as clear as it ever gets, and that the flow was good for dry fly angling. You see, I had a plan.

cottonwood trail to pools



trout spotting from above

So off I went. Normally I'm pretty good at obeying speed limits but I flew at warp speed once I was off the main highway and onto the rural prairie roads. I kept imagining a fellow with a heavy Scottish accent saying, "Captain the Dilithium crystals just can't take it anymore at this speed" (Star Trek). Hawks eyed me whizzing by from their hay bale perches. There were two trucks parked at the river and I could see anglers wading nearby. I thought, "Hopefully no one went way downstream?" I geared up and quickly hiked the faint trail to where I wanted to fish. At the first pool it took me a little while to start seeing fish even from up high. There is "looking" and then there is actual "seeing". The two aren't the same. Sometimes you "look" for your car keys but fail to "see" them right in front of you on the kitchen table. It is easy to look but harder to see. I seem to be able to make the shift to "seeing" when I stop moving and do even better if I kneel or sit down. Eventually I spotted three trout. Two were roaming around in fairly deep water but every once in awhile one would rise and eat from the surface in a soft spot where food was collecting. It looked good. I was confident I had a chance to fool one. I dropped down from the bluff and fished it from an upstream position. After one cast I started second guessing my strategy and was considering circling downstream to cast to it from behind. In the middle of that "thought" the fish took my offering and I landed him...a rainbow.



18" rainbow on dry

I walked to the next pool and watched the water from up high as I went. I located another nice fish on the bank between pools. It was sipping on the occasional PMD in very shallow, slow water. I hiked down the embankment and fished it from behind. I hooked but did not land it. Another nice rainbow.

At the second pool I spotted a good fish rise in a subtle, slow flow with a narrow bubble line. Then the trout disappeared. From my perch I watched the area for 20 or 30 minutes. Some high white clouds appeared which made spotting more challenging. Eventually a head poked up and it started feeding fairly consistently. I fished to it upstream. Another rainbow. After that it was time to go home.



20" rainbow on small dry fly

Not all angling outings work out as hoped. Most don't. Today it did...I made a plan and God smiled on me.

Roaming & Trout Spotting

 "These good times are like money in the bank. We were born lookin' for rainbows...Let's go fishin', Frank... If anyone asks you what it's all about, wink and grin and tell 'em trout."

 

-- from Let's Go Fishin' Frank, by Danny O'Keefe

One week ago a good friend was visiting and we roamed around and tossed flies on several rivers in the SW corner of Alberta. It was tough angling. It seemed like the recent floods have simply punched the life out of many streams.The Crowsnest river, on the days I walked it, had few mayflies and I didn't even see one large sipper. Unusual for July. The PMD hatch simply didn't develop. There were large and mid-sized stone flies on some sections of the river and you could prospect with a dry but even that was very slow going.

river side flood damage

My favourite local hatch river, the lower Oldman, was beyond silty: think chocolate milk! In the past two weeks, I have seen little improvement in it. The visibility is less than one foot and I don't see it clearing anytime soon.

The lower Castle river, on the one day I fished it, was clear but seemed void of life: trout and bugs. I spotted a Toad stream side: tough little guy. I don`t know how he survived the recent torrent.

toad

sight fished rainbow, caught by author on dry fly

There was some life on a river further south and it was fairly clear. And we had some luck with a Cutthroat stream up in the mountains. We just kept moving around and searching.



beautiful cutthroat, caught by Joe F on dry fly

big rainbow caught sight fishing, by Joe F on dry fly



clear sky and great terrain for trout spotting

Our persistence paid off on some days in what so far has been a very tough season for the dry fly angler. The pictures capture our successes but what you don`t see is all the long hours we put in every day; the many miles covered on foot; the time spent in the mid-day heat standing on high cliffs and the grassland benches searching the water below for a few good fish; and the long faces and frustration after some very challenging days. We did catch some fish; and several very special ones. There were no gimmes this week. My friend, Joe, a versatile angler, caught trout on all the rivers we fished. There were a few angling moments where it all came together. And other moments like the drive home one day from the plains to the foothills where for a split second my eye caught a Pinto Mare and her Colt illuminated in a green field by the warm, soft setting sun during what painters and photographers call the Magic Hour...an image I'll never forget.




crowsnest river rainbow, caught by Joe F, prospecting with dry fly

The most fascinating angling days for me were when we got to sight fish to several large trout. It was classic trout spotting, watching them cycle and fishing dries in very shallow water...so visual!

An excellent DVD on this type of angling is: Sight Fishing Trout Rivers by Jensen Fly Fishing. It is full of information and the video footage is beautiful.



rainbow caught sight fishing with dry fly in shallows by author



trout spotting from cliff

rainbow trout, caught by Joe F

Cheeseburgers, Damsels in Distress, and Pale Morning Doves

"The first thing you learn in life is you're a fool. The last thing you learn in life is you're the same  fool".
-Ray Bradbury

Two anglers 30 yards upstream of me were discussing the fishing situation. One fellow reported he had tried five different flies on a particular trout with no response. He said, in what I thought sounded like a New Jersey accent, "Man these fish are hard". His friend concurred. He was going to make one more fly change and said, "If that doesn't work I'm going to put a cheeseburger on a hook...I bet that gets his attention". The other fellow said he had talked to an angler in the morning who told him the trout were eating a Mayfly called a Pale Morning Dove. His friend said, "I think they are called Pale Morning Dun". His buddy relied, "No, he said Dove". The conversation went on and on, back and forth between "Dove or Dun, Dove or Dun, Dove or Dun". After five minutes of this I almost screamed out "For God's sake it is Dun, not a Dove"! But it really didn't matter: Dun, Dove, Pale Morning Dove, Pale Mourning Dove, or even a Pale Morning Bun!...they were clearly having fun and engrossed in fishing the creek and so was I.

silver creek east

The Jersey boys and I were on Silver Creek in Idaho, in 100 F heat and the place was almost at a stand still. Even the riverside birds had stopped singing. A nearby heron looked like he was teetering and going to pass out. I kept dunking my ball cap in the creek. The Jersey conversation continued: "Hey, I walked across a section of the creek earlier and got stuck in the silt... it was like quick sand....it took everything in me to pull my feet out...it was sucking me down...I thought I was a goner! His friend said, "this certainly is a different place".

20 inch bow on size 16 PMD

While listening to the conversation I was watching Damsel flies. They were landing and clustering on the green stems which broke the surface above the expansive weed mats of the creek. Every once in awhile a trout would skim the surface of a mat, creating a wake with it's back and surge at a cluster of Damsel flies. Sometimes I'd see a dorsal fin cutting through the water like a shark feeding. This went on in the mid-day heat: an occasional trout prowling and lunging at the Bluet Damsel flies in just inches of water and then retreating to the deeper channels between all the thick green creek vegetation. I patiently waited for one to feed in this manner and then tossed my damsel fly impression at it. I had some success with this strategy but did even better when I used a black beetle. Plunking the beetle close to the trout scared them. I did best by watching where a trout was heading (damsel fly cluster) and feeding my beetle pattern downstream to that location. If I was lucky enough to get it in the trout's cruising path, often it slurped up my offering which was right at eye level. Then it would go crazy fighting on top of the weed mat and try to head for the channels, or bury itself in the weeds. I landed some but many got off using the green growth to their full advantage. They were skilled at this.



 

silver creek rainbow

That was my mid-day fishing. I also walk the creek stalking good sized trout in the shallows using the high sun, blue sky and clear water to my advantage, and then making long casts as the fish were easily spooked. I caught several nice fish this way. It was challenging sight-fishing.

silver creek brown

In the evening "Pale Morning Doves" were the main hatch. Most fish were on emergers just feeding subsurface. A few fish were on dries and I targeted them but they were very picky. I collected several PMD naturals and studied them. Their wings were yellower than my impressions and the bodies although mainly yellow had an olive shade to them. They were darker than my flies. My impressions had wings of either grey and white polypropylene, light or medium dun CDC and some with light deer hair. The deer hair came closest to the natural wing colouring but it was not quite right. I had nothing in my travelling tying kit which seemed to match it. Then while looking at my dog I found the right colour: golden retriever hair. I tied up a several PMD's with a retriever hair wing ( golden hue) and tied the bodies first with a quick wrap of green thread then pale yellow over it which when wet looked like the natural Mayfly. I had better success with my new fly the next evening and the night after that. Was it the colouring?.. who knows...but that's the fun of Silver Creek. It certainly is a different place. From now on I'm calling that beautiful summer Mayfly a Pale Morning Dove.

bluet damsel flies

Here are a few more snaps from this special public spring creek.