The Sighted, Downstream Take

It was quite spectacular, really. An overhanging spruce tree with a stump on the top end. The water was low, gin clear. An ochre tail flagged in the sunbeam arcing through the spruce into the water. A good brown. 25". Large, heavy male. Thick as. Feeding, swaying. Popping and nymphing.
Brian was up. We'd spent the day sighting browns in heavy cover and got a few good breaks. Most fish were straight ahead, both he and I could see them from our respective vantages. This one was different. Plain to see, my vantage was gold. He sort of saw the fish when he stepped on the bank and I showed him where.  I think he was more relying on the sporadic rises to position the fish. The trouble was that the rises were not always on spot with its lie, often to the right. And with that, his cast landed slightly to the right and a foot downstream of the trout.
To this point of the day, he'd not had to rely on my communication, having been able to see the movement of every fish we'd spotted. This was different. As his cast land, the bead headed nymph plopped. The fish's lateral line keyed up and detected its presence. It turned a snaking 180 a foot to its right, moving downstream.
"Here he comes!" I called.
As the well laid out nymph began its pendulum drop in the water column below the dry, the large brown took the nymph and continued downstream with the flow of water. I saw its large, incredibly large, white mouth open wide. "Set! Set! Set!" I called to Brian. The dry fly never moved. Brian had no reaction. The fish continued down, its large, incredibly large, white mouth opened once more to release the nymph as I continued to call. Finally, after a two seconds of calling, he set. By then the fish had left the nymph alone and had become reclusive, shy.
I described what had happened. Having anticipated the dry fly movement, he missed it altogether. Having seen everything, I was beside myself. We both were enthralled at the engagement, mind you. We left that moment with a clear understanding that when the spotter calls, the angler responds in a controlled manner.

A good thing!

We stepped 5 yards upstream and a nice brown was coming slowly down the middle of the current. I called to place a cast 2 rod lengths up, literally anywhere mid stream. His cast hooked to my shore, a rod length away in the bright afternoon sun. The fish had already moved downstream of the cast. The plop of the nymph dropper was again picked up by the lateral line. The nice male turned 120 degrees and came back upstream, angled right at the bank below my feet. "Here he comes!" It rose in the water column. Like watching golden trout feed, it flared its pectoral fins to slow. But it lurched forward. "He's giving it a good look". And then its large, white mouth opened and closed. "Set! Set! Set!" I called out. By my second "Set!", the fish was well hooked.

In both cases, the browns relied on the lateral line to pick up food falling into the water. It was glorious to watch, a completely enthralling set of engagements. The day had gone that way for us. But it served as a reminder that the downstream take/feed is such an important thing to be aware of. It likely happens a third of the time as our casts don't quite cover the 'proper' water when fishing tight to structure, unable to cover the fish with the best drift above and down to the fish's location. It's in those circumstances I really try my best to get a good look to spotting trout in order to help my guests with the best chances of landing what is often a very nice brown.

Sight-fishing is a wonderful game. And there are many opportunities in Alberta to enjoy it. If interested in joining us next season, please email info@flyfishalberta.com 

Cheers

Dave Jensen

RMH area QSF lakes update

Rec'd this email from Rocky:

 

"Guys,

Finally found some time to do a basic summary of our test fishing day at Fiesta Lake. There were 46 trout caught that day, then a couple of us went back on Sep 14 & 19 and added another 9 fish to the sample, so a total of 55 trout were measured. Here’s the summary of what we found:

• catch rate of 0.67 trout / hour.
• total length range of 27 – 57 cm (11 – 23”).
• weight range of 0.2 – 1.5 kg (0.5 – 3.3 lb).
• 18% of the catch was over 50 cm (QSF objective is 10 – 15% over 50 cm).
• catch by year-class was comprised of 2007 stock – 1, 2008 stock – 12, 2009 stock – 11, 2010 stock – 5, 2011 stock – 4, 2012 stock – 22.
• growth and condition of trout remains very acceptable.

We’re not sure why the 2010 and 2011 stocks were represented so poorly, but we’re starting to wonder about the effects of that one aggressive loon (pink band on one leg, green band on other leg) on disoriented released fish of “loonable” size. If that loon is able to get even one trout per day over the summer period, you can understand that a good-sized bite is taken out of the annual stock injection of 550 fish at Fiesta. There were 2 – 3 loons observed at Fiesta over the summer. The combined effects from otter, mink, loon, osprey, and eagle (total predation) at all three of our QSF lakes is likely having a significant effect on stock status – probably more than the total mortality related to angling.

If you have any questions, give me a shout. Thanks again to those of you who helped us on Sep 13.

Rocky Konynenbelt

Fisheries Technician
Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development - Clearwater Area
P.O. Box 1720, Rocky Mountain House AB T4T 1B3
Tel: (403) 845-8268, Fax: (403) 845-4750"

Bow River - still amazing

I've been on the Bow most of the week. Simply amazing. Stunning fishing, really. During the sleet, snow, and rain this week the fish were taking hoppers. The pods of rising fish have been insane. Olives (pseudos for you yuppies), midges, some caddis. Nymphing is going quite well - if you need to do that kind of thing! ;)  An amazing run of incredible fishing, really.

Back to Blogging SOON

It has been quite a run. August and Sept, now into October, has been a long run of fishing, guiding, and not a lot of time on the computer. Focused time has been in video editing where possible, but not a lot of typing time, not a lot of time to bring a few thoughts to the virtual world.
The run ends mid October, if the weather holds. It is getting colder. We're avoiding brown trout streams for the most part now - the cold snap kicking spawning into gear. I suspect AJ & I will find our way out to video tape some spawners. We'll likely hit the Ram for a year ender.
Right now I'm guiding a lot on the Bow. It has fished very well, esp through the past couple of days of CRAP weather. The fall olives (pseudos for the precise) and midges have seen some fun engagements. Hope for more over the coming week or so. :)

A mile and a half - on Stauffer - in one day?

I suppose one of my biggest disappointments is selfishness and self-focused behaviour - both in myself and in others. There's some built in irony in being a fly fishing guide - fly fishing itself an be a self focused activity for those  who simply want to have their time on their chosen water.

If you know Stauffer Creek, you know that for most anglers it is a challenge, and many folks see the fish as temperamental. It can be that but most days you'll engage trout. It's a winding, willow and alder lined spring creek. It has few access points and is locked in private property, save for riparian fencing. The land owners are friendly, mind you.

The creek is home to brown trout. Like browns everywhere, the larger fish tend to pick their times to feed. They can be shy at times and don't respond well to disturbance. One study of a back country river in New Zealand noted that once caught or disturbed, the browns went off the feed 2 - 3 days. I'm not sure how one determines how a trout is not feeding, perhaps a stomach sample in destructive sampling was used in conjunction to electro-fishing. The point is that browns can be shy and don't quickly return to feeding, generally.

On a spring creek such as Stauffer, while the larger browns certainly do show to feed, they do not stay in feeding lies forever and they do spook easily. Once spooked, they aren't to return to prime feeding lies until conditions are favorable once more. During peak hatch periods, where daily hatches occur, that might be the next day. It might be that night if conditions warrant an evening prowl. Trout, especially large browns in soft water such as Stauffer, don't have to feed daily and will often wait for positive conditions to feed. Ergo, a larger spooked trout on Stauffer will likely be spooked for the day.

Bringing the above together: Recently, I came across a fellow who planned to hi-grade Stauffer, marching a full mile and a half of the stream - as the crow flies. Considering the twisting turns, that's likely about 2.5 miles of spring creek. He was disappointed that I was to fish in the middle of his planned beat. Now, I recognize that we each have our hopes, our desires to fly fish on our terms. But, to take a stream such as Stauffer - per above - and simply march through it on your own terms in search of the best trout in the best water... I'm hesitant to call someone a little selfish, but isn't it?

It was easy enough to set up avoiding one another, but what if we hadn't crossed each other's paths until mid day, or not at all as he skipped up and around us, leaving us to fish disturbed water? I met up with that same fellow a week later and did drum up the nerve to ask him if perhaps he might be a little selfish in taking on that much water, given the extent the water and trout are disturbed.

Again, we all have our hopes in fulfilling our desire to conquer trout or to enjoy our time on our trout waters in our own ways. But, we have an obligation to consider others at least as equally as ourselves, because even though we might have the time of our lives, we might also be killing the next fly fisher's day with our actions. If there is only one pie and we take it all, it leaves little for the other. The day I ran into the Stauffer Marcher, we worked less than 900m of water and had some great engagements. It all worked out, but it reminded me that we have to consider the water, the fish we are disturbing, and the other anglers who have as much aspiration for a moment on the water as we do. Stauffer is certainly not a stream that you can simply march 2-1/2 miles on without having at least a mildly negative impact on others. We simply need to pick less water, enjoy it for what it is, as a sign of respecting something for what it is rather than forcing our will on it.