Posts Tagged ‘Rainbow Trout’

It started out typical of previous Opening Days – with Dave up and “at ‘em” earlier than me.  He started his day be fishing some creeks and rivers and then onto Lake Eugenia, where he caught a few small brook (speckled) trout.

I later met Dave in the afternoon in Orangeville, and we decided to head over to Humber Springs and try our luck for some rainbow trout.  When we arrived, we were told that the fishing had been pretty darn good earlier in the day, but the fish seemed to have stopped taking.  Sure enough, after we set up our fly rods, we found that there was no action whatsoever for quite some time.

But it was still nice to be out on the water, and good to keep up a tradition with Dave where we have hardly missed an Opening Day together since about 1978.  There have been a few in there where emergencies or a major family commitment interfered with our plans, but not many.

I tried a variety of fly patterns with no luck at all, including wets, leech patterns, and after noticing some midge husks on the water, a variety of chironomid buzzer patterns.  But nothing.

Finally, after thinking it was going to be a useless afternoon and evening as far as catching fish, Dave, who had walked over to another part of the pond, called out to me.  When Dave does that, it usually means fish in the neighbourhood.  I scrambled over to where Dave was fishing, to hear him tell me that he had just had a fish on that had broke his fly off.

As well, there were fish rising nearby – appearing to be taking small minows that were swimming near the surface.

A few minutes later after a cast from the bank, Dave hooked and landed a nice rainbow trout of about a pound and a half:

David Moore and his Opening Day Rainbow Trout.

Me? Well, I tied on a fly that was given to me – no idea the name of it. I did get to feel the strike of a fish for the first time in months – in fact three times, I had a fish on but lost it.

As it got dark, the temperature cooled down and the fish seemed to take another break from their feeding.

It wasn’t the most successful Opening Day we’ve had, but after a long winter, just being out fishing is good no matter the number of fish caught or seen.

Last week, I wrote about David tying up his first Woolly Bugger (sometimes called a Woolly Booger). This evening, David wanted to do some more tying so I thought it would be a good opportunity to review some basics with him and see what he remembered.

Before we started, he successfully named the parts of the hook and could identify the area where the “head” would be. He then recalled from memory what materials we’d need to tie an olive woolly bugger – thread, chenille, marabou, saddle hackle, lead wire and head cement and retrieved them from his fly tying kit. I was impressed! So instead of letting him watch the video instructions, I wondered how much of the directions he would remember on his own. But first, we practiced starting and wrapping thread around the hook shank. David did a fantastic job and had it nailed immediately. I was impressed with his neatness.

With little help from me, he had the hook shank wrapped with thread, the lead wire attached and secured, and the marabou wetted with his mouth and correctly sized for length. He did need some help holding the materials to the hook shank “just above the bend, right Dad?” and getting them secured. But after that, he recalled all the correct steps and in order. If he keeps this up, we might have another A. K. Best on our hands! I’d like that – if he can tie up all the flies I need that are smaller than a size 14. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves at this point.

When he had completed all the steps, he very carefully applied head cement to the head after I tied it off. He did find out how sharp a dubbing needle can be though, with a minor “boo boo” – but no complaints from him.

When the head cement dried, it was time to put the newly tied Woolly Bugger into David’s fly box beside the others. As he always does when he opens his fly box, he exclaimed, “I just love all of my flies, Dad!” And he looks at them admiringly and tries to remember what each one is called and asks me when he forgets. “Right. I knew that,” with a big smile on his face after I remind him of the name of one he’s forgotten.

He wanted me to take a photo of him with his fly box:

As you can see from the smile, the “wee man” is very proud of his fly collection so far, and he indicated that he can’t wait to catch a rainbow trout on one of them next year with his Snowbee Junior fly rod. Lord knows I’m hoping he will finally catch a fish with that that fly rod and reel outfit I got him for his birthday this year, too! And I’m glad that he’s still thinking that far ahead right now, with weather warnings about a big snow storm coming our way, he’s also looking forward to some cross country skiing as soon as possible.

As David went through the fly box, he asked about a couple of different patterns and one caught his attention – probably because he had seen me catch a number of fish with it in the past couple of years while stillwater fly fishing. The Copper Oval Tinsel chironomid. He asked what it was supposed to look like to a fish.

So, we went through the life cycle of a chironomid and how the eggs hatch at the bottom of the lake, and the pupae and larvae stages they go through before becoming a tiny small black fly often called a midge. David was quite impressed and compared this to what he knew about caterpillars and butterflies.

“Do you remember when I caught some fish using this chironomid, how I told you we had to fish it very slowly?” We then got into a discussion about how chironomid pupae and larvae don’t have tails, fins or muscles to propel themselves through the water quickly and depend on other factors to get them to the water surface – often very slowly, and meanwhile are good sources of food for fish.

David then disappeared from my office, only to reappear about twenty minutes later with this drawing I’ve had scanned:

David explained to me that this was his drawing of the life cycle of a chironomid (he forgot one of the stages, but that is ok). On the left, the eggs at the bottom of the lake. Then follow the arrow – the pupae stage. Floating at the mercy of the currents in the lake as it makes its way up toward the surface. When it finally gets there, it becomes a midge – and David decided to add his view looking down upon the water surface too.

Hmmm.. maybe not another A. K. Best, but an entomologist on my hands!

Two years ago to the day,  I met Colleen Rose Campbell when I was in Grande Prairie for the Canadian Fly Fishing Championships.  I’ve never been the same since!

Since that time, we’ve talked about getting Colleen into her first fish.  We haven’t had a ton of opportunity to go fly fishing together, but today, we thought we’d head up to Carson Pegasus Provincial Park, just north of Whitecourt, Alberta and see if we could get ourselves into some rainbow trout.  We had orginally planned to go up in the afternoon and rent a canoe.  However, when we arrived, we were advised that canoe rentals needed to be returned at this time of the year before 5PM.

So that wasn’t worth it, and we decided we’d try fly fishing from off the docks and shoreline.   We learned that McLeod Lake had been stocked today – depending on the reports, with 45,000 or over 100,000 rainbow trout fingerlings.  And those small fish were quite active just off the boat docks, jumping and likely enjoying all this, to them, brand new open water.

I tied on Viva Zonkers to both my line and Colleen’s.  I was disappointed we weren’t able to get out further on the lake with a canoe, but thought we might as well make the best of it and see what we could do.

Well, those brand new stocked fish sure liked the Viva Zonker, but couldn’t quite get their mouth around it. I had a ton of hits to the fly – almost every cast, and could see at times, several small rainbow trout following the fly and trying to grab it as I retrieved.

I figured that we had a very good chance to get Colleen into her very first fish – but we’d have to use something smaller and skinnier than the Zonker.  So I tied on this Chironomid pattern and showed Colleen how to fish it.   I then continued having fun with the small newly stocked rainbows that wanted to eat a leech.

A few minutes later, I looked over at Colleen’s rod and noticed that there seemed to be some bending of the tip section – not a huge amount.. but something.  “Hey Darlin’… do you have a fish on there?” I asked.

“Do I?!?” Colleen responded.  She retrieved her line a little more.

“I do!! I do!!” she exclaimed with glee and excitement.  “I do have a fish on, Ian!”

It was likely the very first time that little 5″ rainbow had ever been hooked, and it fought valiantly but couldn’t resist Colleen’s determination to catch her first fish!  And I was pretty excited as well, despite the small size, we both were very excited – that Colleen had finally caught a fish! On a fly rod as well.

The photo above was taken quickly and the fish released back into the lake.  Then a wee celebratory toast from the famous flask (Colleen didn’t even grimace this time, sipping Black Bush).

The action slowed down after that, so we decided to try some nymphs, but nothing.  Then, I put the Malteser to work.  This ugly and very poorly tied fly seems to catch fish everywhere for me. And sure enough, Colleen caught her second fish! About the same size as the first one.

The joy in Colleen’s eyes and smile – it was like a kid catching their first and second fish on the same day.  I’m pretty sure my smile was pretty big too!

Shortly after, I thought we mght have some fun with a dry fly. The small rainbows seemed to be taking midges off the surface – would they jump for anything?  I tied on a size 20 Caddis just to see, and we had a blast watching the fish jumping and trying to take the fly.  Some of them even managed to get hooked, and I brought probably four or five to hand while quite a few more entertained us with their acrobatics and frenzy for trying to eat dry flies.

I had pretty much resigned myself to thinking that all we were going to get today at Carson Pegasus were these small newly stocked fish.  However, I thought we should try some of the water off another dock just to see.  I’m glad we did!

I tied a Viva Zonker back on to the leader, and at first, felt the little tugs of small fish trying to consume it.  It was still fun and entertaining.

And then…. “Whoa!  Colleen!! This is NOT one of those small fish!” as I felt a vicious strike to the fly.  My rod bent over and I was a little more than surprised to see a good size rainbow trying to dive down to the depths of the lake before coming back up and jumping trying to shake the hook.

After several minutes, and some panicky moments when the rainbow headed for the underside of the dock, I finally landed the approximately 3 pound ‘bow with some very beautiful colourings in it.

The one thing I’ve noticed about rainbow trout from Northern Alberta lakes is their “football” shape.  They seem to have huge girths for their length.  This fish was 17 inches long and had a girth of 10 1/4 inches.

All in all, even though there was the initial disappointment about the canoe rental, Colleen and I had an awesome “2 year anniversary” celebration.

Happy Anniversary, Colleen – and thank you for a great day!! I am so glad you caught your first… and second .. fish with me!