Canadaland Report

[Poke 'Em]

I was going to go to Alberta back in July, but late runoff and heavy rains postponed that trip until last week. I did finally make it up to Alberta, though, with three goals in mind. 1. Catch a bull trout. 2. Catch a westslope cutthroat. 3. Catch a 24" bull trout.

Not a bad view heading up to the mountains...



After an 11 hour drive though, I finally made it to the first feeder creek I was going to fish. A few minutes later I caught my first westslope cutt:



A bit later I came up on a deep hole so I tied on a big white wooly bugger. A few drift through there and I caught my first bull trout!



Unfortunately, that was about all she wrote for that stream. I missed a couple more strikes, but the fishing wasn't as fast and furious as I was hoping for. So I headed down to the main river to try to catch a big bull. I found a nice looking hole and pulled out my seven weight. Unfortunately, I didn't see any big bulls, but I did get a nice fat westslope to slam a big streamer.





But, hey, the clouds parted just before it got dark!

[ScottP]

Pretty fish, pretty water, pretty country. Thanks for sharing.

Regards,
Scott

[Poke 'Em]

The next day, I headed downstream on the main river, again in search of a big bull.

I found a really nice looking run, but again, the bulls weren't there, but the big cutts were.



This was one of several fish I caught that had a messed up jaw. This area gets a fair amount of fishing pressure, and you can see it in some of the bigger fish. It's catch and release only, thankfully, and you can tell many of these fish have been caught before.

Anyway, I just caught the one nice cutt on the downstream section, so I moved upstream and fished a big feeder stream. This is an absolutely gorgeous stream. It's in a wide valley, but then it drops down into a narrow canyon for the river. It produces a bunch of nice holes and some really nice scenery on the river. The water's also a beautiful deep green color, with visibility down to at least 7 or 8 feet.



It was raining all day, so with no surface bug activity, I mostly swung streamers, and pulled out several really nice westslopes.



There were lots of fish in the 14-19" range, and they all had really thick shoulders. This guy was a solid 16".



Also, there's a half of a man in the side of that wall, which I did not see until I looked at the photos later.



That afternoon, I moved upstream and as I was driving, we had a good cold front come through, accompanied by a pretty heavy thunderstorm. At 4:30 in the afternoon, the temperature was 38? F, and this was only at 5800'. Once the thunderstorm passed, I got back out of the truck and immediately caught a couple of nice cutts from a small run. Check out the water clarity in the background of this photo:



This was the same run seven minutes later:



That pretty much put the fish down, but I was able to basically chase the mud line downstream a mile or two at a time and kept fishing clear water all afternoon.

[Poke 'Em]

The clouds came back though, and brought the rain with them. The next morning, I tried to head to the headwaters of the main river. Unfortunately, the rains from the previous day and that morning made the road impassable. The scenery was nice though.









I started upstream of the falls and I couldn't keep the little cutts off the end of my line. In an hour and a half or so I picked up at least a dozen cutts, all 7-9". I kept working downstream and the fish kept getting bigger. There was nothing huge, though I did pick up this pencil of a bull trout.



The main stem of the river wasn't producing nearly as well as the trib that I'd fished yesterday, so I decided to head back and fish a stretch just upstream of where I fished the day before. Still hoping for a big bull (and very happy to settle for big cutts), I tied on a big (size 1) streamer. This guy was took about 7 or 8 swats at it, but he finally got a hold of my fly. This picture didn't do him justice, as he was the biggest cutt of the trip, measuring right at 19".



The sun finally came out though, and the bugs came out with it. This hole had at least 15 or 20 different fish rising, and I caught half of them or better.

[Poke 'Em]

The next (and final) morning, I headed north about 40 miles to try a completely different drainage, still hoping for a big bull. On the way, as I was crossing this creek, I saw a black bear standing in the middle of the stream. I slammed on the brakes (it was a dirt road), and another car came up behind me. They seemed rather frustrated that I was stopping in the middle of the road. I don't know whether they didn't see the bear standing in the middle of the creek, or if, being Canadians, they just see so many bears that they don't think they're cool. By the time I got backed up to take a picture, the bear had gotten out, but you can still see him (he's the big black spot just above the stream).



I started out upstream and only had a few swings and misses on a streamer. So I moved downstream to try a bigger stretch. I noticed a big fish rising out in the middle of the river, but I couldn't see anything on the water, so.... I just went with a big hopper. My third drift got a big fish to turn and chase it downstream. It turned out to be a big rainbow (21-22"). Unfortunately, my camera had gotten wet earlier and while it was taking pictures, the screen wasn't working (it's fine now), so I didn't get a good picture of him.

Just downstream, a nice feeder stream dumped into the main river. Just above the mouth, there was a very deep pool and fish were rising. There were some really big, grey mayflies trying to hatch. I tied on my biggest grey dry fly (a size 12, and it still wasn't as big as the naturals) and got a big fish to come up on my second or third drift. He promptly broke me off. For the next hour, a couple of really nice fish (20" +) kept rising through this hole, but they would not take my fly. These big mayflies were hatching, getting up on top of the water and twitching around trying to get out of their shells. My fly was a spot on match for them (except for being perhaps a size too small), but if you didn't make it twitch just right, the fish weren't taking it. After close to an hour of getting nothing, all the while watching a couple of big fish swim around and gulp down naturals, my patience was wearing thin. The fish weren't feeding in any patter, they were just swimming in circles and feeding at random. So I decided to tie on a big heavy streamer and see if I could entice one that way. This water was crystal clear, and from my hiding spot behind a bush I could see everything. On my very first drift, a big bull trout (24" +) came out and gulped down my fly. I set the hook, he gave a couple of head shakes, and my fly came shooting out.

Oh well. Unfortunately, that was the only shot I got at a really nice bull. Oh well, the scenery was nice at least.



Oh, and on the way back there were cute little bighorn sheep in the middle of the road!



I did head back to the same stream I'd fished the previous couple of days and picked up a few more cutts and one more small bull. Apparently I had a quota of one small bull trout per day.

[lastchance]

Great report and really nice photos. Thanks

[jimsnarocks]

Neat report. Nice fishes and beautiful area. Thanks, Jim

[JohnScott]

Welcome to the club, Patrick. You got into some fine West Slope cutts, for sure. As a species, West Slopes seldom get over 17-18". That 19" fish you landed is undoubtedly one of the biggest ones in the river you were on, if not the biggest. On a species to species comparison, it is the equivalent of a 30" plus bull trout.

Beautiful country, for sure, and some great looking cutthroat water. I'm still thinking about going up to Alberta this fall, so if you have a minute could you PM me with some stream names and campground information from your trip ?? Thanks.

Just a heads up, for future reference. West Slope cutts look up. You don't have to wait for hatches, generally, to fish to them with dry flies. That may not be true for those Alberta cutts, but if you do go back, keep that possibility in mind. Nothing wrong with streamers and nymphs, but for my money the best sight in fly angling is seeing a cutthroat come to a dry fly.

John

[Poke 'Em]

I don't know, a cutthroat rising to a dry fly might be the best sight, but a big cutt slamming a streamer in heavy current is the best feeling in fly fishing (at least as far as trout go).

Honestly, I didn't have much success on dries unless there was a hatch going on. On the cutthroat streams I usually fish here in the states, they'll hit a dry almost any time. But up there, I don't know if it was the pressure they see or what, but they seemed far less willing. Now, when there was a hatch, they'd hit dries with reckless abandon.

I'll PM you some info on where I was.

[JohnScott]

Patrick -

Got the PM. Thanks. If you clear your inbox, I'll get back to you on my plans.

John