After fly fishing East Kootenays streams for the first time in August 2021, I described it as "changing my life". That might seem a little silly, but it really shifted the trajectory of my angling experience.
This summer, my second trip to the region was a five day blast: two days of driving and just three days of fishing. We were fishing a small stream that was recommended to me on the q.t.. It was off the beaten path, far from paved roads and towns, but it offered just what I was after: small stream, low pressure, good numbers of fish and a chance at bigger ones. Michel Creek could wait!
Day one we got a late start. It was smoking hot as we fished a couple of kms of the lower reaches of the stream. After a year of not having dry fly fished in streams, it felt like it took the first day or two to shake out the cobwebs and find my groove. The fish were super interested in any dries we drifted. No hatch was apparent and nymphing produced some fish too. The lightbulb came on when I had more strikes than I could count on my 1/2" white AirLock indicator and my partner was having success on a fly the size of small mammal (about a size 10 elk hair caddis) If a chunk of white foam caught their interest, then perhaps I didn't need to be too concerned with imitation, and any buggy fly would get their attention. At day's end, we were hot, tired and happy. We had innumerable strikes and many fish were landed... but none over 10". I was happy with the first day's results, and small fish are fun...to a point. Were the bigger fish not holding over and had dropped back to the big river, or were my fumbling small stream tactics not working on the bigger wiser fish?
(Smaller fish were in the middle of the stream, but some bigger fish were tucked into the pocket between the fallen tree and the root wad of the tree laying along the shore)
Day two we moved up higher in the drainage. Our strategy today was to fish dries downstream and then nymph on our way back upstream; that worked well. I stuck with a elk hair caddis or a parachute Adams for most of the day on the downstream leg. It was tough to know when to turn around to head back upstream though. Every time we thought we had gone far enough, we saw another juicy piece of water downstream!
(Looks like we missed the stonefly hatch. If that was in the past week or two, it made sense that those big bugs would be imprinted on the fish's memory and anything big and buggy floating overhead would pique their interest)
(This was a productive and fun run to fish; an undercut bank with root structure. There were no conflicting currents so it was possible to get a nice even drift with minimal, or no, mending. Flies cast tight to, and drifted along, the far bank produced a hit. I hit a big fish that ran downstream and wrapped my line around the bushes at the right of frame. I waded over and got the fly back, but not the fish!)
Our third and final day was magic. We fished a couple of kms upstream, walked back on the FSR for a break and snack, then fished the late afternoon for a km downstream.
On the upstream leg the stream was braided, so the water was pretty skinny, but the cutthroat were holding in lies that you would expect, and some that you didn't! Fishing the choppy water where the braids converged was a good bet and there was lots of pockets and structure to probe too.
(Fish were lying right below the log. A little tricky to fish from my position on the left bank that required some high sticking and weaving the line around the sticks)
(A skinny braid of the stream that I thought surely would hold a fish. A little guy, but he was there!)
(Fish were rising tight to the bank below the tree. My buddy on the right bank had a better angle to fish than I, but I did hook one by dapping my fly from above)
Back at camp for our break I noticed my first mayflies. Small yellow bodied mayflies (PMDs?) that were flitting about the black hood of my truck. I came on the trip armed with some parachute PMD patterns but this is the first I've seen of them, and a distance from the river too.
Fishing the downstream section after our break was a delight. The river wasn't braided and had lots of nice pools and runs. It was late afternoon, the sun was getting low in the sky illuminating nearby peaks with a slight orange hue, and the cutthroat were looking up.
At one point, I was fishing a piece of water, literally standing over a pile of bear shit. The water was too good to pass up. Yes I did test it to see how fresh it was, and yes our warning calls of "Yo bear!" became a bit louder and more frequent!
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This was a perfect day to end our trip on. The bigger fish in the mid teens eluded us, but today we released 30-40 fish each, with the bigger ones in the 12-14" range. Most on the dry fly, and all on a small intimate stream with no other anglers (or even boot tracks) in sight.
Some of our nicer fish...
(Love the developing spawning dress)
OK, this is a bit random... but any idea what this is? It looks like an animal had a fecal spray attack
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