Top 15 Canadian Moments 2012 - #3 - 2Day

Back in May, the fishing on the Red Deer R was quite good - a shock given the sporadic fishing the past several years, since the 2005 flood. It's the same river it has always been, the fish in the exact same waters they have always been in. This spring was quite interesting, mind you, as one bend of the river had 19 trout rising one afternoon. You could sit and watch them feeding - something I hadn't seen in 10 years. Amelia & I got into 14 of them and missed the other 5 thanks either to a missed set, a jet boat, or the wind finally picking up and putting the rises away for the afternoon. The trout were all 12 to 19" and most slender females that looked like they were about to take that next step of growth and start tacking on weight.

 

But don't let this fool you, the Red Deer is the Red Deer. It can be that good... or the opposite. It's why we guide how we do - if we don't think it's a likely chance of a decent day... forget it. Let's go elsewhere.

Every once in a while you get family trips that turn out splendidly. Late May I was able to guide several times on the river. On one of the days, two brothers joined me for a float. Did we hit it right! Like the Red Deer of old, I was able to float along and point out rocks that prior to the big flood housed good trout. That day, most of the structure I looked to had trout rising. In the exact locations as they have been since at least 1997 when we first started floating the river. And I mean the exact seams, rocks, and pockets. And the fishing went very well as we tried different things and worked together.

It was late afternoon that the day went from wonderful to special. I was able to let the brothers take care of the fishing and put time into filming a neat moment of them together.

You don't always get the opportunity to honor people but in this case it all came together perfectly and I was able to do just that as shown in this video: