Fallen Timber/red Deer River

[Guest Rocknbugs]

Hey all was out at the camp site this weekend and managed to get out for a couple of hours here and there. I caught nothing in the Red Deer bvut it is blown out do to the heavey rain on Friday night. Went out to Fallen Timber Yesterday and was very excited when I saw the creek as it was loaded with structure, deep pools and looked to be just loaded with fish. I guess I was wrong I did not catch a thing and was a tad bit disapointed as I was told that there was good fishing there. I parked at the bridge just west of the Bergen store and worked bothe sides of the creek up stream for a couple of hours, man I was surprized that I did not even see any fish every 20 feet or so there is just one deadly looking pool after another. Was I in the wrong spot is there another way to access that creek? has anyone fished it lately with success I will try again it just looked to good. I have not fished alot of small streams or creeks so any tips and suggestions would be appreciated, thanks.

[jebber6]

I was there at around noon on Monday. Stopped in there for lunch with the family for about a half hour. We were sitting right at the big bend before the creek goes under the bridge. I seen a couple of rises and had a couple of bites. the creek looks like it has lots of potential. Were you there at about the same time?

[HUGETCB]

I was in that same stretch last Tues and did fairly well once you got a few pools away from the roads. landed a number of healthy acrobatic browns, losing a few to boot. a stealthy approach needed not to scare the brownies. Used hopper-dropper with about a 50-50 split. What were u using?

 

J

[hatman]

Rocknbugs: That area is my all summer fishing grounds as I have a trailer parked in that area. I usually fish the Fallen Timber the Upper Red deer and the James River Bridges. The fishing has been extremely poor since the August long weekend and no you weren't in the wrong spots on the Fallen Timber. Unfortunately when the river flows and levels drop at this time of year the big browns migrate out of this stream as the water between the pools gets very low and freeze up is a problem in the winter so they head on down to the Red Deer for the winter. It seems that we had heavy rains almost every weekend in August and the steams were extremely dirt all year in this area and the Red Deer has been very fast and dirty all summer. Run off took a long time to settle down and we did have a few good weeks in July but as I said August has been very poor. I suggest that you try other areas south of Calgary as I don't see things getting any better if these constant major thunderstorms don't stop before the snow happens. Usually snow starts around the end of September and stays for a long time. All in all it has been very poor fishing these foothill streams this year in the area.

[Guest Rocknbugs]

Rocknbugs: That area is my all summer fishing grounds as I have a trailer parked in that area. I usually fish the Fallen Timber the Upper Red deer and the James River Bridges. The fishing has been extremely poor since the August long weekend and no you weren't in the wrong spots on the Fallen Timber. Unfortunately when the river flows and levels drop at this time of year the big browns migrate out of this stream as the water between the pools gets very low and freeze up is a problem in the winter so they head on down to the Red Deer for the winter. It seems that we had heavy rains almost every weekend in August and the steams were extremely dirt all year in this area and the Red Deer has been very fast and dirty all summer. Run off took a long time to settle down and we did have a few good weeks in July but as I said August has been very poor. I suggest that you try other areas south of Calgary as I don't see things getting any better if these constant major thunderstorms don't stop before the snow happens. Usually snow starts around the end of September and stays for a long time. All in all it has been very poor fishing these foothill streams this year in the area.

Thanks for the info, I have just purchased a spot at the Tall Timber Liesure Park and have only been going up there for about the last 4 weeks or so. Plan to go up 2 or 3 more times before the end of the season, so will try some more, hopefully things pickup a little bit between now and then. If you are ever going to be up there pm me and maybe you could show me a few spots.

[SteveM]

Hope you at least stopped at the Bergen Store for some of their kick-ass beef jerky!

Best...jerky...EVER!!!!!

[tgo]

Yeah, I had very poor luck fishing the Little Red, Burnt Timber and Panther Rivers two weeks ago. Beautiful pools and perfect runs did not produce. Doubt I'll go fish up there again anytime soon.

[cj6530]

I used to fish the Fallen Timber hard many years ago. I always did well on small caddis and adams patterns. You definately have to walk it to find the prime spots. I often used the Hopper/dropper combo but would mainly catch on the dropper with that system. The biggest brown I have ever caught came from from that river 23 inch....my fishing parter landed a 24inch. I didnt believe the hype until I saw the huge browns with my own eyes. Also the river can seem frustrating at first as you need to change flys often to what is working and also use light tippet.

[Guest Rocknbugs]

I tried everything that day, hoppers/hopper droppers/dries/nymphs/streamers, it was very frustrating for the simple fact that it looked so prime and you had to think man there has to be fish in there.