The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

It was a cool and brisk morning as we arrived at Policemans Flats on Saturday. The forecast called for plus 12 and mildly windy weather. In Calgary, we all know that can change in the blink of an eye. As we say here, “If you don’t like the weather, wait an hour”. The sun wanted to come out between thick scattered clouds but that was not to be for several hours later. We bundled up with several layers applied pre-launch. Lucky I brought extra clothes with me. You can take the extra layers off but you sure can’t put them on if you don’t bring them with you! The thermostat on the dashboard of my truck read 5 degrees celsius, but with the 25 kilometer an hour wind, it felt like minus 5. Nothing was stopping us today, barring a tornado or a hurricane!

We loaded up the boat and off we went into a narrow opening between a small entrance from the back pool to the main channel of the river. Lucky I brought my waders as the water is very shallow which required me to get out of the boat to drag it through the narrow opening. The Good thing is we made it out of Policemans Flats safely and without getting my feet wet. That would have made for a long cold day of misery and pain. I rowed us out from the bank we launched from and we were away for another six hour journey down the slow flowing chops of the Bow River. MacKinnon Flats has been closed for the past few months and finally opened Wednesday April the 15th, making the lower stretch of the Bow River completely accessible to anglers. Another good thing is we can now float to the Carseland Weir, which happens to be my favorite section of the Lower Bow River.

The bad part of our trip started early. I had some serious issues with the line getting all caught up under the spool of both my clients reels. Sometimes when it’s windy, the line can do some really weird things. It is important to have the right tools with you to deal with all types of issues that arise on the river. A cigarette lighter was the tool of the day for me. Instead of wasting valuable fishing time on the water, I was able to solve the line issues with simply burning the line with the lighter. This happened three times in less than an hour but the lighter saved me from wasted fishing time. Everyday is a new adventure out on the water and things do not always go well for even the most skilled anglers.

The fishing was also slow for the first hour or so which always gets me a little discouraged. Some days I joke about having a button I could push to cue the fish to bite. As we know, that has not been invented yet and would take the fun out of it if in fact it was! Many slow minutes passed and finally Riaz hooked his first fish of the day, I was excited and coached him on but just as fast as the fish was hooked up, it got away. Some you win some you lose. We floated another forty minutes with no action so I decided it was time to pull off the river, stretch our legs and fish a known productive hole. I observed a few fish rising along our side of the bank and immediately knew we stopped in the right place. We all exited the boat and proceeded to fire away hoping for that first fish to grab ahold and yank hard. Thank the fishing God’s we never had to wait very long, Riaz was hooked up and fighting a very decent brown trout which made me jump for pure joy. Finally we had life on the end of the hook! No pliers were needed as the fish managed to squirm off the hook and escape back to his hiding spot. We proceeded upriver and not far up, Ted had what I felt was a large trout. His rod pumping fiercely as the fish peeled line off the reel. Patience with larger fish is a must and Ted did a great job landing this sweet, large rainbow trout. I snapped a few pictures and released him back into the river for another angler. There were several nice fish landed from this prime chunk of real estate before were wandered back down the river and into the boat. It’s a good thing we stopped here as we only landed one fish after from the boat. it was not for lack of trying that’s for sure.

The ugly came an hour or so downstream as we were rounding a corner in the river. The wind had picked up considerably which sent the boat into the shoreline despite my efforts to row us away from the bank. As soon as we hit the rocks i heard air escaping the left rear chamber of the boat rapidly. I knew it was a big rip as the chamber lost air in less than twenty seconds. Ted was sitting in the back and informed me it was a pretty big tear in the boat below the waterline. The Saturn raft has four separate chambers and is super safe on the water. We were able to finish the final forty five minutes of the trip safely and without any further incidents.

Having the proper boat is extremely important while out on any body of water. It was not a great ending to the day’s fishing trip but we all had a great time and we did land some great Bow River trout. I let the boat dry out overnight on Saturday and took it over to my fishing partners garage on Sunday afternoon. We patched the tear up in a few hours and I was on my way back home. The boat is fully fixed and we are ready to float the river once again this coming weekend. That sure was a trip I won’t soon forget!