Oldman River

[esleech]

I hit up the Oldman yesterday at an ungodly hour. Lets just say, that the stars are real visible south of Longview. Anyways, I figured it would be a little early for good fishing, but the season is drawing to a close soon, and I couldn't sleep. I decided to hike down to the confluence of the oldman and the livingstone, begin fishing downstream, and then fish all the way back up. To cut a long story short, I saw 1 fish rise all day, caught 2 PIG whities, and one real nice cutty. Sorry, no pic of the cutty, must have been close to 20 though. I hooked him on a 18 CDC bwo, and the hook popped out at my feet. What worries me, is the lack of fish. Is this not a particularily good stretch? Been pounded too much? Fish moving at this time of year? I didn't see more than 10 cuttys, and no bulls in the pools or runs. Irregardless, it was still great to get out, and hell, I didn't get skunked.

[Taco]

I found most of yesterday fairly tough fishing but the cutts are staging and starting to stack up in the wintering holes, this time of yr they're not in their summer lies . Yesterday I fished damn near 10 km of water and I found them in the wintering holes or just above and below. They didn't start to really feed until the water temp hit 50F, by that evening the water temp was about 60F and if you were in the right area the fish were slammin' just about anything.

[esleech]

Cool. Thanks Taco.

[Glenbow]

Esleech, I had the same experience on another river (which shall remain nameless) - not in the same area but with the same species just the other day. Caught lots of cutts a few weeks ago, but only 1 or 2 for an all day trip the other day. Not where they were supposed to be or where they used to be, so I figure they're on the move with the temps changing. I dunno for sure, but it makes sense to me.

[tgo]

This is crap news, I guess I'm staying in Calgary next weekend and just fish the Bow.

[wongrs]

This is crap news, I guess I'm staying in Calgary next weekend and just fish the Bow.

 

and....

 

participating in the bow river cleanup!! right?

 

on another note, i had also figured that the fish would be on the move but early afternoon i had a couple 18" cutts hit #18 adams in shallow quick runs about 18-24" deep. i figured they'd be moving to the pools but where i was they were still in the deeper runs.

[HopperDropper]

I was at the Oldman Tuesday Sept 11th as well. I would agree with the fact that the fish seemed to be in the winter lies for most of the day. I only caught 2-3 in the first half of the day....that is until I found a deep pool. I was able to see 15 -20 large fish cruising around but was unable to tempt them with streamers or nymphs. At noon, they all moved to the shallows and the action was on. I was able to sight fish and was able to land 10-12 large cutthrouts in the 14-19 inch range on dries. It got so radiculous that everytime the fly landed on the water, 2 or 3 fish would go after it at one time. I'm kind of embarrassed to admit to the fact that I would pull the fly off the water if I saw a smaller trout go after the fly, instead of a larger one. As fast as the action started, the fish stopped rising an hour later and I had no luck after that. I've never caught so many large cutthroats in one day. Weird day.

 

[fisher26]

Wow that’s a big ass cutty! The quality of the photography on this forum is simply amazing, and improving! I am slightly worried about that area as it's getting tons more pressure then it used to get... Every report of poor fishing make me a little concerned as I have personally have found that you know have to get quite always of the beaten path (which is harder to do in that area) in order to have good fishing (like it was 5-6 years ago). Another concern is the amount of garbage I find in the gap, common people how could you litter in a place that pretty!

 

Sorry for the hijack!

[reevesr1]

HopperDropper,

That is a fantastic picture of the big cutty. I gotta say that is one of my favorite fish pictures on this forum to date, and that is saying something. The rest of the photos are great as well. Thanks for sharing them.

[lonefisher]

wow great pics guys! HD that cutty is real sweet. As for the fishing I would say mornings this time of year can be a real crapshoot...... specially for cutts on those smaller rivers..... I think the smaller creeks like those fluctuate in temps quite a bit so the cold nights drop the water temp..... long and short of it is sleep in and fish late......