Jan 26

Fishing Trips- Bow River

A Brown On The Bow

The alarm goes off and I jump out of bed. It’s time to go fishing again, my friends. I can’t wait. I turn off the alarm and hear that glorious morning sound of birds chirping. I wipe the cob webs from my eyes. My heart begins to race in anticipation of the day ahead.

As I step out of my car at the Bow River, I flush a gold-breasted pheasant. It flies desperately for cover and I smile. nothing for you to worry about, I tell the bird. I’m here for the fish.

I lean over my tackle box to tie up my first choice, a shiny gold Minnow Spinner. It’s so bright in the sun that it causes me to squint. I look up into the sky. It’s close to eight o’clock now. I’m eager to get on with the fishing, as the days are short in the winter time.

The water is clear blue, almost ice blue, yet I am alone. There is no one around but me and some large brown trout swimming over the rocks. I cast my selection slightly upstream and allow it to seek as it swings down with the current. Anticipation of that first fish is almost unbearable at this point.

I look up to the crystal sky, blue against the backdrop of Canadian Rockies. I am happy that I’m a fisherman and have this great escape in my life free from the fast-paced hustle of city life.

Carefully, I work my offering to tantalize the big brown I imagine lying in wait underneath the surface.

As the lure tumbles over the bottom of the Bow, I cannot help but think this is where I am meant to be. Slowly I retrieve spinner all the way back to shore and there is no trout on the end of the line.

I shrug and cast again. The spinner drops into the water, swings, takes up motion and WHAM, I’m fast into a monster brown. The line screams out of my reel and I might have lost him, but my Berkley XT monofilament is stronger than him. He bulldogs his way to the middle of the river, but I hold him.

Just as I think he’s going to come in, he turns to ride the current downstream. My rod bends sharply to his effort, but I won’t give in. Slowly I gain the upper hand. The fight is honest and pure and equal for a time, and then he comes to the bank and is mine.

This guy was one tough customer. I kneel down beside him in the flowing water to administer some first aid to my new friend. I ask for the forceps but there’s no nurse around. He’s not a very good patient and won’t lie still; but I gently work the hook from his mouth.

He’s not the one in the photograph. I released back without a picture. But he was just like the one you see. Yes, I was meant to be there. Oh, the fun of it! There’s nothing in the entire world like trout fishing on the Bow.

This post was edited by Dwayne P. of Idaho. U.S.A. See his website at http://www.talesoffish.blogspot.com/

Jan 26

Gone Fishing- Bow River

The phone rang last night and it was my newfie buddy Todd on the other end. He asked me if I wanted to go fishing tomorrow and all I could say was “let’s do it”. We made arrangements to meet down at the river and slay out some of the Bow River finest trout. I arrived thirty minutes before he did and was greeted by a Coyote who was down beside the water getting a drink of the fresh water. He took sight of me and disappeared into the trees that lined the bank.

I then pulled my first lure out of my backpack and tied it on the line as fast as I could and fired it into the cold water of the Bow River. As I was fishing I could not help but notice the water level has risen. I was intensely staring into the river waiting for that first trout. As I was looking over my shoulder to see if the coyote was back, I feel a big pull on my line and the fights on.

I battle the bow river bullet for a couple of minutes; she’s back and forth, up and down the river and than she run out of gas. I pulled her over the ice that lined the bank and gently pulled the hook from her mouth. She still had some fight left in her while she was on the bank. I calmed her down as I knelt over the ice to put her back into the cold water. She took a couple of seconds to start kicking again but darted back to her hole very quickly once she could breathe again. I smiled to myself and slowly wiped my hands dry. My friend arrived and we discussed what had just transpired and he too could not wait to get his lure wet. The pure fun of fishing, I cannot think of anything I would rather be doing.

Jan 21

Ask Mike – Tips & Advice

Let’s talk about lure action and retrieve speeds shall we. I was looking on the back of the package of the Blue Fox Vibrax Minnow spinner today and read this. The Minnow Spin from Blue Fox offers anglers the flash and attraction of a tuned spinner with a deadly action of a sinking balsa lure. Perfection in every detail, the Minnow Spin has proven deadly for smallmouth and Panfish/crappies and Trout. Controlled sink rate is perfect when fish are at certain depths. For best results retrieve slowly.

Here is what I want to discuss with you. This statement usually rings true but is not ­always the way to present your lure. In the winter the water is quite cold obviously, so this is a good retrieve speed (slow) when fishing for Trout in the winter months or in spring when the water is cold due to mountain run off. Another time of year when a slow retrieve is effective is high summer when the water temperature is warm or hot. Those days when it’s say 25-30 degrees Celsius. The fish tend to not exert too much energy at these times of the year so a slow retrieve speed is highly recommended during these times. Early in the morning when water is cooler, a slow retrieve speed is also recommended until the water has a chance to warm up a few degrees.

When the water has warmed up that few degrees, than start to increase your retrieve speed a little at a time to key in on how fast the fish are willing to swim to hit your offering. In the summer time, say at 10:00 AM, I present the lure at a medium speed and usually do very well with that type of retrieve speed. Later on in the day however, I slow down the retrieve speed as the day starts to warm up. The speed I use then is a medium slow retrieve speed. At dusk in the summer months I will pick up my speed to a medium high speed as the fish are very active at this time of the day and will usually hammer on anything that they can see or hear. I hope this helps all you beginners who are new to the sport of fishing or those who are not new.

Jan 20

Ask Mike – Tips And Advice

Hello every one of my fishing friends. I have not had a chance to go fishing lately as I have been quite busy doing other things. I have Monday to Thursday off so I am going to Fish the Bow River those days. I just made a big order of Vibrax Minnow Spinners so I hope to get those in the mail very soon. I’m going to keep this post small and once I have done some fishing I will add to the Blog. I will give you a quick tip here and then elaborate later.

Here is the tip: Change the factory hooks that come with your lure if possible to a hook that is stronger than the factory hooks which come with your lure. I use Eagle Claw super sharp hooks which are 2X stronger than factory hooks. It drives me nuts losing fish due to bent hooks or cheap factory hooks that break. The Eagle Claw will help you not to lose fish this way. Try to match the factory hook with exactly the same size of replacement hook you are going to use. This will not change the action of your lure.