I went fishing with my friend Mykola on Thursday last week after my final exam, and we had a good time at a local lake. I was there a few days earlier, and landed some big fish, so I took him out and was happy when he caught a couple nice trout. He told me that the first trout of the day was actually his largest to date, and having started fly fishing only last year, I thought the 3.5 or 4 pound rainbow was a great start to the day! He was quite happy, and I think a highlight, though understated at the time, was that he tied the flies he was using to get into the trout.
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| Mykola with a nice trout |
I also got out this weekend with Trev. I'm off to Europe for two months this summer for (mostly) university, so this would likely be the only time we'll get out together before I leave. We originally wanted to head to the Crow, but water conditions blew out the day before we left, so that got nixed... To top it off, we left my place at 4:30 am, but then got a flat just south of Edmonton before 5 am.
Bad omens.
So I changed the flat, but we had to turn around and switch cars (I guess it could have been worse, we could have been halfway to Red Deer, then need to wait around, hoping they could patch the tire). Anyway, late start, crappy water at our preferred destination, so we ended up doing some exploring and driving for no fish.
Day 2, we went to a small lake we hadn't fished since we were in high school. The plan was to check out some small lakes that should have been icing out, and the first one we checked was 50% free, so we hit it. It didn't take long for Trev to get into a fat (FAT!) 16"er. These fish live well on a steady diet of shrimp and minnows, so there is no denying that they grow fast. These trout that are 16"es were stocked last year at 8"es. That is some good growth. We ended out the day with around 10 or so trout, all in that same size class (there was at least a partial winterkill last year, so we don't know if there will be any larger ones right now. By fall they should be quite a bit larger!).
The fishing was good, and I had plans to fish with Andy on Monday. The fishing was fun the day before with Trevor, so we decided to meet at the same lake the next morning around 10. We had a bit slower of a day. The wind was up and from the east (never a good sign around here), and the remaining ice was shoved into the corner we'd fished the day before.
So we went to the east end as it was ice free, and had a go. Andy had a take first cast, but didn't connect, then we fished without any action for about an hour. Then Andy got a fish, lost another, and missed an aggressive take, all within 20 minutes. This was pretty close to what we knew the lake to be: there are a fair number of fish, but they cruise, and the lake is pretty featureless, so you either move all over the place, or wait for a school to come by. Anyway, these trout were those same fat-ass 16"ers.
No complaints from us.
We moved down to the windy side of the lake later in the afternoon. Our favourite part of the day was actually watching the ice melt away from 50% coverage to nothing over the course of a few hours. This opened up some decent water, too! I got lucky and landed a fat rainbow, and we took a throat sample; crammed full of shrimp and a lone minnow (neither of which was all that surprising). But one of the shrimp was over an inch long. Seriously large gammarus, so I tied a few in the right colour (had some biggies, but not in the right olive colour) when I got home (a couple for both myself and Andy) so we'll be prepared for next time.
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| Andy Tchir photo |
The weather has hit the shitter for now. Barely above freezing, and not looking good for the next day or two. Hope everyone is staying warm and having some fun on the water.
Nick
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