Post Lost Creek Fire

I met him this July (2012) on a stretch of the Crowsnest river (Crow) I haven't been on in 8 yrs. He was in his late 60's maybe even 70's. I estimated his age by how he waded which was cautiously and often supported by a wading stick. It is hard to tell the age of someone in full fly fishing gear: waders; sunglasses; bandana; floppy hat. He did have the distinct look of someone who has fly fished for a long time. Don't ask me the specifics of this look, it is more a Gestalt thing.

His back was to me. I called out from some distance so as not to spook him which I did any way. We ended up speaking for one half hour about the Crow.

He said he had been out for 6 hours and that there were no insects. I agreed things were slow. I had only been on the water for one half hour and spent much of this time hiking to the pool I met him on. I was going to wait there for an hour or two to see if I could spot some nice fish rise before darkness. It was already 7:30 pm. The night before this strategy worked well on a different section as a moderate PMD hatch occurred at 8:30 and two very nice trout slid over to a shallow bank where insects get funnelled and started to feed rhythmically. I told him to "hang in" for the next hour or so as I explained I saw fish the night before. He didn't seem convinced.

He told me he had fished the Crow for 18 years and that since the Lost Creek Fire of 2003 the PMD hatch has never been the same. He said the fishing prior had always been amazing, and he figured that that would go on forever. He wanted it to go on forever. He reminisced about the good old hatch days and I listened. He spoke about black ash flowing down the river during the fire and seemed convinced this had affected bug production.

I said I had fished the Crow for 11 years and that my first season on it was the summer of 2001 in July and that PMD hatch had been a very good one. I felt that since then the hatch had never been as strong, even 2002 the year before the fire
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There we were knee deep in the Crow trying to figure it out!

We spoke about our mutual interest in fishing small mayflies and also about dry fly rivers elsewhere, including ones in Montana where he fished regularly. I told him about my favourite river south of the border. He said he would check it out.

Eventually we parted ways. He slowly moved downstream to fish closer to the B&B he was staying at. I focused on the pool we had been standing in. I spotted no rising fish in the next hour or so. Thunder began to rumble. A serious storm was coming my way. While walking back to my car I spotted a good fish rising to a PMD and landed it before heading home. Success... post Lost Creek Fire!