acct421

Awesome photos and fish! I had a sketchy sow and cub encounter there last year, but its still one of my favorites.

^^^ From what I hear, you were supposedly sharing the valley with a lot of grizzlies too, but we never ended up seeing one. Hike in was about 15 kms to the campsite, 16.5 ish to the fishing spot. Campsite is about 1.2 km away from the lake, there is a further 300-400 meters (bushwhacking) to get to a suitable fishing spot. Realistically there are only a few suitable spots due to the trail and tree coverage (sometimes wind too). The other spots are about 5-6 kms from the campsite and there is bushwhacking involved again. Also you'll need to wade in to get some casting room, and bare-footing was really cold. Those were the first 2 fish I caught, stopped taking pictures thereafter, but there were some significantly bigger ones. Its actually quite amazing the size of fish this lake supports. Do note that it is a NP, so no fires at the campsite and C&R.

Here's a few from earlier this year. Magical place with some great fishing. I found a bunch of bugs that looked like my micro-leeches and I was getting fish on almost every cast. All of them big too. The only riser I saw went for my indicator. What amazing scenery!

I hit a large rock with my front wheel and went over the bars with my bike still clipped in. Stuck out my arm, it locked and took all the damage. I got a bruise on my leg but that's it, so I am very lucky in that respect. I bought a few spinners but in the end I just didn't want to spin, so I casted flies all weekend. It was great exercise for my arm, really glad I did that. Ended up going to the North Ram. Night was really cold. Tons of ATVs/dirtbikes. From the tracks it would seem that its free for all terrain, as they were on both sides of the river and on islands. Shame as its a really beautiful place. As for the fishing, it really only picks up once you hike a ways down the river where the tracks end. We spotted fish all along the river and some of the smaller ones were rising still. However the vast majority of fish were in overwinter mode. Just sittin on the bottom of the river, I was wading right past them and they wouldn't move.

Sorry to bring this up on a fly fish forum. I fractured my radius bone in my forearm near the head (elbow joint) mountain biking. Its a clean fracture and didn't need a cast and the pain has died down quite a bit. This was 10 days ago. I can use my arm easily now, however twisting still hurts a bit. I tried swinging my rod, it just won't happen. However my light spin & cast rod feels fine, though I haven't used it in 3 years. Now I have a trip up the FTR planned (going to fish the Rams, Peppers lake, Clearwater, NSR), and seeing how cold it is I think spin & casting might actually not be the worst idea. What kind of tackle should I get? I'm thinking some tiny panther martins swapping to a single hook. What colorations? Then for nymphs I can hook up a little thingamabobber and still cast it quite far. Any other ideas? I would love to be able to fly fish, but at this point I'll take some spin and casting over no fishing.

Walleye eat dries? Never knew that.

Thanks for the headsup. It is a good thing they close that section, I see a lot of browns flopping about there spawning around that time, and in late Sept they are way too easy to catch.

Gotta admit, I've always wanted to join you on one of these ridiculous adventures. That's intense!!!

Went for a bike ride today. Along the way I spotted a quite a few bull trout in small pools. Cool to see them this far up the river. Got really up close to one of them, he is actually around 8-10" but the camera's lens (GoPro) makes objects seem very small. Now I wonder why bullies can survive up here but there are no signs of cutthroat. Quite a few in here too. Beautiful day. Oh yea was at Oldman on Friday. Section that I tried wasn't the best. At least 10 of these rainbows/cutbows but no bullies/cutties/anything of size.

That's where I was. That's off of a GoPro by the way, takes decent pictures. My new fish camera, I'll try some underwater pics tomorrow when I'll be back in the area.

Wicked fish. I was down on the Oldman too on Friday. Must have been below you guys cause all I was catching is rainbows and cuttbows. Lots of them thought! Edit: Have to say though, wasn't having much luck on the big hopper combinations. Smaller dry flies were the trick for me.

Beauty cutties! Was out on the upper Bow again last week. Nothing. This section of river is really hard to fish. I'm assuming they are from the bow above Banff? Are they looking up or on nymphs? Thanks!

Got one and use it for snowboarding. Won't work that well IMO. Very wide angle lens and you really can't see much of anything in the distance. I love it though. Bang for the buck you just can't beat it for the more "extreme" sports.

Kinda looks like Elbow Lake. Those don't look like brookies though.

Well with the river all swollen up, the first thing he did is jump in the fastest water so I found it really hard. Maybe something is wrong with my technique but I was giving it all I thought the tippet could handle at the time.