Transitioning Into Fall On The Bow River

The Leaves Are Falling

With fall officially here in Alberta, I wanted to write my clients to thank them for a wonderful spring and summer. Man I had a blast with all of you. I am so very blessed to be able to share my passion with you all; to have the privilege of capturing memories of large trout on film, and video. I have never laughed so much in one season! By no means is the fishing season over yet folks, in fact we are just getting into the prime season for BIG fish. My boat is always, and I mean always ready to go. In the fall, great to excellent fishing is yours for the taking. Some softies put the rods away and kick back on their couch, beer in hand watching football games all day. Other die hard anglers get ready for fall and embrace the cooler weather, they leave their lazy buddies behind to watch football and drink beer while they make memories along the colorful banks of the Bow River.

If you are the one who makes those memories then please contact me and let me know when you want to fish. October is not booked up. I have one trip on October the 8th and then the rest of the month is open. I have been out fishing frequently this past two weeks on the Bow River. With no client trips booked, I am now finally getting to fish the river myself and boy is it ever coming alive. Many huge rainbows at the end of September and some browns are hooked more regularly now. From now until the beginning of December, anglers will see more browns coming ashore. In the fall months, the browns are fattening up before they get ready to start spawning. They need all the extra food for energy it takes to migrate to their spawning grounds and to complete the yearly ritual. Once they have migrated to their spawning grounds, they will destroy any thing that comes into their territory. It is important to note that once the female has laid her eggs, and the male has fertilized them, the brown trout become very territorial and will smash any lures or cranks that come near their eggs. Remember the males are competing for the females and will get extremely aggressive. This is the prime time to yard out a trophy brown from the Bow River.

In addition to catching massive browns, rainbows will be present in and around the spawning grounds of the browns. They hang out and eat the eggs from the spawn. This is sometimes an easy food source for the rainbows. Your chances of hooking a monster rainbow increase during this time of the year. The water is also cooler during these three months which is optimal for trout on the bite! The trout will be moving into different water during the fall so fishing will change accordingly to the targeted species migration habits. This sometimes leaves the angler shaking his head as to why he is not catching fish. Deeper pools of water will be you best bet to find trout, although you can still catch big fish in faster moving water provided there is enough cover for the trout to hide out in. Weeds, large boulders or deeper water after a shallow ledge is often very productive water in the fall.

Size of lures and colors will also play an important role in success during the fall months. I will not give away too much info here but if you think about the color change of spawning fish, you will be able to figure out which colors you will need to stock up on and add to your tackle box. I will let you think about that one and report your findings back to me once you have figured it out. I personally like to use larger baits in the fall, if I am using three inch baits in the summer; I will increase the size of my bait to four inches in the fall and will increase the speed of my retrieve. Switching reels during the fall will also help your bait move quickly. Just what do I mean by that? An example of a slow speed reel has a gear ratio of 4:1 which is considered a slow speed. Remember the spool on a spinning reel is fixed, and the bail wraps the line onto the spool as you turn the handle. So when discussing spinning reels, gear ratio refers to the number of times the bail rotates around the spool with a single turn of the reel handle. For example, on a reel with a 4:1 gear ratio, the bail rotates around the spool four times for every one single turn of the handle.

So a 4:1 gear ratio is considered a slow-speed reel because a relatively small amount of line is “picked up” during the cranking process (four wraps of line around the spool with each crank). The benefit is that these reels provide more torque for reeling in large fish. A 6:1 ratio is considered a high-speed retrieve. A high, low or medium speed retrieve should be determined by the style of fishing you intend to do. I personally like to use a reel with a 6:1 gear ratio in the fall and get those crank baits moving. The trout are less sluggish as the water cools and will swim at lightning speeds to pick off your crankbait. It is always wise to experiment with retrieve speeds to find out exactly what speed the fish are looking for, we all know that every day is different on the water so play around with presenting your bait.

Here are the Pflueger Supreme model numbers and gear ratios for you to choose from.

Another important feature of your reel will be the size. Smaller reels will work well for streams and creeks, but for larger rivers like the Bow River, you will need to beef up. I use reels that are larger like the Pflueger Supreme 9240XT which will handle lots of line, over 240 yards of 8lb test and will let you battle BIG fish with ease. These reels sport ten (10) ball bearings and have a gear ratio of 6:2:1. This is perfect for fishing the Bow River in the fall when you are targeting bigger fish. For 125.00 Canadian, there is no other reel that will perform like this for the money. If you can afford two reels, one for the summer and winter months, and one for the fall season, Pflueger have you covered. You can fish with a Pflueger President 6940 (5:2:1), which is perfect for summer and winter, then the Pflueger Supreme (6:2:1) for fall fishing the Bow River.

Bass Pro Shops in Balzac has the new Pflueger reels for sale now. Pick one or two up and add them to your arsenal of trout fishing weapons. If you buy one, please feel free to leave me a comment and tell me what you think.