Searching for Mr. Drake
When I learned that our eight days of fishing in late July in the East Kootenay region of British Columbia should coincide with the peak of the Western Green Drake hatch I anticipated our trip even more. The Western Green Drake is the largest mayfly in western Canada and, during a hatch when the duns are floating downstream trying to get airborne, the trout go a little wild. Kinda like when the popcorn shrimp is brought out at a Golden Corral buffet.
I don't normally set goals for a fishing trip, but this time I had two: fish a Green Drake hatch, and catch fish on my nymphing rod. I'm relatively new to the contact nymphing technique and had yet to catch a fish on this rod using that technique. And I don't think I've ever fished a proper mayfly hatch, never mind the storied Green Drake.
The trip started off with first day jitters. The night before, as I lay in bed, I thought I forgot to pack my spools of tippet. I mean, that's impossible as I have a packing list that I use year after year, but I couldn't remember packing it. I was so convinced that I didn't pack the spools that I warned Fishing Tinder Guy (FTG) that I may need to borrow some tippet. But on the river that first morning as we went through the familiar ritual at the trucks of getting rigged up, I found the tippet right where I packed it in my gear bag. Oh brother! Do I now need a second list to tell me where I actually packed something? My relief at finding the spools soon evaporated as I left them right back at the truck in the gear bag and needed to borrow some tippet from FTG after all.
The first day jitters continued when, in our eagerness, we neglected to pay attention to the weather forecast, left our rain gear at the truck, and got thoroughly soaked by a downpour. The fishing was too good to leave on account of the rain so we sucked it up, caught more fish and got drenched in return for our persistence. It was a long slog out of the river bottom on the game trail in the rain, but near the top FTG remarked that being winded on the trail is a satisfying end to the day.
My opportunity to fish a Green Drake hatch came about early in the trip. I'd been nymphing during the morning and at around 1 PM I noticed that the fish started splashing and appeared to be taking something off the surface. I saw what appeared to be small light tan caddis so I tied on what I thought was a suitable elk hair caddis imitation. A trout rose to fly, looked at it with what I can only describe as disdain, and returned to the depths. And then I saw these large sailboat-like bugs floating downstream. Green Drakes! I think I said that aloud and I think I uttered a descriptive expletive too. I switched over to a Green Drake pattern and was rewarded with this fish on my first cast
All told, I fished a Green Drake hatch three times on two different rivers during the trip. It was fun to watch individual bugs floating downstream, or swirling in the eddy, wondering to myself "Will he make it? Will he make it? Nope!", to watch a trout leap out of the water to grab a mayfly in flight, or to see cedar waxwings carve loops in the sky above as they shared in the bounty.
I learned some lessons about Green Drake mayfly hatches. Other anglers have no doubt learned these same lessons years ago, but it was all new to me.
1) The hatch doesn't necessarily occur throughout the river. We a fished different section of river on the day following the first hatch and, to my newbie surprise, no green drakes were observed in that section.
2) I thought the Green Drake hatch would occur at the same time every day but when we returned to the first hatch location a couple days later I didn't notice my first Green Drake until later in the afternoon, around 4 PM
3) The fish became harder to catch, and I got more refusals, as the hatch progressed. The fish in this stream are fished heavily and no doubt they see a lot of Green Drake fly patterns floating overhead. I suspect that once the initial feeding frenzy of the hatch wore off, the fish became more discerning about what was a natural and what was an imitation.
4) On the second day that I fished the hatch, I noticed that fish would take a fly that became submerged during the drift. Earlier I was quite focussed on a natural drag-free drift and would lift the fly from the water as soon as it submerged, but after observing the fish taking a submerged fly, I let the fly drift a bit underwater and was rewarded. I suspect that some mayflies riding on the surface of the water get swamped by a wave, or sucked under by a current whirlpool, and my submerged fly mimicked this.
A fun spot to fish the hatch was this back eddy that formed between the stump and large rock. Standing right below the stump with my knees touching the log, I would flick a short cast into the eddy and let the fly circle. Many takes and refusals occurred under three feet way.
A released fish caught on a Green Drake
I found a Green Drake fly that was stuck to the stump, presumably snagged and broken off by an angler on the far side of the river. I tied it on my line and landed a fish with it! So, if that was you...thank you!
This juicy little spot below the wood was a pleasant surprise.
FTG approached the hole, cast a nymph out, and got snagged on the wood. He waded in, leaned over the wood to free his fly, and exclaimed "There's several fish in here!" Surprisingly his not-so-stealthy approach didn't spook the pool. He cast again and hooked a fish. As he released that fish I swooped in and cast my nymph too. I didn't see the fish before I cast but as soon as my nymph hit the water two fish rushed it like a pair of blitzing linebackers. I hooked one of them (the biggest, I might add) and led the fish downstream so FTG could cast again. He did, and hooked another. Our first double header of the trip.
We think there were four fish in that hole and we landed three of them. It's remarkable how eager these native trout are when they are unpressured.
Having fished a Green Drake hatch, I set my sights next on catching a fish while contact nymphing on my nymphing rod. On these trips I like to smoke a cigar each day and on the day I set out to contact nymph I wasn't going to have a cigar until I caught that fish.
I first worked a number of inside seams without success but upstream was this long grassy bank that looked promising. I walked closer to it and could see that the water had good depth and flow along the bank, and I surmised that fish would hold close to the bank given the abundant grasshoppers in the field.
I knotted on a confidence nymph pattern that I learned to tie a few years ago; it's a representative buggy pattern and has accounted for many cutthroat and whitefish. I started at the downstream end of the bank and methodically worked my way upstream, kneeling to reduce my profile. Partway up the bank a cutthroat rose to take something off the surface. OK, so they are here! Now to catch one. After nymphing the length of the bank I had hooked and lost a cutthroat and rolled another fish, a whitefish I suspect. No fish landed = no cigar.
I returned to the bottom of the run and tied on a big imitative stonefly pattern and began working the bank from bottom to top again. This time I got my cigar as a cutthroat took the fly and was netted. I was pleased with my first fish contact nymphing but I was really curious to see if a grasshopper fly would get more action so I tied a hopper pattern on my other rod and once more methodically worked the bank: cast upstream, drift the water from inside to out, take a few steps, and repeat.
I landed this fish and hooked and lost two others. This fish was hooked very close to where I spotted the rise during my first nymphing run up the bank; I suspect it was the same fish.
But golly, it was windy today. FTG and I commented earlier that the wind always seems to blow in your face when you’re at a campfire or fly fishing, but today the wind gusts to 35 kmh were at my back so casting was a challenge but not impossible. Although I did learn, that to get a good drift, high sticking was out of the question and you needed to keep your tippet in the water otherwise the wind would push the leader and the dry fly.
As we walked back to the trucks I mentioned to FTG that I had fulfilled my two goals for the trip: I'd fished a Green Drake hatch and I'd caught a fish contact nymphing. He asked what my third goal was.
"Not getting sick and tired of you after eight days of fishing together", I replied.
"How's that going?", he asked.
"We'll see if I smoke a cigar on the way home"
It feels like I spend half my day looking for things. My life is a never ending search for something, and it didn't get any better at fishing camp. One morning before heading out I tried to locate my tippet rings. I looked in my sling pack, then tore everything else apart. Not finding them I went back to my sling pack and there they were. Then, while FTG waited not so patiently, I searched for my water bottle. I looked everywhere, gave up, and climbed in the truck. I had taken a spectacular spill the day previous while walking in felt soled boots across a muddy bottom backwater and I wondered if the water bottle jarred loose then. As we pulled away from camp, FTG said "Oh my ..... (expletive redacted) and pointed to my water bottle lying against the windshield wiper of his truck. I was feeling like a forgetful old fool until later that day FTG noticed his net was missing from his back. We retraced our steps through the brush and the multiple side channel crossings and it was me that spotted his net on a sandbar. I'll take the small victories when I can can get them.
On a previous trip I had hooked some nice fish in this run, which sits just above the confluence with another stream, but today they ignored my searching casts with a parachute Adams, so I reached for my nymphing rod which was a far better tool for the job given the height of the bank and the brush all around.
And man, did that rod shine. I hooked double digit numbers of fish; each one a big mature cutthroat. Even a large bull trout appeared to take a slash at a hooked cutthroat. That was super cool to see but it wasn't the only bull trout of the trip. A couple days later another bull trout came partly out of the water to attack a whitefish I'd hooked. After working hard at the grassy bank to land my first fish contact nymping, this spot was sweet redemption. But I don't chalk it up to my nymphing skill, rather just being in the right place at the right time and the generous nature of native westslope cutthroat.
It was never found far from our minds that we were just visitors in this wilderness and not the apex predator. As we worked through thick alder, log jams, back channels and logging cuts, we called "Yo Bear" regularly to make our presence known. We joked that there were likely no bears in our vicinity in the river bottoms, but they were up in the alpine wondering, "Why are those guys calling for me? I should go see what they want!" Our caution around bears was not misplaced however; there was plenty evidence of their presence
This run was an interesting lesson in the debate between the effectiveness of dries vs nymphs. The water along the bank had good speed and depth so I worked it thoroughly from top to bottom with a black ant pattern. There were no apparent hatches so the ant was my choice for a searching pattern. I casted and drifted close to the bank, then made several more casts ranging about eight feet out, took a few steps upstream and repeated. For my troubles, I landed one small fish. FTG followed behind me and hooked 8-10 big fish on a perdigon nymph. There had been some rain during the night and the water was a bit murky, still several feet of vis but not gin clear. Maybe that had something to do with it? Maybe they were not having the ant? Maybe I'm a sloppy caster? I drifted my fly over every one of those fish that he caught. For whatever reason, they were not looking up, or hungry for an ant, and FTG cleaned up on the nymph.
Now this trip wasn't all big fish and dry fly glory, there was a humbling moment that involved me and this log. I was half way across the log, holding my flyrod case, wading staff and a half eaten apple when I had a bobble in my balance. No sooner had FTG remarked "I think you got a lot going on there" than I completely lost my balance and landed arse-first in the shallow water and deep mud. I wasn't wearing waders so the water was refreshing, but brother, did it stink. I count myself fortunate on my soft mud landing and not being impaled by the branches of another log.
It was a great trip. Eight days of exploring streams and floodplains amidst the beauty of the Canadian Rockies. I brought along firewood for evening fires but after eight to nine hours a day of walking, standing, wading, clambering, stumbling and always needing to see what was around the next bend, we invariably had a late supper and hit the sack not long afterwards.
On the final day at around 630 PM, we rounded the last bend in the river, fished the last hole, caught a fish each, fist bumped cuz hugging would have been weird, and began the downstream trek to back to the trucks.
ADDENDUM
I admit it, I dig rocks. When I walk floodplains in the Kootenays I'm on the lookout for interesting rocks, but mostly I'm on the lookout for fossils. FTG can attest that I often walk slowly, head down, stooping to examine something more closely. I've found some dandy fossils over the past few years, including coral (specifically solitary and colonial rugosan corals) and a nautilus (specifically an orthocone nautiloid).
But this rock that I found a few years ago
and these rocks, that I found on a subsequent trip to a different river, have puzzled me.
It looks like a plug of iron in the rock.
Turns out that's exactly what it is.
I found this rock during our July trip.
Turning it over you can see that there appears to be a ferrous vein in the rock. The iron plugs in the rocks that I have been seeing appear to be the exposed ends of similar veins.
Mystery solved (I think!)
And... I just thought it was cool to stumble upon wet bird tracks on the rocks.
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