Celebrating 20 Years of Western Sportfishing! (2000-2020)

We started out as wide eyed fly fishing obsessed teenagers, and are still just as obsessed, but much older and wiser! The first website the four of us built was actually back in 1999 named "Fly Fishing the West" on Geocities.com, and it would crash after a few people visited it. A magazine came out for a short time that took that name, so we switched up to Western Sportfishing in 2000, and started to build a whole new website on Tripod.com. Shortly after some quirks with those free websites, we bucked up some cash and bought our own domain name and web hosting for WesternSportfishing.ca!

We have all been fishing since birth, and fly fishing, tying, and filming for well over 20 years.  There doesn't appear to be an end to our passion for all of it!

Join us this year through our website and our social media pages as we celebrate our 20th anniversary in style. We will be adding fly tying videos from Nick to the website and YouTube pages. Also, we will be releasing a Classic episode every month in the winter/early spring. Then, we hope you enjoyed Season 1 of our WebTV Series, as we will be filming and releasing more content for Season 2. If that is not enough for you, be sure to follow our Facebook page and #WesternSportfishing on Instagram for details about some contest giveaways throughout the year. 

And if you don't win the contests, we will have a way to purchase some Western Sportfishing gear if you loyal followers wish to. It has been great meeting many of you over the years, and we hope you continue growing with us. These last 20 years have gone quickly, and we are only getting started! Happy fishing and tight lines! 

-Trevor, Andy, Tim, Nick- 

Spring Updates and Looking Forward to Summer

It has been a crazy spring to say the least. With a late ice-off for stillwaters to southern Alberta flooding and now a heat wave. The weather has been all over the map. With that being said we have still had some enjoyable trips out on the water. For myself, it has been one of the slowest seasons for catching, but the days out with friends and family have made up for the poor success rates.  Hopefully the success picks up but here are a few shots from the spring season.

Mid-Winter Fly Fishing Trip

Nick and I managed to make the drive down to Calgary from Edmonton on Monday to fly fish the world famous Bow River.  We usually try and get down there at least a couple of times in the winter, and now that Andy lives down in Calgary, we will probably go even more.  We fished some old haunts, and managed to do quite well.  The day started off slow with Nick landing a few whitefish before I switched to a nymph rig from a streamer.  The air started to warm, and midges were coming off more frequently.  After landing a couple fat whitefish myself, we started to get into some trout.  Nick landed a couple of bows, and a couple browns.  I managed two almost identical browns as well.  We changed spots to end the day, but were less successful there.  All in all, it was a great day to get out and fly fish in February!  For a more detailed report check here: "The Importance of the Small Stuff"

Here are a few pics from the day:

Nick netting a Bow River Brown Trout

Nice end to a good day

Sweet colours as usual on a Brown Trout

Myself releasing a nice Brown Trout (photo by Nick Sliwkanich)

Fall Backswimmer Fishing

As the month of August winds down, we start to get into one of the most spectacular seasons of fishing for the entire year.  Lakes usually become a quiet spot to get out and enjoy the Fall season here in Alberta.  Backswimmers become a major "hatch" as they go into their fall mating migration.  With this key food source, the lack of other anglers, and some very willing trout...its very easy to see why this is a fantastic time of year to fly fish for trout!  I thought I would share a few pictures from this month of fishing.  There are still plenty of days left to get out and enjoy some fine fishing as well!

A nice chunky rainbow trout with cool colours

A busy beaver

A large rainbow trout that fell victim to a #16 foam backswimmer

Fishing near sunset, and the trout were still coming up for backswimmers as you can see in the top left corner!

Real and imitation

This trout was blind in one eye but still managed to hammer the fly!

A trout going back for more

A hefty 21" rainbow on a floating line and backswimmer

Chunky football shaped trout that hit the fly with plenty of power!