tbone

rickr saved me from typing it all out, take his advice. One thing I would like to add is that I find bow river fish pretty selective at times. Sure you can catch a few fish almost every trip on the wire worm but if you really try to learn what they are eating, you'll catch twice as many. Having said that, stick with using a wire worm until you get some confidence fishing the river. At times fish will really key into a specific food item and not look at much else. It pays to take the time to figure out what they are feeding on and select the right type of nymph. The entomology forum on this site has some outstanding pics of the bugs found in the river. Use flies to match those bugs during the right time of the year and you'll turn average days into great days - theres something like 2500 - 3000 trout per mile in the bow below the city.... good luck

The Cowichan is your best bet and you'll be staying right next to it. The trout fishing can be pretty good in May with some good caddis hatches hopefully. Try a size 14 GRHE during the day and in the evening if the caddis are hatching a size 14-16 EHC is as good as any. Like H20 said, theres both rainbows and browns available...one of the few systems on the island with a population of browns. A bunch of decent spots can be accessed off river bottom road. The local fly shop in lake cowichan or Island outfitters in Vic will sell you a river map with access and trails etc... Its a bit pricey but is worth it and proceeds go to the Roderick Haig-Brown foundation. If you are looking to fish the beaches for sea-run cutties and want to take a nice day trip over to Saltspring island, try around Fulford Harbour...size 8 rolled muddlers, fry or stickleback patterns.... Good Luck

Where on the island will you be? Would you like to fish lakes, streams or beaches? ...

Thanks for the info guys, sure was nice when you could get in from the sundance side...oh well. I think I'll park at sikome lake and walk in when I do happen to fish there, it will definitely be faster from where I live.

I was just wondering if anyone knows why the gates are locked trying to get to the FC boat launch from the sundance side of sikome lake? I was able to access the launch from bow bottom however ... Does anyone know if these gates will re-open anytime soon or are they closed for good? Thanks

Hey Sanjuanworm, I apologize if you thought I was trying to encourage people to leave your site and join mine. Thats not what I said at all. You have a nice site here and I'm not trying to persuade anyone to stop participating on your site! When Im after fly fishing info for the calgary area, this is where I come. I never asked anyone to join in on my discussion board, I just asked if anybody passionate about sharing fishing reports or interested in exposure for their guiding operation would like to contribute reports for Alberta on my site. This would be made possible via an online reporting template that we provide for our writers, not by posting in a forum. I just moved here from Victoria and I thought it would be cool to have current reports for Alberta like we have done for BC. You will always have a better site for fly fishing information in the calgary area. FishTactics.com is not trying to "compete" with you as we are not trying to specialize in any one area like you have done. We want to grow to cover north america, new zealand, you name it. We will never appeal to the niche fly fishing market in calgary because there are better more specific sites out there like this one. If you thought my post was as conflict of interest, I understand and enough said. I just wanted to make myself clear that I was in no way trying to encourage people to not use your site. Cory

Can anyone tell me why my post about finding some fishing report writers for alberta got deleted? How did I break the forum code of conduct? Cory

The one pattern that I cant catch fish on are golden stonefly nymphs. I figure they should be absolutley on fire right now given that shucks are all over the rocks and the dry fly imitations are working, but all the fish are hitting the SJW or the other caddis/mayfly nymph imitations that I'm using. Would someone mind posting a good bow river stonefly nymph pattern or two? I apologize if this topic has already been discussed.