Gettin' Our Fix

My good buddy Joe and I headed down to the Bow River a few days after Christmas.  We checked the weather in Calgary and it looked like it would be manageable.  I'm sure it never got over the freezing mark as I was removing ice build up on my rod guides the entire day but as long as the sun stayed out we were pretty comfortable.  When we first arrived there was another fly guy already in the run we wanted to fish chuckin' a nymphing rig with a big indicator (same thing we planned on doing) so small talk was made and we eventually asked him if he wouldn't mind us jumping into his run.  He said he was moving on anyway so no problem, we thanked him and watched him disappear down stream.  The fishing was less than stellar, I've had way better December days on the Bow than this day and only managed to net one Rainbow and one Brown.  Joe?  Well even worse for him.  Petty sure he landed a few sticks (gotta get my jabs in where I can) and even had a couple of hits but nothing to the net.  I'm really ok with how the day went, we got our fix and shook off the shack nasties.  I'll be honest with you, I am 'not' one of those guys that are ok with catching nothing but on this particular day in December I can honestly say...it was nice just being out in the water.

Photo by Joe Belehorec

Here's another article I wrote for Fly Fishing Central about hanging flies under indicators.

When stillwater fly fishing, hanging chironomid patterns under an indicator is one of the most popular if not highly preferred methods of fishing a midge. This technique works whether fishing the larval or pupa stag of the chironomid although the pupa gets far more attention because of it’s slow assent to the surface and availability throughout the water column. For fisheries that allow using two or more flies, your options open up which can lead to improved success. When searching for the strike zone, a multi-fly system can both speed up your search by targeting different depths on the same rig and using various colors of patterns can more quickly determine color preference by selective trout. Another window that opens up [read more...]

Troll-Casting

I don't fish nearly as much from a float tube as I do from my pontoon boat any more. And when in my 'toon, I usually anchor down and work an area pretty hard before I move on. There are days though when I feel a need to take the float tube out, dust it off and give my legs a bit of a work out. It's times like this that I go back to what I call 'troll-casting'. Troll-casting is simply a stillwater technique which combines casting and trolling, a term I came up with to describe my actions to students interested in learning stillwater fly fishing from a float tube... [more]

The Midge Larva (Bloodworm)

Also known as chironomids, (from the word chironomidae, meaning non-biting midge) there are many anglers who believe the two flies are different but they are indeed one and the same. As fly fishers, when we speak of the chironomid, we are usually referring to the pupa stag of the midge which is more than likely what causes this confusion. To add to this misconception, we have yet another name for the midge when in it‘s larva stag. Commonly known as a bloodworm, the midge larva is not a true worm due to it’s... (read more on Fly Fishing Central)

Finding The Strike Zone

Getting your flies into the strike zone is fairly important when it comes to stillwater fly fishing. Just a couple of feet can mean the difference between a good day, a great day and a day when you tell your friends, "it was nice just being out on the water". Finding the strike zone starts with techniques you use up on the surface of the water and ends with your flies at just the right depth below. But just how do you find the right depth? Let's start with maps. Bathymetric … [Read more at 'Fly Fishing Central]

Got Pike?

Some fly anglers are reluctant to target pike on a fly rod. Maybe fishing for pike doesn't meet their definition of what fly fishing is all about or maybe it's because of their days spent targeting pike before picking up a fly rod. Whatever the reason, they have no idea how much fun they're missing out on. Fly fishing for pike doesn't have much finesse associated with it, chucking big streamers …   Read more on Got Pike at Fly Fishing Central.