All About the Bugs /End of May Fishing Report

Right now the river is going up ...still fishable for some...crossable ? ? Trout seemed too get a little tougher to catch last week ..some I watched spawning ,some are done spawning and some are late and hanging near a friend.. Wade with caution , most of the spawners we spot are in fast but shallow crossing areas in tail out and near banks ..eggs hatch in 50 days ? ( just an educated guess ) .. Catching fish was all about the bug last week ..big nymphs didn't work at all for me in the murky run off... trout would not bite what I wanted them to .. I fished some old run off favourites from old day's (charteruse chenile worm, big rubber legged nymph's ) and I hardly saw a rise even during a good hatch. Nymphing a size 18# or 16# was the ticket ... After an hour of fishless water, thoughts of all the trout spawning on that day would have pretty much turned too facts untill the right little bug twitched through the run and bang ! Hammered it ! a cast or two after releasing a nice trout , bang ! Hammered again . This happened for me every time out and always searching for a different bug every day .. So much for the notion of disinterested spawners .. Just Crowsnest trout being Crowsnest trout . On the last day out with Suzy and friend Bill , Monday was turning into another fishless day until mother nature gave me a hint . A pressure change brought out dozen of swallows anticipating a riverside dinner . I went and stood in a back eddy and pulled out a nymph box , after a minute a Western March Brown floated by . I had four bead head flash back hares ears of the appropriate size . I picked a hand tyed one with a flashy emerging shuck and attached it to the indicator set up . (if I use a indicator after the snow is gone I'm desperate ) , Some line was pulled out and thrown onto the water short of the inside seem . I watched the bobber immediately go down as I was pulling more line out, I struck the fish . This was not a lethargic spawner , straight out to the current , it jumped on it's tear down stream . Before I could move in the grass it was thrashing directly down stream like a stealhead and the hook popped out. Next cast, same spot a ten foot drift and a hook up on a hot fish that went straight out to the cliff on the other side .this trout was the fish of the month , 22-23 inch rainbow . I thought I had it on good , until I yelled for a camera assistant . The strong fish won , thats O.K. My visiting friend needed a fish today, I took off my good fly and tied it on for Bill. Suzy and I tied on the regular BH Hares flash Back Ears from my box.. Bill hooked a nice one in that spot within ten casts ..Suzy eventually took hers off and fished a dry as the skies darkened and the swallows soared way up there eating something .. I tried , the trout thought the regular pattern unworthy . Bills fish had the same battle plan as my first fish and did the steel head thing in the swift water . We crossed down steam and fished a back eddy in the next hole .. Swallows worked the water now . A few drops of rain were hitting the water by the time I had my dry Fly box out .Bills fly had lost it's magic as small blue wing olives now floated by.. reel in Bill . A dry was tied on quickly... this was Bill's last shot , he was too be two hours late getting home to wife in Banff. A rise was seen , and a target located , now two or three more rose in the same current seam . The trout he caught fought the battle in the back eddy and was landed , then immortalized digitaly and e-mailed to Banff . Bill did great for a rooky on the last two day's , even with the tough fishing he keeps trying and dosn't give up. He does what I suggest , and has learned good technique in the dozen day's of his fly fishing career.. The day before we fished a spot that two good anglers had dredged for over an hour with big flies and lead . I found my last little olive nymph that had solved the problem of the day earlier in the week. The little size #16 caught him a 20 inch rainbow and he stuck two more , basically out fishing me, but hey , I gave him the bug . " It's All Good " Off I go to this week to make a little money millwrighting as the rivers rise ... There has been no sign of the Crowsnest Salmon Fly yet .. Suzy will be running her Fly Shop in Coleman when they hatch, and I will be tying up some of the big bugs up in Fort Mc Murray, for when I return all Alberta's waters will be open to angling and the start of the 2009 season . We will have the bugs..

Daily Disasters

The Crowsnest has held it,s own this month .. It blew out one hot day a couple weeks ago at about 10 cm/s ,rolling mud . Then the weather cooled right down ,so we fished somewhat high water for the last two weeks with reasonable visability . Wading was often touch and go and I went for a swim , casting and crossing a fast tailout on Sunday . My feet went out and water was up to my neck in half a second ( CAMERA !)... Had to let go of my fly rod to pull the camera out of the flooding bibb of my waders ..I held it high, turned down stream , tip toed suddenly weightless , pushed by the current , scooped up that floating fly rod , moon walked in zero gravity to the bank , threw the rod to a soft spot, ejected the batteries , ejected the camera card , popped off the lense cover ,dropped shoulder straps, dumped water to my waste belt ( always tight )and was standing there looking casual by the time my friend Bill had finished the drift of his fly . I walked upstream hung the camera in the sunshine and fished the next run. Bill eventually followed the route I pointed out to him , he looked sceptical .. Bill didn't try to fish his way across, and came across without tripping up on those bowling balls ...We walked up a rocky bluff to spy on sipping trout . Bill looked closer " you look wet" ... yea.. don't tell Suzy ..Bill knows , we grew up together on the same street.. We don't tell the women folk nothing ! Our poor mothers..if they knew of our daily disasters, they would not have let us out of the house .. Our moms only new of events that required stiches, left bruises,needed assistance or intervention from doctors , teachers, police and firemen. Being dragged home to the door step by any adult was a dead give away of a disaster, as was the knock on my door from that newspaper reporter when I was eleven yeas old..busted ! Mom answered it .. When Suzy and I were dating she was picking me and some clients up at a bridge on the Waterton River.. it was a dark and stormy night (sounds familiar ?) and almost 1:30 am when we reached that take out point. It was black out ( I told those guy,s to speed it up all day ).For more than two hours I was rowing away from any river noise in the moonless dark..dodging boulders... I was worried about my girl worring about me ! She was parked on the bridge . Anticipating tears when I opened her truck door ... she had her feet up swilling a beer, reading murder mystery as usual... that was ten years ago...She's so different I married her (also a great fly fisher ) My wife Suzy worries mostly about the dog and the camera , after I fried the last camera in the Thompson River two years ago and the dog had balls of cactus stuck to all four paws . The water in my clothes eventually reached my feet and it was time to BBQ up some deer for my visiting city friend . Well the camera survived and Suzy never reads this blog ...