The many faces of the Bow river

How does this mighty Bow river play with ones mind? This trip sure showed how me the different faces of the Bow river.

The day after my arrival in Calgary I went for a float down the Bow river with Ryan. Ryan who just ended his night shift still had some energy left to go fishing with me. The weather couldn't be more wonderful. It started slightly overcast, but soon it cleared all up. What a great day we had! I started with my regular nymph rig (beadhead caddis with a prince as a dropper), but Ryan suggested to try out some hoppers. I did manage to hook up some nice fish, many of them still got away after an initial jump or two. But heck, we are out on one of THE best rivers out in the west. The size of these fish (catching a 20+ incher is just nothing unusual here), the changing scenery and the vast stretches of amazing dry fly water. All this just next to a city with more than a million inhabitants makes the Bow river a very special river indeed.

The recent June floods (3 floods short after the other) seems to have changed the looks of the Bow quite drastically. First thing that I noticed was that there was NO weed in the river! I remember the Bow as a river of thick weeds, but without them it sure looked different. Along the way Ryan was in constant excitement as he saw how the flood changed the banks of the river. The take in & out point at Policeman's Flats was nothing more than a small island in the river. Looks like the banks of the Bow is also known to non-fly fishermen: a Hollywood production with Brad Pitt was being filmed during this week. Haven't heard or seen any screaming teenagers yet...

I offered to take over the oars after a couple of hours. That's a nice break from the endless casting. Ryan grabbed his streamer rod and tossed out the heavy gear (can't remember which fly he used. Can you help me out here Ryan?) and along a deeper eddy a nice twenty incher brown decided it was time for lunch. That's was just only minutes after I lost a nice rainbow, as it took the highway after a couple of jumps. Around 5 PM we picked up Dave somewhere at 'the corner with the house on top'. Good thing there are only a couple of (very nice BTW!) houses along the hills. While Dave tossed his streamers, I picked up my nymphs again. Together we fished our way down the the take out point at McKinnons Flats to end the day's fishing with some great pizza at Dave's home. Life is good!

After this wonderful day I went to see my buddies in Idaho and Montana. Since I came back in Alberta a lot earlier than planned, I was looking forward to fish some of the less crowded streams of Alberta & BC. Aaron, who also works at Fish Tales, offered me to come along with his trip to the Castle river in the Crowsnest pass. Due to my appointments in the US I had to pass this offer (next time just stop me Aaron! Use of force is permitted), but boy did the pictures of the fat cutts he showed me afterward look great! I also had the Wigwam river in BC in mind. Ryan suggested we float the Elk, as being a amazing river to float. Then this huge low pressure system came along and stayed above Alberta and the eastern part of BC...

Three days of more or less continuous rain just about ended my fishing aspirations. The rain caused the Bow to run high and dirty, almost to the level of the earlier June floods. One of the guides called it a day after seeing a telephone pole coming down next to his boat. In the higher elevations like the Crowsnest pass the heavy snowfall caused electricity lines to collapse and basically left the community without electricity for many hours. The few fishermen who were already in the area had some great fishing during the first hours of snow. Little did they know that the snowfall led to more uncomfortable situations later on the days to follow.

After the steady rain, the sun did start to gain it's strength back. The temperatures weren't as high as the first week. I still had about 3 days before flying back... The huge amounts of rain that fell meant that it would take at least a full week and probably more to clear up (27 sept: it indeed took a full two weeks). Driving out to fish somewhere else was hardly an option. At the height of the rain, people were informing each other that every stream or river in the approximate of 3 hours drive from Calgary was running high and dirty.

The day before my departure we decided to try the Bow anyway. Dave, Gordon and I floated the Bow from McKinnons to Carseland. Dave suggested that, since all the boats were fishing the stretches close to the city, we might be better off fishing the lower part. Well, it sure looked like all the boats were in the upper part and catching all (although VERY limited numbers) the fish because it was tough! The visibility of the river was no more than 5-8 inches I think. The weather was cool and cloudy. Some moments we enjoyed the warming rays of sunshine, other moments it looked like the black clouds were about to open the tap. How was the fishing? Well, I lost a nice rainbow on a beadhead prince (bent out after inspection: Partridge hook!) and Gordon caught his first fish while floating the Bow.

Well, this about sums up my trip the the US & Canada this year. Fishing wise it wasn't the best so far. I've met some new friends (incl. some very small friends! :) ) and enjoyed my friendship with buddies who seem to enjoy my company too. I hope to be back within a few years, hopefully with better weather conditions and I'll be looking forward to see my friends again. Take care!

For more info on fishing the Bow River, here is a nice article on the Bow.

Alien Bug

I have been experimenting with hopper patterns since my first visit to the Rockies in 1992. Back then hopper patterns were mainly based on deer hair, either spun (like Dave's Hopper) or bullet head hair style (like the Henry's Fork hopper). Other hopper patterns include large parachute style hoppers like the Schroeder's Parachute hopper.

Dave's Hopper

Although these hopper patterns can be very productive at times, they all have one similar down side. They get waterlogged after a while and won't float very well once waterlogged. Another down side was they are very time consuming to tie. Yes, tying a neat Dave's Hopper can be great fun, but boy does it wear you out after tying five of those critters....

Chernobyl Ant

A little bit of history

During the mid 1990's high density foam made its debut as the material for buoyancy on dry flies. In 1995 the odd looking fly called the Chernobyl Ant won the Jackson Hole One Fly Event. The basic idea is a 3 mm high density black foam strip tied in several different segments to form the abdomen and head. The addition of rubber legs at the side gave the critter a very lifelike action.

Club Sandich

Foam as a tying material evolved to multi layered, very colourful and segmented extended body patterns like the Club Sandwich. Although these flies float like a cork and look more like a mutant grass hopper which stayed too long in the nuclear microwave oven I think they also are too cumbersome to tie. They also involve needing special form cutting tools as well to get the foam strips in a particular shape. I prefer a mix of foam and natural materials like deer or elk hair for the wings.

Alien Bug
This summer I was visiting my buddy David Blair who owns a fly shop in Calgary called Fish Tales. I saw this magazine article written by Seamus Toner, who also happen to work at David's fly shop. He originally tied it on a salmon fly hook and with a sort of an extended body, so I guess it's a kind of a cross breeding of a steelhead fly like a bomber and the recent foam hoppers like the Club Sandwhich.

The basic ingredient is using two or three sheets of 3 mm high density foam. You can buy these sheets at your local hobby shop in many different colours. There are no rules for colours here.

I like using bright colours like yellow or orange on top (for visibility) and more subdued colors like olive, brown or black for the bottom of the fly. To imitate the Salmon fly (Pteronarcys dorsata), the giant American stonefly use orange for the bottom to imitate the salmon coloured underbody.

Nice segmented body

Before tying you need some preparation. Glue the sheets together using some sort of flexible glue. The easiest way is to use a spray glue like Scotch spray glue. Cut the glued sheets into about 57 mm wide strips. For sizes up to hook size 10 I like to use two foam layers, for larger sizes use 3 layers.

So this Alien Bug is easy to tie, very durable, floats for ever and easy to track on the water. Since this hopper floats so well, it's also a great strike indicator to fish with a (even heavily weighted) nymph as a dropper. I fished the Alien Bug in the gin clear streams in Southern Germany, the alpine rivers in Austria, in the hills of the Spanish Pyrenees, Montana and tributaries of the Yellowstone river. Friends of mine fished it in South Africa, Yellowstone country, the Driftless area and Patagonia.


The ingredients:

Hook: Any hopper hook (#6-10)
Thread: Uni-thread 6/0 (I like hot orange)
Body: Sandwiched foam
Legs: Round medium rubber legs (I like them yellow or red striped)
Wing: Elk or deer hair
Tail: Red goose biots 
Indicator: tuff of hot orange or chartreuse (or even mixed!) indicator strand



Update 28 Aug 2021:

I sent a few Alien Bugs to Craig Mathews and he says it should be outlawed.

Update 30 Sep 2019:

Fly Fish Food fly shop made a short video on glueing foam sheets. It's really easy!



Thanks to my buddy Hans Weilenmann for taking great pictures of the Alien Bug (and more).
More flies can be seen at his site.

Here's a video I made how to tie the Alien Bug:

A nice article by Dave Whitlock about hoppers in Fly Fisherman magazine September 1997.

What ever happened to Big Sky country?

The next day I had some fine breakfast with Doug and his wife Sherry in town and then I took the Interstate 90 to Helena, Montana. The weather was still picture perfect. I had my beef jerkey and a diet Mountain Dew within reach, the drive along the interstate was going on smooth. Made a stop in Missoula to check out the famous fly shop called Grizzly Hackle. Always fun to check out fly shops!

There's a nice coffee shop attached to the shop where they serve many different kinds of coffee. I tried their cappuccino. During the ride I passed the Clark Fork river many times. It looked great, but haven't seen much boats coming down.

This trip's schedule has been changing since the moment it started and it was no exception this time. My old time Montana buddy Don had to undergo a new eye surgery just a couple of days before I left for the trip. So it looked like we won't be doing much fishing.

Talking about old times sake is fun too! But as his recovery went so well, Don was told by his doctor that he could do anything besides driving. Heck, how did that happen so fast?!

Well, it was time to reschedule again: Don and Rosi had to leave for a memorial of an old high school friend down to Oregon on friday. That meant we only had two days of fishing rather than the planned five days... This time we decided not go down to the Park.

The fishing in the Yellowstone Park hasn't been very good the past couple of times I've been there. I was looking forward to check out the Winston rod factory in Twin Bridges at last. But they were closed due to a big manufacturers show in Denver. Well, why not check out Pelican Point at the Missouri again?

On September 7th, we left early for the Missouri. We had an excellent, according to Don a bit on the expensive side, breakfast at the lodge in Craig. After checking out the fly shops (yes two: Chris Strainer of CrossCurrents opened a little shop in Craig too) and getting the fishing license we were off to our good old Pelican Point. This part of the Missouri river is where I first tasted the fun fishing with hoppers. Always look out for rattlers though!

The weather looked perfect for hopper fishing: sunny, hot and a bit of a wind. I tied some new hoppers at my friend's fly shop in Calgary before I left. I always hated the many steps of most hopper patterns like Dave's Hopper: losing one made me feel really moody. This easy to tie pattern called the Alien Bug looked like it was going to make it's first appearance in Montana! I decided to tie a bead head Prince as a dropper on my hopper and in no time had had two nice fish on. Well, that looks promising!

After the first two fish we fished down stream back to our car. Although the conditions looked just right, the fish weren't really looking up (or down on my dropper). We did manage to catch a few but the fishing was real slow. The couple of boats we saw drift by weren't really hot on the action either.

Back at the car Don just looked at me and said "boy, this is really not like it used to be". But he was really excited about the Alien Bug! This foam hopper with an elk hair wing and a tuff of strike indicator on top floated all day long. And the scenery of the Missouri was still enchanting as ever with it's rocky hilltops at the background.

The next day we decided to do a more backcountry style fishing. The morning we would fish the private lake in the hills near Avon, about an hour drive west of Helena. The setting of this private lake is simply awe-inspiring. Floating the lake with a float tube is a very enjoyable and relaxing way to enjoy a nice sunny September morning. This lake used to host quite some nice sized fish, but the last couple of years the smaller fish are abundant averaging 12-16 inches. Don says fish stay small because nobody ever fishes and takes fish out of the lake, the fish have to compete with each other for food.

While floating in my float tube and enjoying the view, I suddenly saw an unfamiliar sight. A black bear ran uphill from the shore, less than a hundred yards from the spot where my friend was floating. Good thing I had my digital camera handy! According to Don, it isn't a rare sighting, but certainly not a regular either. In fact, he hasn't seen a bear here as long as he fished this lake. Click on the picture to check out Yogi getting ready for the US trials.

That afternoon we fished the Little Blackfoot river. This small stream is very much the opposite of the Missouri. Meandering through the lower part of the western continental divide, it's a nice change from the big Mo. The stream looks a bit lower than last time. I decided to use the same rig again: a hopper with a prince as a dropper.

Although the size 6 hopper seems to be a bit big for the fish here, averaging 10-14 inch, these browns weren't shy to try to take a bite at it. Often as not did I just pull the hopper right out of their mouth. Don did manage to catch a couple of fish on the hopper. It's funny to see the hopper-strike indicator pulled down by a brown as it grabbed the nymph. They sure aren't non-decisive about their hunger! I came across the small bridge where I caught some nice white fish. The water was running low, but along the deeper bank of the curve I did manage to catch a few nice white fish. I like the erratic way these underrated fish fight.

After 4 hours we decided to head back home as Rosi wanted us back a bit earlier than the day before. After a fast shower we went for a burger together at the local grill house to talk about the old times, the different ways of eating habits at home vs the US, Italy and enjoy a huge burger. Just good to be back in Montana!

So I've been visiting Montana and fishing the Missouri about 6 times now. The first time way back in 1992 undoubtedly still brings back the best fishing memories. Since then the fishing seems to have declined over a period of 10 - 12 years. Don't know what's causing this. Too much fishing pressure? Changing climate? Low water conditions? Just bad luck? Dunno though, but I've never had a better experience than the summer of 1992. Any other experiences out there?

Spectacular scenery of the Coeur d'Alene river

During the first week of my trip I went to visit my friend Doug in Idaho. I rented a car in Calgary and drove down to Idaho. On my way through the Crowsnest pass I stopped at Vic Bergman's flyshop in Bellevue. Still as small & cosy as ever. The Crowsnest river was looking fine. What a shame to pass it by... The Elk river near Fernie in BC was looking as majestic as I remember from a trip several years ago. I was supposed to meet Doug at Fernie to float the Elk, but he couldn't make it. I have to do the float one day!

How funny that after having a nice sandwich (rather than the greasy burgers at M) at Subways, I keep looking for the Subway sign when I'm hungry. No problems here, because there is always a Subway along the main road of every town I came across. Eating and driving is so much easier driving a car with automatic gear shifts!

The drive was a long 9 hours drive to Coeur d'Alene. At the US / Canadian border I almost had an embarrassing moment. I told the customs officer that I was going to see a friend. I had Dougs address in my PocketPC but it looked like I had left it at my friends house in Calgary! Good thing I had a print out of the traveling schedule (with the address!) Doug sent me by e-mail! Well, later that day I found my PocketPC in my duffle. Why don't these custom officers just say "Welcome to the US, have a nice time and spend some money" ! :) Boy, talk about money: the high gas prices were definitely the talk of the trip! The folks in the US & Canada couldn't believe the high prices that had to pay for their gas. Don't worry guys, we pay a heck of a lot more here back home... Just an idea: don't get a huge truck or SUV if you don't need one? ;)

I was told to arrive around 6 PM because that's when the T-bone steak was going to be ready. Good thing that the clock goes back one hour in the western RM area! Doug gave me a small tour of the city. A pretty city (looks more like a town to my European view) near a lake. He told me that the past years it has grown substantially. Mainly people who sold their property near the major cities and buying nice houses near the lake. The real estate prices have gone up quite a bit.

Due to his busy schedules we only had one day for an outing. We decided that we try the Coeur d'Alene river. This is a cutthroat only stream about 2 hours drive from the city of Coeur d'Alene. It is surrounded by spectacular scenery of high jagged rocks and spar filled hills. The weather that day was sublime, the scenery breathtaking and the cutts were sparse but as pretty as always.

Doug showed me this river which he likes to fish if he wants to look for solitude. Although that day was during the Labour day weekend, we were all alone on the river. All we heard were some sounds of a overflying hawk or a bull elk looking for his cows.

I mainly fished with nymphs while Doug prefers to fish with small hair wing dries. Doug caught a nice 16 inch cutt in the first pool we came across. The average cutts we caught were around 10-12 inch. Larger cutts up to 20 inch should be swimming somewhere. During that day a huge sculpin did manage to get my attention.

Around 3 PM we decided to head back to the car. Well, instead of walking back upstream we climbed the steep hill along the bank looking for a small trail path. The climb was steep indeed! The view from up the hill was amazing. This path was not for the faint hearted though. The way down was sometimes just a step away...

All together a super day! Thank you Doug.

Lets get started!

Well, I guess I'll jump on the bandwagon called 'blogging' too...


Just got back from my tri-/quad-annual trip to the US & Canada. This trip during the first two weeks of September has been something to remember. The weather conditions during the most part of the trip has been so bad, I have to say this was not my most successful trip so far as fishing wise goes. But I made a lot of news friends and that's always nice! The second week in Alberta was nothing short of a wet week. The rain caused all rivers & streams in the radius of 3 hours drive from Calgary (incl. Elk in BC) to turn high and dirty. Locals tell me that the Bow was almost back to the devastating level of the June floods earlier this year.

I'll publish some nice pictures I shot during the trip the following days.

A special thank you to David & Nancy!