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.

Well here I am 10:30 PM last night swinging some dry flies to no avail, so after a while I try switching to a streamer. I have a 8lb tapered leader and a 6lb tippet. So I figure, hey, its dark and windy I think the 6lb will do for streamers. You can see where this is going... I put the Bow river bugger on, first cast I see a massive tail flop behind my streamer and I am ecstatic! Seems like he missed it so I cast again and sure enough I get a really hard hit. The first thing the fish does is flop out of the water scaring the *hit out of me with its sheer size, and then starts making a hard run downstream. My largest brown to date was 22" and this was much bigger. The minute I saw that fish jump out I knew I had a dilemma: 1. Right away, I knew the fish was too much for my tippet. So do I tire the fish out and bring it in and cross my fingers it recovers. 2. Or If I don't want to tire the fish out and pull harder, then my tippet snaps and that leaves the fish with a big wooly bugger in its mouth. So after 10 minutes I am well into my backing and I know I have no chance at all of bringing this thing in. Call me a noob (which I am) but I was pulling as hard as I thought my tippet could handle. The fish was pulling much harder however. So I decide to try give it a lot of slack in the hopes that it will free itself from the fly, cause in all seriousness this fish wasn't coming in for A WHILE and at that point a large tired fish like that is as good as dead. So I kept trying to create a lot of slack line in hopes that he will go free. Not working. OK so at that point I think, well I'll try get it in and release it quick, cause that woolly bugger seemed to be stuck in there. Well after another 10 mins he gets in close, and as I am trying to land, he makes a last hard pull and I hear the noise no fisherman ever wants to hear. ZING. At this point I got so sad. I could care less that I didn't land the fish but that thing was tired, and had a big fly in its mouth. Its probably at the bottom of the river belly up now, and that just makes me want to cry for the fight that thing gave me. Never again do I venture into my streamer box without a 12+lb line on there. What a brutal night, and I still feel like *hit. What would you guys do if you were caught off guard by a big fish using light tackle?

I see a problem with being able to raft over the weir. Yes the fish can make they way up but I think we will see rafting on the bow skyrocket. Previously you had to start way up near Bearspaw to get a decent time on the river. Now that you can get past the weir I foresee a lot of the Elbow river drunkards are going to relocate to the bow as it provides a much longer drift and the waters are generally calm. And all of you know what that has done to the Elbow river. 10 years ago I used to go down to the Talisman center bridge and look at all the suckers/whities/bows/browns and even pike swimming around. I have not seen a single fish under the dam the last few summers. Just a thought.

8 years ago when I was around 14, I remember I would go to the Crowchild bridge on the northern side of the river, look down and see shoals of whitefish everywhere. In fact back then I couldn't afford flies, so I used my mom's red nail polish to make a SJW, which used to work great. The last 5 times I have been in that area I haven't seen but a fish anywhere, nor do I catch them anymore. Its sad cause its the fish I grew up learning to fly fish on. Now it seems like a rare occasion to catch one, or maybe I just target trout.

Rainbow Brown Cutt Whitefish Brook

Everyone was catching fish! Mostly him though! There I go with my broken rod!

Yea its a cheap Walmart fishing rod that I learned to fly fish on. I guess it's time to upgrade. It was a 5 wt, and I like the action so I'll look for a 9' 4pc 5wt. Oh yea how do you guys tie 12lb to 6lb, and what knot do you use? The knot I use(don't know the name) only works when the sizes are close, I doubt it will work on 12->6.

Well I got off on the wrong foot on the boards posting my fishing success when the particular lake was closed . Turns out June 16 isn't "opening day" for everything, so reading the regulations is key. Anyway, I'm 21 finishing up my accounting degree @ UofC. Evenings are enjoyed at my favorite spots on the bow, weekends in the mountains, hiking/fishing. I started the year with a 2 month skunk spree, after which I decided to quit fishing for a month. Well my season has slowly improved to the point where I can now hook into fish more often. Got out last night to my secret spot, and there were lots of risers. I hooked 4, all of them over 20"(judging by the jumping) and rainbows. All 4 snapped off. Now usually when I hook a fish I am really careful when I have 3.4lb on, but lately I get the feeling that I need a stronger tippet. As soon as I hook the fish it goes crazy and pulls so hard that I have very little time to react and let him run. Then the jumping ensues. If I still have a fish on after all this ruckus, it usually takes one last hard go at it, and ends up getting away. This problem is only compounded by weeds. My setup consists of 9ft 5lb leader, 4-5 ft 3lb tippet. Oh yea my rod has a 1.5' section broken off the top so that could be the problem too. Anyway what kind of setup do you guys run for big trout on the dry?