Originally Posted by Zeno
Following on Ray’s advice you should learn to mend your line upstream during the drift of your fly, this is done with a gentle roll flip of the rod that tosses a portion of the line upstream a bit and lets the fly have more drift time.


Don't discard this information. It is very important if you want to catch fish on the fly. While it is easy to put a lure in front of a fish, if the drift of the lure (dry or nymph) in relation to the current of the river is wrong you won't catch anything big. Big trout, having been caught and released probably many times before are smart fish, although bad technique will easily catch the small ones.

That's what I'm counting on!

Does anyone know how to read these charts?

I'm trying to figure out if the Merced River below Yosemite is fishable, in particular around Briceburg, but the two charts don't make sense to me. I was in the park (so pretty far upstream) on Labor Day, and the fork that runs along the main road looked like it still had a fair amount of water in it, but the CFS reading seems very low.

google a fly shops site near by where you fish. most have a current fishing report on the area. thats the best and easist way to find out about rivers.

I don't comprehend not getting out

Hello all...we have another trip planned this year; this time to the Canadian Rockies. I don't have the specifics in front of me, but we'll be in Kootenay/Yoho/Banff National Parks and will visit Lake Louise and Lake O'Hara.

Any experience/suggestions?

float with a guide on the bow river downstream from calgary. the fishing is tremendous and one of the best streams in the world for decent sized browns and rainbows. you should land many fish over 18 inches with some 24 or so.
lots of great rivers near that area and good small lakes. floating the elk river right near fernie british columbia is some of the best cutt fishing in the world. also can go for giant bull trout around ten pounds and expect to catch them.

ask me later on questions as i spend time around there every year. plus you want to play poker in calgary if you like money..

I will definitely post questions once our itinerary is laid out. We tend to do day hikes, so any fishing opportunities will need to be "on the way" for the most part.

We are flying in and out of Calgary, but I doubt there will be time for poker.

Brag post. ~15 lb Chinook Salmon caught last Christmas, using large black and orange fly (can't believe how old this thread is):



-Zeno

Damn - forgot to follow up and am now sitting in a motel in Calgary, getting ready to head up into the mountains. Oh well...we'll see what happens!

hahaha...I really do suck. I think I'm at the point where I can sometimes put the fly where it needs to be. To recap, I've bait fished in trout streams a lot growing up, so I can usually identify a good holding area for a fish. At least I've got that going for me, I guess...

Anyway, the MO for the last couple times I've been on the water is, I'll see a likely spot, approach from the downstream side, drop the fly in, get a strike, and I cannot for the life of me get a good hook set.

Last weekend, I was on the river at sunset and there was a nice caddis hatch going on...solid strike and I finally hook a fish in the failing light! Nice fight, and when I get it to shore, it's a smallmouth.

so give us a report on your trip even if it didnt have any fishing.

The Canada trip was terrific (although the first day and the last day were smoky due to fires.) We did a short hike at Sunshine Meadows before crashing at Bow Lake in Banff NP.

After that, we hit all four parks, highlights included walking up Parker Ridge to view Saskatchewan Glacier, walking with the rest of the tourists on Athabasca Glacier, walking in the ice cave at Mt. Edith Cavell, plus some longer loops at Lake O'Hara and Twin Falls.

I did wet a line at the Maligne River, downstream from the lake. I was able to get a couple of trout to come up and smack the fly, but I couldn't set the hook.

We also tried fishing in the Kootenay River...we each caught a small trout on spinners, but no luck on the fly for me.

This was back in August...last weekend, I went to check out the October Caddis outside of Yosemite. Big, juicy looking bugs flying around in the evening. My limited selection of flies didn't include anything that big, but I did get action on a PMX Yellow (yay, Orvis special...20 flies for $10.)

sounds like a great trip.i love banff and jasper parks as well as yoho and revelstoke over from there.

The road in Jasper going up to Lake Maligne was really cool. Great views of the mountains, and then when you get to Medicine Lake, the "inlet" is this huge flat section of river. We were hoping to see caribou (or anything, really) crossing that part, but no luck, just tracks.

I'll take a smallmouth fight over a trout fight any day. once I figured out that smallies were int the water, i'd have cut down to a 2x or 3x and put on a beadhead wooly bugger.

as you found out, there's a fine line between enough slack to get a good drift and too much slack to make a good hookset. keeping your rod tip low helps some. throwing a short line helps, too, but you have to work on your stealth wading skills to get close to the fish.

sounds like a great trip. beautiful country.