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.

Brown Trout Info

Brown Trout – Originally from Europe, brown trout were introduced to the Bow River in the early 20th century and have successfully colonized the river from below Bow Falls in Banff National Park out onto the prairies on the Blackfoot Reservation. Fall spawners, the brown trout have found optimum spawning habitat within the City of Calgary as well as just outside the city limits.

Brown Trout were introduced into Alberta waters in 1924 and have become very popular among anglers here in this province. Native to Europe and western Asia, the Brown Trout was introduced into North America in 1883. They are Carnivorous, feeding on insects, crustaceans (especially crayfish), mollusks, salamanders, frogs, and rodents and all types of baitfish. It acquired its Common name from its general, background coloration.

Other common names for the Brown Trout include: Brownie, English Brown Trout, European Brown Trout, German Brown Trout, German Trout, Lochleven Trout, Von Behr Trout, truite, breac, gealag, truite brune, truite d’Europe,–ring (Sweden). The Brown Trout of the Bow River are the Lochleven Brown’s of Great Brittan. These fish are absolutely awesome fighters and grow to be very large in size. Personally my favorite species of trout to fish for as they are sometimes quite hard to catch anywhere you fish for them.

They typically feed at dusk here and even more often into the cover of darkness as they have the best eyesight of all the trout species. They will often move many miles or kilometers in search of food. They are very smart and some say they are immune to angling pressure to various degrees. If you want large Brown Trout you must fish the Bow River. Book a fishing trip here now

Ask Mike- Tips & Advice

Let’s talk about what lures or hooks if you will, work best for Brown Trout all over the world. When I target Brown Trout I usually will tie up a plug first thing. The reason for this is simple; Brown Trout love to eat baitfish. They do not eat baitfish because they are necessarily hungry, the will also eat baitfish mostly because they are very territorial. When a Brown trout hears or takes sight of a baitfish imitation moving through its territory, it will aggressively strike at this baitfish to protect its territory from this predator, YOUR LURE. I have several presentations I like to use when I target Brown Trout.

One is, when fishing a river I will cast the lure at a ten o’clock position and slowly reel the lure across the river finishing at a three to four o’clock position. Another method which is one of my favorites is, cast your lure directly upstream and retrieve the lure downstream towards where you stand. The fish are looking upstream to find their food so this presentation is the most natural looking to the fish. I like to use the Rapala Brown Trout pattern when fishing for Brown’s. The Berkley Frenzy has produced some of my biggest Brown’s as well.

This lure has a silver under body with a black top. Looks like a silver shiner. And finally when all else seems to fail I will use what’s called a Buzz Bomb. This is also a baitfish imitation with a kick, its loud noise or “buzzing sound” attracts big fish wherever they hide. Also try the Zinger made by the same tackle company which is the Buzz Bomb & Zzinger lure company.

General Info- Bow River

I would like to dedicate this post to the fisherman/women who are looking to fish the Bow River in the winter months. December, January and Febuary can be excellent fishing months but You can really only concentrate on one area of the Bow River for a few different reasons. Above the weir at Memorial Drive the river freezes and only a small channel has open water flowing through. Not fishable at all in this area. As you work your way down river the Bow begins to open up and then becomes fishable say after the Water treatment plant off of Ogden road. The treatment plant releases a certain amount of chemicals into the river which increases the water temperature. After this point, the river is fishable a kilometer above Mackinnon Flats. At Mackinnon flats however, you will face the same problem as above the Memorial Drive weir; totally iced up and no available water to fish. See here. I concentrate my fishing in the winter months inside the city of Calgary and a little south of the city. Then you are faced with another problem in the winter, when the temperature drops below -10 degrees the river flows with ice and then becomes unfishable as a result. I like to catch fish not ice. So you targeted area lies from The Western Headworks Diversion Weir (Memorial Drive) to just north of Mackinnon flats. Have fun fishing and catch the big one.