Start of USA/Canada trip Aug 2018 - Upper stretch of the Elk river (BC)

This blog started in 2005 as a means to keep my friends in Montana and Idaho informed about my fly fishing whereabouts. Almost 15 years later I'm back in the Rockies, the blog has come full circle.

My two week trip early August 2018 started with a short trip to British Columbia with my friend David, the owner of the Fish Tales fly shop in Calgary. I've known David since the early days of the internet in the mid 1990's. We participated on an internet fly swap and stayed friends ever since.

The idea I had was to fish Michel creek near the town of Sparwood, BC. Michel creek is well known as a very nice westslope cutthroat stream. Unfortunately this stream is recently listed on the restricted waters by the province of BC. This generally means these waters have limited tickets available for fishermen outside of BC and was sold out for the summer. Good thing BC Fishery is changing the reservation system because now these restricted waters are fully booked right away from the start of the year. The idea is to sell tickets in stages during the year. With change of plans the next morning we headed for the upper stretches of the Elk river above Elkford to look for westslope cutthroats.

When I arrived in Calgary the heat was on for several weeks. Due to the heat the whole western coastal area from California to BC there has been numerous forest fires. Daytime temps went as high as 37C / high 90's F! The typical amazing vista of the rocky mountains during the drive to BC was severely hazed by the smoke.



Frank Slide and the smokey sky


After checking in at our motel in Sparwood, we headed for the upper parts of the Elk river above Elkford. The second part of an almost two hour drive to the the upper Elk was a long drive on a dirt road up the mountains.





I'm not sure what caused it but the fishing was very mediocre during the two days in BC. The upper Elk river looked very fishy but the fish we caught were very limited in size and numbers. The extreme heat during this week was probably part of the reason the fishing was so slow.





The next day we decided to try a tributary of the Elk river. The sky opened up a bit after the thunderstorm of the evening before. This stream looked like cutthroat heaven with nice runs and pools, but the results were disappointing too. Fish size were around 8-10 inches.

Due to new restrictions on felt soles in parts of Montana, I bought a new pair of Patagonia Ultralight rubber soled wading boots at David's store. Boy do they feel different than the felt soles I'm used to. In spite of more than 10 years availability of wading boots with rubber soles, the manufacturers still haven't come up with a rubber sole that has the traction that comes even close to felt soles. Without cleats, it's it's like skating on ice on the slippery rocks!









I wanted to get to cross the Montana border before 6 PM, so we decided to call it a quits around 4 PM. David drove back to Calgary and I headed south on highway 3 and 93 to Montana. The idea was to drive as far south until around 9 PM, check in at a motel and drive to Helena to see my dear friend Don and his wife Rosi in the morning.

I arrived in Missoula around 9 PM and saw that all hotels/motels were fully booked. After a phone call to Don, I drove another two hours to Helena to spend the night at Don's place. This slight change of plans meant the next day I had about 3-4 hours to spare on my way to Bozeman.

I decided to drive to Twin Bridges to (finally) visit the Winston rod company.

My 2018 USA trip:

1) Upper stretch of the Elk river (BC)

2) Visit to RL Winston rod factory

3) A day with George Anderson on the Armstrong Spring Creek (MT)

4) Backcountry fishing in Montana

5) West Yellowstone

6) Henry's Fork - part 1

7) Henry's Fork - part 2

8) Henry's Fork - part 3

9) Cutthroat fishing with Dusty & Colt

10) Fiberglass Clave 2018

11) Last day of the trip - Soda Butte & Lamar (YNP)

12) Drone video of my BC / Montana / Idaho trip