A flathead goes to the Flathead, September 2023
In September, 2022, I had the privilege to join the hunting party of my son and his two buddies and fish the upper Elk River for a week while they tried to fill their tags in the the surrounding mountains.
This year the Mount Bingay wildfire in the Elk Valley prompted a change of plans. The boys switched their hunting trip to the Flathead River valley and I was invited to join them again. Maybe it was my pleasant disposition or conversation skills that earned the invite, but I suspect it was that I washed dishes, cooked many of the meals, and my wife sent along a bag of chocolate chip cookies!
The Flathead River has a unique place among BC rivers. With the headwaters in the mountains below Sparwood, the North Fork of the Flathead flows south, roughly paralleling, and just a few miles west of, the Alberta border before entering Montana. The BC Flathead watershed has no permanent human settlement and supports an incredible abundance and diversity of wildlife. In the USA, the Flathead is designated and protected as a National Wild and Scenic River. In Canada, the river has no such designation and almost became the site of a mountain top removal coal mining project. However under intense pressure from environmental groups and the government of Montana, in 2010 the BC government protected the watershed and later passed the Flathead Watershed Area Conservation Act which permanently prohibits coal, oil/gas and mineral exploration and extraction.
Oh yeah, the Flathead Valley also has the highest density of inland grizzly bears in North America. Great...
September 16: After setting up camp, we split up to do some scouting. Two of the hunters headed south while my son and I headed north. We made our way up a spur road, through several washouts, until we had a wide open view of the slope of an 8,000 foot mountain with several prominent drainages. My son spotted a couple of goats above the tree line, I spotted a pair of sheep, then I heard this "gug, gug" noise that sound like a distant bullfrog. "You hear that?!", I said. "No", he replied. I heard it again. "You hear that?" "No." We went back and forth a few more times like this until he said "I hear it. I think it's a moose". After a few more minutes of glassing the slope, my son said "There's the moose!" He directed my gaze and there was the unmistakable gleam of a far off pair of antlers. My son said it looked like a piece of plywood moving across the slope. I must admit, I was a little surprised to see a moose so far up the side of a mountain as I associate moose with water and low elevations.
September 17: The hunters left before dawn, but they started a fire in the woodstove to get dressed by, so I had a nice warm and comfortable sleep in. During breakfast, the beaver in the pond adjacent to camp slapped his tail a number of times. I gingerly stuck my head out of the tent to see what had him alarmed. Seeing nothing, I continued with breakfast only to hear the sound of splashing footsteps in the pond. Sticking my head out of the tent even more gingerly this time, I saw a doe and fawn crossing the pond. I've only been awake for an hour or two and already I'm on high alert!
For my first day on the river I stuck close to camp and explored upstream. One of the first log jams I came to I saw a fish rise and, casting a Stimulator, landed three small westslope cutthroat.
And it was windy! There were periods of relative calm punctuated by tree bending gusts. It was during one of these gusty periods that I saw a couple of bull trout in a run. I tried casting for them but casting a heavy beaded fly on my four weight in the the wind was an exercise in futility.
I was hoping to come across some bull trout and it was nice to find them. They come to the North Fork on their spawning migration from Flathead Lake, 60+ miles to the south in Montana. The tributaries of the Flathead are closed to fishing beginning September 1st to protect them during the spawn
In late afternoon, I came to this pool. Deep water and woody debris...perfect!
I fished with the nymph that I already had on my line and landed three mountain whitefish. Seeing a rise, I switched to a dry fly and landed this nice cutthroat. I had another fish break me off at the hookset and landed another. This hole certainly improved my numbers for the day but it was a long walk upstream and it was time to head back to camp and meet the hunters for supper. It was already 5:00 and I had planned on being back at camp by this time.
On the way back to camp, a moose crossed the river in front of me.
It was a very pleasant first day on the river. The valley is beautiful with towering peaks on both sides, the yellow aspens provided a nice pop of colour, and I was pleased with the five cutthroat and three whitefish on a new river.
September 18: drove downstream to an access point that I had observed and pinned on Google Maps. (before coming on the trip I had used Google Maps satellite view to scout the river and I pinned several access points as well as a number of pieces of water that looked promising. Being new to the area that e-scouting really helped focus my explorations)
I fished upstream with an elk hair caddis, then a hopper pattern as I have been hearing the click-click of flying grasshoppers as I walk across the flood plain. No splashes seen and nothing rose to my flies. This woody hole produced no fish on dries on the way up and no fish on nymphs on the way down. Since I wasn't too far above the pullout I wondered if this hole had been fished out as the Flathead is not a classified river and does allow retention of one cutthroat/day.
This other nice woody hole was my turnaround point. Dries didn't produce so I tied on a #8 October caddis nymph pattern that I had tied for the trip. I had a number of hits but no hookups so I wondered if the #8 fly was too big for the whitefish's mouth. I sized down to a #14 pattern and rolled two whitefish and landed one.
I continued nymphing on the way downstream and got nothing except at a broad pool that had lots of beaver activity.
I landed four whitefish here, a couple of which were big.
Tally for the day: five whitefish and zero cutthroat. I wrote in my journal: "Weird that no ct..."
September 19: The expected cold front blew in last night with wind and overnight rain and temps dropping 10-15C. The past two days have been pleasant enough that I was able to wade wet in shorts and a long sleeve shirt, but today it was a waders and sweater day.
I ventured upstream to explore three spots that I had pinned before the trip. The three spots were within a km of each other and during the first night's scouting trip I spied a drainage that I could use to get down to the river in the middle of them.
The first spot was a corner pool with woody debris. Looked promising but no fish came to a dry or nymph.
As I walked downstream, I passed a significant drainage that came down from the east slope of the valley. The creek was dry but the size of the debris fan when it hit the Flathead was staggering.
The second spot was a bust. A huge log jam at the head of an island that looked promising from satellite view but the water didn't pool up like I thought it might and there was no fishy water adjacent to the wood.
The third spot was da' bomb: a deep confluence hole that wasn't out in the open floodplain and had thick alder on all sides. Surely this had to hold fish!
I carefully approached it from downstream and gradually lengthened the casts of my Stimulator as I worked the edges, then the gut, of the hole and the tailout. I could feel a bit nervousness/excitement in me and I was on point ready for the take...that didn't come.
Next I threw out my big October caddis nymph. Knowing from yesterday that it was too big for whitefish, I thought it might be selective for cutthroat or bulls. Nothing.
I regretfully sized down to a small nymph and got five whitefish. I was after cutthroat, but it was nice to have something put a bend in the rod. I was reminded of a quote by humourist Patrick McManus "Smoked carp tastes as good as smoked salmon when you ain't got no smoked salmon"
Off to the far side of the pool, I saw a fish take something off the surface and dart back to the bottom. I was silvery and long, shaped like a whitefish. I wrestled with that for a bit. Whitefish feeding on the surface? Not likely, but not unheard of either. I crossed over the river, deep in the tailout of the pool, and worked that side of the river with a small elk hair caddis but nothing rose. I did see a small fish rise near the head of pool but he didn't respond to a casted EHC either.
I wrote in my journal "Weird...big deep pools, no ct on dries or nymphs. Cold front put them down?" Honestly, I was struggling to understand my lack of success with finding cutthroat. Over the past three years that I've been fishing East Kootenay streams I've been on the water 16 days and have never failed to land cutthroat. Now, two days in a row without as much as a sniff. Was it the cold front? Do I suck? Or was it the fish just aren't in the water that I'm fishing?
Still, whitefish saved the day!
September 20: Fished quite a ways upstream today between a couple of river access points that I pinned. Fished three choice log jams, like this one,
and this one,
and several runs with dries on the way up, and nymphs on the way down. Absolutely nothing. I saw no fish rising and nothing bumped at my flies. I came across an empty Rio tippet spool so obviously I haven't been the only flyfisher in these parts.
As I develop as a flyfisher, I'm tuning more into the insects that I see in and around the waters that I'm fishing. Today I noticed lots of caddis cases in a particular section of the river. The cases were empty and were loosely attached to the rock. Based on their size I'm guessing that they are Gannom caddis.
Saw some mayfly clinger nymphs that darted away as I picked a rock up. Never expected them to be so fast.
And I saw a number of mayflies along the rocks at the side of the river. Why were they there? Did they hatch then all decide to fly to shoreside rocks? That didn't seem likely. It seemed more likely that they had hatched at the shoreline but, in my experience, mayflies hatched in the water. A mystery to figure out, and I like outdoorsy mysteries.
Back at camp I was quick to haul out my copy of "Hatches of British Columbia Trout Streams" as I wanted to figure out the caddis cases and the mayflies. I couldn't solve the mayfly mystery at camp but back home I dove deeper into the book and figured out that I had likely observed gray drakes: they looked like what I observed and the dun of the gray drake hatches on land. The fine members of FlyBC.com confirmed my guess; I love it when a mystery comes together!
September 21: During breakfast a pair of Recreational Officers from the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resources Operations stopped by camp as they were in the area doing their annual forestry site visits. We had a good visit and I mentioned that fishing had been slow. One of the officers mentioned that fishing had been affected by the drought that the region has been experiencing for the past four to five years. And then I had an a-ha moment...
For today's fish, I drove a distance downstream, and then fished upstream and downstream from there. Nothing popped on the upstream reach but I was struck by the numbers of tracks in the sand and the amount of scat (predominantly grouse) along the the river. Not just today, but all week long in fact, tracks and scat everywhere. The floodplain might look quiet in the daytime, but it is anything but.
It appears that I tweaked my back in the cot overnight as I awoke with a very sore lower back. I did some stretching but throughout the day I could feel my back twinge if I twisted my back a certain way while navigating the shoreline rocks. So today, I was walking slow; really watching my footing and even using my wading staff on dry land. I did not want to tweak my back and go down out here, especially on a wade. That would be bad as I have no way of contacting the hunters.
On the downstream reach, I fished several pools and runs with no luck but then came to this pool with deep fast water.
where I hooked a number of whitefish and landed four, including this chancho. A cast into the riffle just above the drop off at the head of pool was the ticket for the whitefish. But no cutthroat...
I continued downstream until I came to this very large hole that was cut into the hillside on the right bank of the floodplain. The water was deep, clear, and slow moving with large chunks of rock from the hillside scattered along the river bottom.
Given how clear and slow moving the water was I was super stealthy in my approach; casting thoughtfully and picking up and laying down my line with a little disturbance as possible. I was tossing a Stimulator and a single, small trout kept crashing the fly in the lower part of the pool. Three to four times he launched himself out of the water, twisting in mid air and missing each time. The fly just kept drifting on as it nothing happened! He won't get any bigger if he doesn't work on his technique! I worked the rest of the pool with no results.
Switched to a small parachute Adams thinking he could get his mouth around that, but no, he missed that one several times too.
He was the only fish that responded to a dry in the entire pool so I finished with the nymph to see if any cutthroat were laying deep but only got whitefish.
Not a complete skunk like yesterday, and at least I did entice one little cutthroat, but where are the rest of them? Maybe it's true that the numbers are reduced by the low water levels...
September 22: So, where to go on the last day? I was tempted to go back to that pool upstream of camp on day one where I caught that one and only big fish of the trip. Surely he wasn't the only one in the pool. Or should I leave them alone, and explore new water? The Recreational Officer's comment from yesterday made me wonder....maybe I should be heading waaay downstream, below a number of tributaries, so that the main river has more flow. Maybe the fish are hanging out down there? I decided I would head downstream but first I wanted to check out a spot below camp that I pinned and hadn't gotten to yet.
At the river, I was a little surprised to see a fishing guide's truck parked. With all the excellent water in the Elk system, why drive all this way with a client to introduce them to, in my humble experience, less than stellar fishing? I was surprised...but also a little curious too! What did he know that I was missing?
Figuring they had gone upstream, that cemented my decision to leave the day one pool alone and head downstream.
(Note: when I got home from the trip I sent an email to the guide...out of professional curiosity only 😉 I told him what I had caught upstream of camp and asked what he had found. Turns out the truck belonged to one of his guide employees who was hunting, not fishing!)
Just downstream I came to this confluence pool.
As I approached it from the tailout, I spooked a bull trout that I didn't see and darted into deeper water. I drifted a dry with no luck and thought that I would drift a big nymph on the the way back to see if I could interest him, or anything else.
A ways downstream I came to the feature that I had pinned; it was a gem that was better than it looked from above and was roughly divided into three sections:
Upper: slow with woody debris
Mid: fast water with overhanging shrubs and roots
Lower: run, and a deep slow pool, with woody debris.
I started in the lower pool with an elk hair caddis. Nothing smacked at it but the deep water was so clear I could see silver flashes along the bottom as whitefish turned to take food drifting by.
As I drifted the run along the woody debris in the lower section, I hooked and lost two small cutthroat. No luck on a EHC at the mid or top sections.
I decide to go big or go home and try a completely different approach, so I tied on a a Stimulator and instead of the conventional dead drift, I gave the fly some action as it slowly drifted in the deep, still pool; either by short strips, or little circles with my rod tip.
That produced no interest but in the faster water along side the wood, the small cutthroat were jumping and twisting themselves in half trying to hit it. I landed one here and another small one in the mid section.
Lastly I tried nymphing in the lower pool.. The deep water was so clear I could actually see the whitefish follow. then take my nymph. Sight fishing whitefish! That was cool.
I had a fair number of bobber downs in the mid section but don't think I hooked anything. The upper section was completely quiet
On the return walk upstream I drifted a nymph at the convergence pool where I had seen the bull trout, but no response.
It was now mid afternoon but I decided to take one last kick at the can and, keeping in mind the Recreational Officer's comments, drove quite a distance downstream to some spots I had pinned. Hopefully I would find more flow, and more fish.
The first spot I pinned that I walked into was deep, but it was a beaver pond. Nothing there. The second spot was a fishy area but nothing rose when I poked around in a few spots. There were a couple of corners downstream so I walked that way to see what I could find.
And I came across this confluence pool...
....with happily rising cutthroat. Lots of them, and not little ones. I saw several rise in just the few minutes that I stared in dumfounded disbelief. I think I said something along the lines of "Holy #*$%, so this is where you are!"
It was late in the day and I didn't have long to fish, I had a small case of buck fever, it was very windy, and the pool had a gut of fast water down the middle with eddies on both sides...so suffice to say my casts and drifts were not very smooth. I had a number of fish smack at my Stimulator, hooked a couple briefly but none landed. I crossed over in the tailout to fish the far edge of the gut. More strikes but none landed. I thought about sizing down my fly, but in the very limited time remaining I thought I would nymph. Lots of bobber downs but only whitefish came to hand. Reluctantly I left the pool at 6:45 pm knowing that I would be getting back to camp much later than I had all week and probably worrying the hunters. It was hard to tear myself away.
I can't believe I found the fish. In the last hour, on the last day!
It was a wonderful trip. I had a great time with the hunters, exploring an unknown river was a grand adventure, I didn't get eaten by a grizzly, and the scenery and wildlife were beautiful. However if you would have asked me yesterday if I would come back next year, the answer would probably have been "meh". But today at 6:45 pm, the answer is "Yes!"
Comments
Post a Comment