I recently read an article in Outdoor Canada Magazine (my second favorite outdoor magazine) titled 7 Easy to Tie Flies That Will Catch Fish Anywhere in Canada. I live “Anywhere in Canada” and I love to fly fish so I have decided that it is my mission this summer to try all these flies and give you a report on how well they work and how easy to tie they are. One of the points the author makes is “these flies will work just fine if they’re a little sloppy”. Coincidentally that’s exactly how I tie most of my flies. I think “sloppy” also makes them look “buggy”, and, in some cases, injured.

So, the 7 flies are (in order of the images below the list):

• BEAD-HEAD WOOLLY BUGGER
• BROWN & WHITE BUCKTAIL
• CLOUSER DEEP MINNOW
• BIVISIBLE
• HARE’S EAR FLYMPH
• X-CADDIS
• EGG FLY

I have tied and fished flies similar to all these at some point, except maybe the BiVisible.  Good news, I can remember catching fish on all of them, from walleye and goldeneye on the Clouser Minnow to rainbow trout on the caddis.  The wooley bugger has been a favorite, catching a wide variety of species including pike, walleye, and rainbow trout.  The bucktail has work especially well on perch.  I haven’t used an egg fly pattern in Canada, but I have caught steelhead on the Salmon river in Idaho with an orange/red version.  Hare’s ear nymphs have caught rainbow trout and perch.

By the end of summer, I will also add a few of my favorites to the list, hopefully arriving at a respectable 10 flies that are easy to tie, easy to fish, and catch fish.  Expect that list to include the Super Jumbo Mosquito.

Summer Fishing Plan

My plan for the summer is fill a new fly box with only these flies and fish them as often as I can.  Translation: I now have another reason to go fishing.  Whenever I convert my gear fishing fishing buddies over the art of fly fishing, I will arm them with a few of these flies and keep track of how well they do.  Well, 2 months until fishing season opens, I’d better get tying some flies.

Fly fishing for trout is a roller coaster experience.  When you find the right time and the right tackle, it’s pure adrenaline.  Acrobatic splashes, long runs, and a beautiful fish on the end of the line.  When the bite is off, the bite is off.  Trout tend to be very finicky, so if you find something that works, stick to it.  I have found the combination that has worked wonders for the past two weeks.

While fly fishing my favorite trout pond, I try to experiment and see what happens with a different pattern of fly, fished on the bottom, pulled just below the surface, fast and slow, drifting, changing colors and sizes of the same or different flies, and changing location of my casts.  While the old adage, “match the hatch” is certainly true, I’ve stumbled across a magic combination for catching trout at sunset in the middle of August.  The key to the whole matter may be the time of day, but here’s what’s worked for me.

I started fly fishing that evening at about 7:00 pm, casting and switching flies frequently, hoping to catch a few nice rainbows before it got dark.  There was a lot of action near the surface, but little for bugs on the top of the water.  My guess was they were feeding just below the surface.  So I changed tactics, tied on a dry and went for a fast retrieve just below.  The result, a few nibbles, even a couple of little ‘bows too small to really count as a fish.  So I changed flies, larger and smaller.  Retrieved faster and slower and deeper and left and right, and the same results, occasional nibbles.  The sun was quickly dropping behind the hill over my right shoulder, and the top water action was starting to die down.  Disappointed, I gathered in my line and began the short walk from the far end of the pond to where I had parked my truck.

It was 8:30 now and would soon be getting difficult to see.  In the 2 or 3 minutes it took to walk the length of the pond, the action suddenly increased, and the rises appeared larger than before!  I paused!  I thought! I took my rod back out of the case and cast my fly about 30 feet out.  Fish on!  A quick release and another cast.  Fish on!  That was two fish (and these could legitimately be called fish) in 1-1/2 minutes when I had caught next to nothing in the past 1-1/2 hours.  So I continued casting and catching, as the sun disappeared and I could no longer see my line, but I kept catching trout, and they seemed to be increasing with size as it got darker.  So I thought to myself, I’m staying here until I tangle or I lose my fly.  By the time I finally did tangle, it was 9:45 pm and the stars were shining bright.  I was the last to leave the pond that night.  Most others had left as the sun was setting and missed all the real activity.

Not sure if this was a one time phenomenon, I was determined to test my theory the next night as well, as all good scientists will do.  An experiment which can be replicated has no validity.  Therefore, in the interests of science (trout fishing research), I was duty bound to return, Tuesday, Thursday, the following Monday, Tuesday and again Thursday.  Each night, the results were the same.  A few nibbles, a few trout landed, then just after sunset, success every second or third cast.  My belief is that the trout were not so much going after a particular pattern of fly but more on the movement of the fly.  The first three nights I tried not to vary the experiment too much, sticking with a pheasant tail nymph each night and using a rapid retrieve just below the surface.  Most of the hits came within the first couple of pulls on the line, some the instant the fly hit the water.  I did move around the pond, trying shallow and deeper waters, close to and directly away from shore.  It didn’t seem to matter, the bite was on everywhere!

This past Monday I decided to try a different pond, one I know holds larger fish.  The results were very similar.  These last two days I varied the pattern, switching from the pheasant tail nymph to a zug bug to an imitation shrimp.  All three patterns about equal in size but varying in color.  It didn’t seem to matter.  All flies were equally successful.  I’ll be returning tomorrow night, well prepared, and experimenting again with a few different fly patterns.

Here’s my advice for fly fishing when the light is starting to diminish.  First of all, bring a small flash light.  The light will come in handy when you snag your cast, when you tangle your line, when you want to tie on a different fly, and especially when releasing a fish which has taken the fly deep in it’s mouth.  As always, it’s easier to release the fish with a barbless hook, or with the hook pinched down.  Shorten up your line.  You won’t need a lot of line, the fish are as active 10 feet off shore as they are 50 feet off shore.  A shorter line leaves less chance of tangling in the dark.  A side benefit of casting in the dark is you really learn to cast by feel and get into the rhythm of the cast.  The only senses you have are touch, taste, sound, and smell, and three of those don’t help much.

Today I attempted to fish at the North American mosquito testing grounds. I pulled up and parked near one of my favorite fishing spots and opened the door to get out. Within 2 seconds I had two mosquitoes on my ear. Like a fight in a high school parking lot, it was on! Out came the Muskol. I was determined to not let a pesky little insect prevent me from casting my fly rod and hooking some trout, maybe that big brown I’ve seen feeding on the surface nearby. In fact, mosquitoes be damned, I will use them to my advantage.

I defiantly walked to the waters edge and tied on my “Jumbo Mosquito” pattern and started casting, through a cloud of mosquitoes, so it seemed. Every piece of exposed skin was covered, twice, with bug repellant, but they were all over me. I set my rod down and started applying bug repellant directly onto my clothes. I read the label, “Apply sparingly, re-apply as needed, lasts up to 6 hours”. Try 6 minutes and only when applied in thick layers. It was better to be on the move. With myself and my dog constantly moving and casting, I thought I could move away from the swarm, only to realize I was moving into the next swarm. Walking through the grass only bounced more mosquitoes into the air.

I was convinced I was in a battle with Muskol resistant mosquitoes, or these are the mosquitoes from the bad side of town and they treat Muskol like candy or a cheap drug. The more I put on, the more I was swatting at mosquitoes landing on my neck, arms, legs. Finally after an hour and a half, and no fish, I packed it in and headed home. I saw the big brown trout surface again. I’ll be back for him, with uber strength bug repellant. Perhaps a double layer of Muskol Extra Heavy Duty and Deeper Than Deep Woods Off.

This round to the mosquitoes. Next round to man!

I’ve read a lot of fly fishing tips but living in Saskatoon does not afford one the opportunity to fly fish a river for trout very frequently.  Never having done so, I didn’t think I was missing much.  After all, there are plenty of ponds and small lakes stocked with trout within a couple hours drive of Saskatoon.  But, as I was delighted to find out, there’s a big difference between a trout laying at the bottom of still water and a trout spending it’s life in a river moving 15 miles per hour.  Wild trout vs. stocked trout?  I’ll take the wild trout please.

I was fortunate to be fishing with someone who has fished the bow river many times and knows how to read the water for good fish holding areas.  In fact, as my brother in law Terry was demonstrating how to cast the double nymph rig, he immediately hooked a fish.  A small rainbow was sent back to grow bigger.  Now I was pumped!  Standing in the Bow River, fly fishing, one fish already caught, but not by me, yet.  I decided to follow his fly fishing tips as I awkwardly cast the stone fly and san juan worm into the seam between the fast water and the slow water just in front of me, and let it drift through a pool.  After three or four tries, I got one “not too bad” according to Terry and suddenly the strike indicator was gone.  I set the hook with a quick tug and “FISH ON!”.  Being a novice to river fishing, I gave it too much and it took off cross-river, got behind a rock, and worked it’s way free of the hook.  thinking we may have “spooked the hole”, we waded down stream 25 or 30 steps to a spot Terry called a “classic nymph run”.  I worked the nymph rig into place with a couple of casts and drifted through the hole, poorly, the first four times.  On the fifth try, a decent cast, a decent mend to the line, and the strike indicator disappears again.  I set the hook, the fish takes off.  Terry not too gently instructs me to turn the fish to the bank.  I manage to do this, while noticing the pull on the line and the bend in my 9 foot 6 weight fly rod is nearly 90 degrees.  This one feels like the “Bow River ‘bows” I’ve heard about!  It takes off, down stream, a strong fish with the current and my reel makes that beautiful ZIIIIIIIIINNNNNG sound of a good fight.  On aerial display number of 4, we can see it’s a good sized fish.  After a 3 or 4 minute battle, we have the fish in hand (see the pictures in the Campfire).  My first fish landed on the Bow River is an 18″ Rainbow Trout.  I was feeling pretty good about it, especially as we released it back into the river.

The gear we were using was a 9 foot, 6 weight rod, floating line, 9 feet of leader with a strike indicator, 2 feet of 4x tippet tied to a San Juan worm with an extra 18″ of 4x tippet tied to the hook on the San Juan and then to a stone fly nymph.  “Why the two flies?”, I asked Terry.  “Because the rainbows like the stoneflys and the browns like the worms he explained.  I couldn’t argue, and for good reason.  We moved another 25 to 30 feet down stream and I worked the rig through a similar seam and a few good drifts later had hooked into a big brown.  It took off right away and I could feel the power of this fish.  5 minutes later, we discovered the 20” brown trout had taken the San Juan worm.

What I learned was that fishing a nymph rig was al about getting the right float.  If you don’t pass through the hole looking like the way the food usually does, you get ignored.  Get the right float, and your chances improve.  With the fast moving water of the Bow River, a bad float might last 5 seconds, and your flies may never get in the right place, down low, into the pools that hold the fish.  This is usually caused by too much fly line laying on the water ahead of the strike indicator.  A good cast, about 45 degrees from the bank, and a slight mend to the line, seems to double the time the flies are drifting, getting deeper, acting like food.  On all of my bad casts/mends/floats I caught no fish at all.  That’s one big difference between river fishing and lake fishing, technique really matters.  You don’t need to cast very far to catch the fish only 10 feet in front of you, but you need to use good technique.  On a lake, many a bad cast have produced fish for me.  In fact, I’ve hit the water on my back cast before when fly fishing for Pike and accidentally caught a fish, on the back cast.  On the Bow River, it’s all about getting the right float.

We have more fly fishing tips in the journal. We encourage you to read them and add you comments.

We hope this story will help you land more fish the next time you go rainbow trout fly fishing or brown trout fly fishing. Keep the fly fishing tips from this story in mind.

Some people fish with a spin cast rod and reel while others will take up nothing by a fly rod.  How about you?  Do you Fly Fish or Spincast?

Take the survey and make your opinion known.

Fishing for Pike doesn’t normally turn my crank.  On a recent trip, I tried fly fishing for Northern Pike.  My opinion has changed largely because any fish on a fly rod is a lot of fun.  Even a big slimy toothy ugly Northern Pike is a challenge to catch.

If you find a pike infested area and the bite is on, almost anything will catch them, as long as it’s gaudy and moving.  That’s what makes fly fishing for pike a challenge.  In order to keep a large spoon moving with a spin-cast rod, just reel it in.  Then cast it back out and reel it in.  If there are hungry pike nearby, they’ll chase it down and bite it.  Often, if you stop the retrieve, they’ll turn away.  With fly fishing, it’s a different game with casting heavy flies called streamers used to imitate bait fish or other prey.  Some fly fishers (myself included) will use a mouse pattern and cast it into the reeds then yank it through.  The big Northern Pike lurking in the reed think it’s a rodent that has fallen in and attack with a fury.  Pike have been reported to strike their prey, or your lure, at speeds up to 30 mph.  With a mouse pattern floating on the surface, the ambush is swift and vicious.  You’ll definitely know when something has struck your fly.

With the speed of Pike being much faster than you can possibly strip in your line, you may as well strip quickly to attract a strike.  Pike will attack if the food looks at all edible so make your streamer swim quickly with a fast stripping action.

Once on the line, you can’t hog the fish in like you would with a spinning reel or bait cast reel.  You need to remember you are using a lighter tackle and different equipment.  When possible, play the fish from the reel.  If it wants to run, let it run.  There are few sounds like the zzzzzziiiiiinnnnnng of a fly reel with a strong fish pulling at it to get your heart pounding!  

Maybe the most important piece of tackle is a steel leader.  Not the same steel leader as your casting line but a fly line pike leader to fend off the sharp teeth.  If you try to use normal leader and tippet combination, say goodbye to your streamer and your Pike.  Shock leaders, as they are normally called, are made for casting streamers with a fly rod.  Another important important tackle tip is to use a heavier weight fly rod.  If you normally use a 5 or 6 weight for trout, step up to an 8 weight for pike.  You’ll cast the heavy streamers easier and the extra strength in the rod will help with the bigger fish.

If you’re in for an adventure, try fly fishing for Pike from a belly or float tube.  Unlike trout fishing from a belly boat, pike are much large.  Your net might not be big enough if you hook into a 36″ plus pike”  Laying a big fish across the bow of your belly boat gives you a real indication of how much bigger a pike can be than a trout.  Not only the length of the fish but the power that goes with the larger size.  It’s a real thrill when you actually get towed in a belly boat by a pike or when the fish you have hooked turns you 360 degrees.

My house is quite often a hurricane of activity.  My kids, ages 7, 5, and 2 have boundless energy and are involved in any sporting activity that includes a ball, a club, a stick, or a puck.  That means I’m often rushing from one floor of the house to another to be the intervening referee, sometimes the goalie, sometimes the pitcher, many time the retriever or objects thrown, batted, shot or kicked too high.  The point is, I rarely have more then 5 minutes of time in a row to spend on any activity until after the kids go to bed.  Nonetheless, one day this spring, I was getting organized for a week long get away.

My various rods, normally stored in my gun cabinet to keep the kids from tangling all the lines together, were in the living room.  My tackle box was sitting on my desk.  My fly boxes, 3 of them, were in the living room, kitchen, and bathroom.  I was testing the sinking rate of some of the flies in a tub full of water in the bathroom when I was summoned to solve a “who hit who back first” argument in the toy room.  At the same time, my wife was busy cleaning the living room for some company coming that night, and swearing at me for leaving my rods all over the floor.

After getting the hockey game back on track, I decided to sort through some of my dry flies in the kitchen.  I pushed the rest of the stuff on the table aside to make room for the flies and began to remove them from the fly box one by one.  I organized them by size and colour, knowing full well after the first full day of fishing my box would be in complete disarray again.  With about 10 flies out of the box, a crash was heard from the downstairs toy room.  I arrived moments later to discover a broken light fixture but no broken kids.  No opportunity to try out alternative uses of head cement today!  Shop Vac to the rescue and the game was back on.

I started back upstairs, but remembered the sink rate experiment going on in the bathroom and resumed that activity for another 5 minutes before I had to rush to referee the next dispute.  I finally returned to my fly sorting about a 1/2 hour after I had left it, to discover all my dry boatsmen were gone from the neat row I had placed them in.  I also noticed the supper dishes had been removed from the table and the dishwasher was running.  I quickly surmised that my wife had whirl winded her way through the kitchen on a cleaning spree, and swept the table free of debris.  “Wife!”, I called out.  “Did you clean up in the kitchen, ’cause I was just about to?”  Her reply was “Yes.  I don’t have time for you to get to it.”  “Where did you sweep the stuff from the table?”, I inquired.  “Into the empty corn flakes box by the back door. Why?”, came her puzzled reply. “Because you just swept $20 worth of my flies into the trash.”, I answered.  “I thought they were crumbs from the kid’s plates.”, was her guilty reply.

I dumped the flies out, back onto the table, along with a few crumbs the kids had left, and continued my sorting and replacing back into the fly box from which they came.

Other places not to leave your flies (and you can imagine why):

• your bed
• the living room floor
• seat of your truck
• floor of your truck
• your pocket