British Columbia 2008

[MuskieBait]

Day 11 (August 18th)

Our day started at 7am with a good breakfast. We had a 9-hour marathon drive toward Fernie. I wish I had taken more pictures on this leg of our trip. We passed through some very unique and beautiful country. But my memory on the camera was dwindling quickly. I still have 7 more days of traveling ahead and I couldn’t spare extra shots. I could attempt to describe to you some of what we saw, but even if I shown you the pictures, they would do the landscape no justice. I promise you, one day, I will return to take this journey again with the camera and snap pictures until my finger falls off!

Anyways, our route follows Highway 3 as it meandered between valleys and skirted the slopes of mountains. The road was specially steep and windy around Copper Mountain. However, the view was breathtaking.





Passing Princeton, we drove past Hedley into the Okanagan Valley. As expected, this ravine area were littered with vineyards, orchards and farmlands. The town of Keremeos resembled a series of road side fruit stands where fresh fruits and vegetables were placed on display. The river that paralleled the highway was the life blood of this region. If it wasn’t for this river, the farmlands would have long dried up.

Indeed, once the highway left the river, the desert environment enveloped us once again. This region, Chopaka, appeared even dried than the Cache Creek region. It had the reminiscence of a Western town completed with its own ghost town and rusted trailers. As we arrived in Osoyoos, brown crusted soil finally met lush vegetation. Osoyoos Lake created an oasis lined by palm trees (Yes! Palm trees in BC!) and pine stands. This resort town was full of life and a hang loose feeling. Life was wonderful here but as was just as expensive as anywhere else.

The road leaving Osoyoos ascended the mountains rapidly. It provided a great view overlooking Osoyoos Lake. It climbed so rapidly that I could feel the pressure changes in my inner ear. Once we cleared the peak, we entered some high country. This region must be elk country since every few kilometres away we would see another elk hazard signs. This warning would continue all the way to Fernie. Luckily for Kazu’s truck, we didn’t find any antlered friends. However, I deeply wish for a roadside sighting and photo opportunity of the magnificent beast.

From here on, the scenery remained similar. Our route hugged precariously to the sides of mountain slopes. We shot through small settlements with names such as Rock Creek, Midway, Greenwood and Eholt, and finally arrived in Grand Forks. For a BC interior town, Grand Forks is realatively large. There wasn’t much that Grand Forks would offer us and so we pushed on. Billings, Lafferty, Paulson, Castlegar/Kinnaird, Meadows and Salmo were towns we took little and left little. Finally, 4 hours later, we stopped at for another refuelling stop at Creston. Throughout this trip, I often had cravings for protein and fat rich foods like chicken fingers, wings and corn dogs. Perhaps it was due to our daily menu of bread, fruits, cup noodles and small servings of Vienna sausages. Creston offered me a chance to feed my craving with a spicy pepperoni. The saltiness of the treat was also very welcoming.

Leaving Creston behind, Cranbrook was only a little over 1 hour away. It is around the Cranbrook area that we began to see the slopes of the Rocky Mountains. From Cranbrook, we motored to Elko where we caught our first glimpse of the Elk River. The Elk is world famous for its trophy bull trout and westslope cutthroat trout fishing. In fact, the entire Elk drainage with its many tributaries and spring fed creeks were so special that they fall under Classified Waters protection. For non-resident, the cost of fishing Class II waters was $20/day. It was for this reason that Kazu and I decided not to fish this day since we arrived in Fernie at roughly 16:00. Although we had at least 4 hours of daylight left, the long drive left us exhausted and the $20 seemed unjustified.

Fernie was an idyllic little town where quaint resort homes dotted the base of the surrounding peaks.



We visited a local fly shop, the Kooteney Fly Shop, and caught up to the latest hatches and happenings on the river. It appeared that the river was a little behind in temperature and thus the hatches was slightly delayed. The large caddis and blue winged olive hatches has not happen (darn!), but the fish were eager to take on green drake during midday and yellow sally in the mornings and evenings. Naturally, I picked up 3 green drake and 3 yellow sally flies. I also bought my Class II license for next day’s fishing.

Since there was still some time until night fall, we had much time to “waste”. Kazu and I decided to do some scouting on a stream we were to fish the next day. Immediately adjacent to a highway bridge crossing, we found a nice little pool. The were little signs of fish but it did looked promising. We pushed on deeper into the gravel road evaluating sections of streams from the car. Occassionally, we stopped for a closer look. Our half-hour scouting trip yield at least 3 potential fishing spots. In one location, Kazu spotted a 12” mountain whitefish hugging the wood debris that was trapped next to some bridge support.

Once we were back in Fernie, we had a satisfying burger dinner at A&W. I grabbed the news paper and found our Canadian athletes had added a few more medals in our country’s honour. Fernie was only 1 hour from the Alberta border and the town even received the Calgary Sun newspaper.

After the 2 hour dinner break, Kazu and I returned to our stream and found ourselves a small rest stop where we were to retire for the night. We naturally took a look at the river. It was now 19:30 and a steady hatch of #18 yellow sally provided a buffet for the fishin the stream. Although we didn’t get a positive identification, the size of these fish suggested that they were most likely cutthroat trout. We decided to give this location a try first thing in the morning. In the fading light, the mountains overlooking our “camp” took on a softer character.



Returning back to the truck, our nightly rearrangement of the truck space became a routine and we were quickly snug in our sleeping bag in short order. I fell asleep to crickets and dreamt of trout sipping flies off the surface.

Day 12 (August 19th)

At 5am next morning, Kazu and I woke up to a chilly start. We decided to go straight to fishing and have a brunch later. Well, waking up early meant little when someone was already at your spot throwing a spoon into the pool. He had a good hit but missed it. After another 10 min, this old gentleman decided to leave for greener pastures.

I picked to fish the head of the pool in the rougher water while Kazu worked his magic in the deep part of the pool. With not much action, I stayed to work this pool while Kazu went exploring downstream. Fish were rising but there wasn’t an obvious hatch. I tried the yellow sally, caddis, griffiths gnat, prince nymph and stonefly nymph without success. Scratching my head, I decided to go big or go home empty. I tied on a beadhead micro leech that I had tied back at Kazu’s apartment. I fished it progressively toward to the other side of the stream. There was a large boulder where several fish were relating in the vicinity. The first drift in the area and I thought I felt a tap. In the middle of the next drift, my line twitched a little and it curled around upstream. I stripped the line tight and something tugged back! This fish was rather strong. After a great little dance, a flash silver with a slash of crimson came to my net. I caught my first westslope cutthroat trout!



What a beautiful little spot this was.



When Kazu returned, our stomachs dictated that a break was in order. We had a good breakfast and headed off to a second location.




Again, I decided to fish some rougher water first and gave Kazu the better spot. This was sensible since Kazu prefer to fish nymph and I prefer to fish dry flies. Kazu can fish the depths a bit more efficiently and conversely, I can fish the shallower, rough water without snagging up.

Without much action, Kazu went exploring and I moved into the main body of the pool. There were hatched of caddis and yellow sally in the air. Even though I fished with caddis and yellow sally, it took about an hour before I got a few hits and finally a small cutthroat. A few more missed hits later another small cutthroat had the fortune to visit our world. Kazu came wading back as I spotted a larger trout rising. I observed the current carefully and made by first drift. The fish rose and refused, but the fly got an explosive reception on the second drift! This 12” fish fought hard because it was somehow snagged in the belly. On that note, it was now 10am and we decided to explore a third location.

I identified the third spot based on some pictures I found on the internet. Sometimes, fishing reports with background are helpful, especially when you are traveling thousands of kilometres to fish unknown waters.

As with the last two locations, this location had a bridge crossing over the creek. Due to the easy access, there were few people fishing this area. In fact, the handful of people would be considered a crowd in this region. While everyone seemed to fish away from the bridge, I decided to fish right around the bridge. I caught 3 trout working the waters 5 feet upstream from the bridge support. They were fooled on the caddis and the foam hopper.

It wasn’t catching 3 trout here that was impressive. Well, perhaps they were impressive in Ontario since these fish were between 8-12”. It was the lost fish that surprised me. On one drift, I took a hit that sounded like a depth charge going off. I had a short tango with the fish before it dug into the bottom and cut my line. Not long after, when Kazu came wading back, I drifted a floating hopper under the bridge. With ultra clear water, I could see another large trout coming out of some wood debris sitting next to shore. The trout must have seen me and refused at the last moment. I went to conceal myself behind a boulder and made a perfect next cast. As soon as the fly drifted into range, the trout smashed it with vengeance! After missing my last fish, I played this fish carefully and tried to keep it off the bottom. This fish went for the opposite tactic and jumped off the hook. Darn! I missed two 18” cutthroat trout within a span of 20 minutes fishing right under the bridge. As I said before, I have no clue why people usually ignore these spots. Then again, keep moving…there’s nothing to see or to catch here!

Kazu said he finally caught a fish this morning on a caddis. He was fishing nymphs most of the morning but finally surrendered to the mighty caddis.



After the spot slowed down, I went exploring downstream. In a fast run, I decided to put on the #6 green drake I bought from the fly shop. I had a good fish rose but I was too eager on the hookset. I changed fly to the foam hopper hoping a new fly would get it to eat. I actually got a smaller 11” trout to hit and landed it. Knowing that the bruiser was still in there, I kept fishing the hopper.

Suddenly, at the corner of my eye, I noticed movement. There, across the creek, behind a boulder, under the ceder and in the seam of the swift current, “my” trout took something off the surface. It was not easy hitting the spot with the fly. I knew this trout was smart and there was little room for error. It took me four casts before my fly landed in the right drift. Every off target cast was quickly flicked back into the air to prevent the trout from seeing the fly. My final perfect cast bounced along the seam under the cedar branch and was smashed as soon as it got within the boulder. The fish ran into the current and fought deep and dirty. Finally, it came to hand with Kazu’s beautiful net job. Thanks Kazu for netting my 15” cutthroat, a new personal best!

If you look carefully to the left edge of the picture, just under the branches, you can see a boulder. That was where the fish was sitting. Upstream of that boulder, a cedar branch sat even closer to water than the ones seen in the picture.





With that epic effort, we decided to call it a fishing day at 13:00. Our initial plan was to spend a whole day on this stream. The amazing fishing yielded 9 fish for me between 8-15” with many misses and a couple of large fish lost. I already had the best day of fly fishing of my life! I was happy to leave.

We had a quick lunch at the truck and began our trek toward Calgary. The Crowsnest Highway brought us right over the slide site at Frank. On April 29, 1903 at 4:10 a.m., 82 million tonnes (30 million cubic metres) of limestone rushed down the summit of Turtle Mountain and buried a portion of the town of Frank killing 70 people. Large slabs of rock, boulders the size of car and rubble covering football fields could be seen on both side of the highway. Unfortunately, it was raining while we cross this chilling landscape. I did managed to get a shot when the rain stopped.



A short while later, I fell asleep. When I woke up, I was surrounded by the prairie. This was the first glimpse of the wide expanse I’ve read about but have yet to experience in person.



If I were to take this route again, I would stop the car to stand under the wide, blue sky and take in the tranquility and listen to the wind rustling the grassland. Much of this grassland were owned as ranch land. An hour later, the ranches gave way to farmlands.



Two hours later, we arrived in Calgary, just in time to participate in the 17:00 rush hour. We aimed to arrive in Red Deer before 18:00. However, the traffic set us back some time and we didn’t get to Red Deer until 19:00. We found a Canadian Tire where I applied for a WiN card and a fishing license. Unfortunately, one incompetent sale clerk mis-entered my drivers license into the system and I was not able to get the correct license. Long story short, I had to visit the Natural Resource office. Luckily, it was in Red Deer. Unluckily, the office has closed already so we must wait until at least 9:00 before we could fish.

When we walked out of the Canadian Tire, a nasty storm was brewing in the distance and headed straight toward Red Deer. Kazu said our campsite for the night was under all the dark ominous clouds. As we drove closer and closer to the storm, the lightning strikes became more frequent. I had seen some scary storms. I had photographed lightning strikes. But this storm truly scared me. The thought of sleeping in the truck in that storm was not a great idea. So Kazu and I found a motel in Red Deer for the night. Again, I caught up with the Olympics before falling asleep.

Day 13 (August 20th)

Kazu and I took it slow and easy this morning. We had to wait until 9am for the Natural Resources office to open. We had a nice complimentary breakfast at the motel, packed up and started to locate the office. We drove around twice looking for the street and missed it both times. When we did find the street corner, we went to the wrong building. All this running around meant we wasted an hour just trying to correct an error on my WiN Card application just so we could get fishing.

When all was said and done, we hurried to our first fishing location. Since it was now close to lunch time, we had a quick lunch before fishing. Looking from the bridge, the Red Deer River looked low and clear. Kazu said it was much lower than the same time last year and he didn’t know what to expect. We decided to try fishing here anyways.

The river resembled the Grand River that I’m familiar with. In fact, I divided and conquered the various sections much like I would fish the Grand River in Caledonia. Unfortunately, the goldeye were not around. If they were, they were not interested to the usual offering of olive wooley buggers, streamers, nymphs nor foam hoppers. After a couple of hours of fishing, Kazu and I decided to fish elsewhere.

We could either fish upstream of the city of Red Deer, or we could fish downstream. Our final decision was to head to Drumheller and fish downstream. I had made a request to spend a bit of time in Drumheller anyways. There was something special waiting for me. Somewhere between the 2 hours travel to Drumheller, my eyes closed involuntarily. When I woke up next time, I was surrounded by the badlands! That was one of the more unique landscape I’ve ever woken to. It was not long before we saw the welcome sign of Drumheller.





We drove straight to the river to check out the conditions. Similar to the section in Red Deer, the river was low and clear. In fact, it was so clear that we soon realize the river was fishless. If the goldeye were in the river, it would be quite easy to spot the occasional flash from their chrome bodies.

Thus, Kazu and I had a free afternoon from fishing. Well, that was just perfect since we could push ahead our schedule and use the time to visit the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Dinosaur Provincial Park!

Yeah, that’s right. I’m still a big kid. Those big toothy predators and slow, long necked herbivores excited me. For $10 admission, I am fulfilling one of my long time goal ever since I arrived in Canada. I don’t know all the statistics about the museum. Bluntly, I could care less. I only need to know that this was one of the largest collection of complete dinosaur fossil in North America and the badlands is one of the richest fossil site in the world. Well, enough babbling from me. Here are some pictures.

Young Albertosaurus



Adult Albertosaurus



Dromaeosaurs



Cool trilobite



World largest ammonite



Devonian Placodermi



World largest ichthyosaur



Apatosaur



Stegosaurus



Chasmosaurus belli



Duck-billed dinosaur



Triceratops and T-rex



Terror of the ancient sea...mesosaur



Shorter neck = a kind of plesiosaur, long neck = elasmosaur



Mammoth and sabertooths



Don't you wish you have a rack like that at home? Ancient elk and bison



Kazu went through each exhibit rather quickly. Meanwhile, I’m busy photographing just about everything and reading all I could about each item. After about 100 pictures, I had to delete some of them and use more selective pressure on what should be photographed. Our visit took only 3 hours, but I could have sworn it felt like a half day. When we finally walked out of the museum, part of the sky had darkened to provide quite an inviting photo opportunity.

Here are a few more shots of the surroundings.







It was now 19:00. Kazu and I returned to the river to see whether an evening hatch could bring some fish out of hiding. From the bridge, we saw a few rising fish. The gentle dimpling of the surface take suggested that these were only small fish. However, Kazu corrected me that often times goldeye feed on the surface just as discrete and delicate. Obviously, we had to give it a try. Well, maybe Kazu was wrong this time, or maybe the goldeye just didn’t like us. We fished for 45min with various dry flies and nymphs without so much as a sneeze on our fly.

We decided to try another spot that was nearby. Although we saw a couple of encouraging explosive rises, we were once again scratching our heads. As the sun was setting, I put down the fly rod and gave my camera a chance instead.



At about 21:00, we decided to leave Drumheller. Kazu suggested that we could find a pull out spot along the way for the night. We drove for an hour through a couple of small town without finding a suitable spot. At the end, we drove back to Calgary to spend the night at the parking lot of a Visitor Center.

Day 14 (August 21st)

There was a lot of sadness this morning. This was the morning I would be spending with Kazu. Beyond this day, there was little telling when we would met again to take on the open road and explore any possible fish bearing waters.

Before we part, we made one last big effort to hunt our Alberta target fish. We decided to fish the Bow River not far from Calgary. After filling some gas, we drove around looking for a Mohawk gas station that might sell maggot that Kazu could use for bait. Our search came up as a disappointment. We headed to our fishing location undeterred. We couldn’t access our first location due to mining operations in progress, but our second location was set in a quiet park with easy river access.

The Bow River was another treacherous river. The bottom composed of round rocks covered in moss. The river was deep and the flow was moderately fast in some areas. While Kazu trusted his footing with his felt soled boots, I clung close to shore in knee deep water. It wasn’t a problem getting the fly into some deeper water since the shore dropped off at a 45 degree. There were a few wing dams that we fished. In between each wing dam, the water entered a calm lagoon with sandy bottom and occasional clumps of weeds. It looked like a classic trout feeding location. In fact, the Bow River is world renowned as a trophy rainbow and brown trout fishery.

Kazu and I fished various nymphs, dries and hopper patterns. I might have a hit, but it was much too quick and gentle to confirm. We fished every possible holding spots from the eddy behind each wing dam, the current seam and even the calm waters in the lagoon. We didn’t see one fish nor did we receive a solid hit. Two hours into fishing, the wind picked up significantly and the sky darkened. A storm was crashing our fishing party! It was much too windy for me to cast far enough to fish the seams. The temperature was also dropping like a rock and it was getting cold. I packed my rod and took shelter under a gazebo. Kazu continued to fight the elements and fished for another 45 minutes before he came looking for me. When we spoke, he said that he couldn’t find me and feared I had fallen in.

We decided to conclude our fishing trip at 14:00. We had our last lunch together at the back of the truck, a lunch of bananas, apples and buns, our typical travel lunch menu. After lunch, we drove back to Calgary where Kazu dropped me off at a C-Train terminal. Our goodbyes were short but heartfelt. I sure hope we could save enough money to make our next trip a possibility in 2010.

Here's inside the C-Train



While I took the train to downtown Calgary, I met father and his daughter. His daughter couldn’t have been more than 10 years old. The father saw me luggage and asked whether I was coming home or leaving home. I said I was on a fishing trip from Ontario. We chatted about fishing for a little bit. He told me about some of the trout fishing he experienced in the past in Alberta. He said he hadn’t fished for quite a few years, but then turned to his daughter and told her he’ll bring her fishing sometime. She was so excited and beaming with the greatest smile in the world. So I took our my fly box and pulled out a bunch of my own nymph, leech and dry fly patterns and gave them enough to last a couple of trips. I gave my flies a blessing before handing it to them and getting off the train. I hope the dad made good on his promise and share some precious fishing experiences with his daughter.

From here on, my journey is not fishing related. In fact, there was little exciting to tell for a couple of days. I am quite bitter about what happened with the rest of this day or the next day. Simply put, I was let down by a friend that I thought I could depend on. I knew this friend for 15 years and we had a little bit of a history if you know what I mean. She invited me to visit Calgary quite a few times. When I finally found a ticket sale, she continued to suggest the best time for me to visit. But when I arrived, she had little time to show me around or to even spend time together. Worst off, I was offered accommodations at her apartment that eventually evaporated into an empty promise. She tried to make amends by taking me out to dinner and a movie (albeit with her date of the night! Talk about rubbing salt on the wounds!) but the damage was done. Since she was the best friend of my buddy’s wife, I decided not to make a big fuss. I would simple wipe her off my “friends” list after the trip. Had I not have another friend in Calgary to visit, this part of the trip would turned into a total disaster! So, I will just fast forward a couple of days and save you all the rant.

Anyways...a look at downtown Calgary's 8th Street.



Bow River from the balcony.



Day 16 (August 23rd)

I was quite excited today to meet my friend, Erica, from undergrad who was now studying her Masters degree at the University of Calgary. We arranged to meet at 10am and she was right on time, in typical high fashion with her Chihuahua. The plan of the day was to eat our fill of cupcakes and catch up on the past year of absence. I forgot the name of the cupcake place…but the cupcakes were to die for! Their coffee was very good as well. I’ll see if I can get more info on this place so if you are ever in Calgary, you can see for yourselves.

After spoiling our taste buds, we drove to a park along the Bow River and hiked the trails along the Bow River. We would have a close encounter with a garter snake and came across an osprey nest. Here are a couple of pics of one of the parents.





After the hike, I was invited to her place for dinner. Her fiancée was spending the day and evening to renovate a cousin’s house. So we had the evening alone. No, no, aside from a great pasta dinner, a bottle and a half of red wine and watching the Gremlins and the Wedding Singer, nothing else happened LOL. Although, we did spilled some deep secrets…perhaps more coming from me. I did after all had a more than a couple glasses of wine…We called the night at 23:00 and I returned to a dorm room at the University of Calgary where I took up residence for a few days.

Day 17 (August 24th)

After a night of wining and dinning, it was a slow morning getting up, dressed and fed. The cafeteria food at U of C was half decent, but it was better than our road travel menu LOL. The cafeteria was...



Erica picked me up in her car at 11:30am and we set our destination toward Banff, but not before a good dose of Starbucks in typical Erica fashion.

Banff is only roughly 1 hour from Calgary. Unexpectedly, the transformation from the prairies to the foothills to the mountains was so drastic that we were surrounded by grasslands to the granite walls all within 15 minutes of driving distance.

Banff was another quaint little tourist town. Sadly, I didn’t take any pictures of Banff (nor Smithers!). Well, that meant a return trip was in order in the future. We escaped all the buzzing activity in town and opted for a quiet hike up one of the mountain trails.

I don’t remember the name of the trail we took. I’m a little embarrassed that my memory of this leg of the trip was so poor. Perhaps it was due to the previously mentioned traumatic experience I had. In any case, this trail would follow the bank of an emerald river, up to a cascading creek, deep into the pine forest and finally to a perch on the side of the mountain. We could have ventured even higher up the mountain on a rougher trail. However, with Erica’s Chihuahua CeCe running around bear and cougar country and the limited time we had, I decided that it would be best saved for another trip. Climbing up a mountain rejuvenated my tired, lab-caged body and I think Erica and I eventually caught up just about everything in life. Here are a few pictures from our hike.

















Our drive back to Calgary was a rough one. We were both tired and trying our best to keep each other awake and alert on the drive home. We did make it home safely for a quick rest. To my amazement, Erica fiancee’s cousin invited Erica and I over for dinner. Boy, they put out a whole table of Slavic food fit for a few kings and queens! This couple was so kind and giving and we shared a lot of great stories. The wine kept flowing and th stories got better and better. At the end of the night, I gave them my invite to visit Hawaii if I ever settle there. They would receive my all-inclusive treatment during their time there as a thanks for their hospitality.

Day 18 (August 25th)

The day was quite uneventful. I spent the morning packing my luggage and had a great breakfast. My flight was set for 17:00. My friend Erica took half a day off and drove me to the airport by 15:00 even when I insisted that I could take the bus to the terminal on my own just fine. It was another brief goodbye as I’m not great with long goodbyes. And well, the rest is pretty much history.

If you read through every part...well, it was 36 pages of Word document ;D