Winter Cutthroats

Tim with a very nice October Westslopes Cutthroat Trout

Tim and I headed out on a mid-October fly fishing trip to Southwestern Alberta. So the title "Winter Cutthroats" may be a little deceiving, but since winter in Alberta starts in September, it adds to the elusiveness of this trip. We drove through the Highwood Pass to the Trunk Road, which was quite the scenic drive. I highly recommend this drive to anyone when conditions permit safe travel.

Beautiful Upper Kananaskis Lake on a cool fall day, a great sight to take in when heading to the Highwood Pass

Much like early season trips, late season trips can be rather unpredictable. We drove through snow and temperatures around 3 degrees Celsius at higher elevations, but fished in weather closer to 12.....not bad at all. We took a nymph rod, streamer rod and dry fly rod, to cover all the basis down at the crick. Tim had the great idea of bringing along a video camera too, so we look forward to posting a video of the trip in the very near future.

Tim with the first fish of the day: a nicely colored little cutthroat trout

All in all, it ended up being a really solid day of fishing. Tim started off with a pretty little cutthroat on the nymph, and I picked one off on a size 20 dry fly. The coolest part was watching the video back at home because you can actually see the cutthroat come up and sip the dry fly in crystal-clear fall water and then get chased and almost EATEN by a big ol' bull trout while scrapping away!

Myself, with a really big mountain whitefish taken on a nymph

The coolest part of the day for me was near the end, when Tim and I had a double-header....the first double-header of this nature I have EVER encountered. There were some bull trout swimming around and Tim had one chase the streamer. They didn't show any interest in the large presentations after that, so we went back to nymphing for whites and cutts...."GOT ONE!" Tim shouted from the other side of the river. "Its a bull trout on a small nymph!" I threw a cast out and got ready to help him land his little bully...BAM! "I got one on too Tim! DOUBLE HEADER ON THE DIMESTORE!" I yelled, imitating a show we watched way too much of years ago...."Mine's a bull trout too!" Talk about a cool scenario! A double header of bull trout on tiny nymphs! We video taped both fish and released them back into the cool water.

Tim with a smaller bull trout taken on a nymph during the epic double-header

We capped the day off with a cold beer to celebrate what we though might have been the last mountain trip of the year. Overall, it was a really fun day and I can't wait to see the video and share it with you all once it's edited!

Tight lines!

-Andy