THE LAST DAY on THE ELK and it was DRY FLIES and STREAMERS

Jim and Scott had to leave and so Ellen and I had the camp to ourselves on and off with the two young men bitten with the fly bug.  I would go to a small stream and fish the 12# flavs and egg head streamer while Ellen stayed in Fernie to grab a shower and try a Tim Hortons.

I found a likely pool, tied on a large Mayfly.  No takers until I downsized to 5x and ginked the bug to bounce. Cast the bug with good accuracy on my slow actioned IM6 Winston Tom Morgan Favorite 4 wt and boom the monster came up so quick it hooked himself.  The 4 wt was under gunned and took more angling than normal but the action gave me control over the runs.  Four more cast and four more cutties all in excess of seventeen inch. I need a change and maybe there lurked a bull deep in the pool.

I tied on an Alaskan egg head and........20 inches later, the pool's grand daddy but no Bully's here

Sadly, It was time to head south maybe the snows had come to Ennis, Montana and killed the fires.

CUTTIES AND BULLS ON THE FLY

I came right from the whisky and vowed never to drink spirits and champagne ever on the same night. We set out to float and the launch was smooth.  The first pool held good fish and the river was not  crowded. We got out at each pool the they held good trout.  Ellen was using a new SA Sharkskin line and loved. The aluminum made Koffler RMT with defined chines handled like a Ferrari compare to my Hyde drift glass. It responded with both dogs in the back and Ellen up front. We did about five miles and raise over twenty cutties to the dry.


The fishing was good and getting better as the high pressure built over the Canadian Rockies. I thought I had the river figured out and even thought may be it was time to pull the plug and find some rainbows for more challenging action. I was in for a surprise.

I meant several hard core Calgarian who had been floating over twenty miles.  All had streamer strung up.  Fishing was great for cutts on streamer and then there was the bulls that sulked in deep pools.  I heard stories about landing bull trout with fin sticking out of their mouths.  I had hooked many dollies and char in Alaska so how special could these land locked char be.

Scott and I parked our boats on a long deep pool where I figured I might hook a cutt on a streamer.  I attached a single hook as per regs on a white bunny with a cone head. Rolled cast the streamer on a 7 wt. sink tip line and swung the offering through the pool. After the sweep the line line came right and after several strips I felt a tug that almost took the rod from my hand.  I set the hook and the fight was on.  I wasn't a cutties. I had fought sturgeon before and even thrasher sharks  and this behave like a cousin. After five minute trying to bring color up to the boat, the fight was over. Scott wanted to know what happened. I didn't know and wanted to know what in the hell that fish could be.

"Bull trout!" he smirked. "They live in these big pools and eat trout."

Another streamer and another hookup but it got off.  What was this all about!  I returned to the white single hook bunny and swung the flies through the huge pool.  Another hookup and this time I managed to bring the fish to surface. Remember Roy Snider when he saw the shark in Jaws .  This fish had to be ten pounds and as I lowered the net he let loose.  He had never been hooked.  He locked on to the bunny tail and refused to give in until the net came out. These were fearless fish that were the fresh water cousins to sharks.  Meat eaters

 Ellen took her nap on a grassy covert  and within the hour Jim floated wanting to know if Scott was up or down stream.  He was hatless. I sense something had happened. Jim was shaken. He got caught in side channel and got wrapped, a dreaded predicament feared by all river runners.  He was young and strong and was able to break free without injury but lost his trademark hat. A weaker less prepared runner could have been seriously hurt.  Wraps are right up there with rouge waves while blue water fishing.

COULD not FUNCTION AFTER A NIGHT OF SINGLE MALTS

I am too long in the tooth for nights of drinking, debating and denials. Jim and Scott could hold there own.  The more Jim sipped his whisky the more intense and deliberate he became. If I set him out in the wilds, he'd come back with a bear and moose tied for camp food.  Scott, well he could "beam me up," with his humour.  Never mix grapes with Scottish spirits.  Next morning I felt like a mule had kicked me in the stomach. Ellen warned me but I was having too  much fun laughing with these characters.  She told me not to mess with these guys as I was not even on the same planet with them.

All except I was up and ready to fish.  Jim saw I was in poor health and said he's wait on the drift boat float and he and Scott would go off to another stream and dry fly fish.

TIME TO STRING UP CAMP AND CATCH

The first night in camp the winds, snow and rains howled up from Fernie through our camp site and blew  the tents down.  We had to lower our jacks to stabilize our camper but were cozy letting the rain and winds put us to sleep. Our Canadians brethrens were not do  lucky and in the morning Jim who rises early was busy adjusting his guy lines from a downed tent. He did not get a lot of sleep but he was ready to fish the Elk.  I looked for Scott and heard a moan in the back of his pickup. He crawl forth from his truck shell blue jeans wet from the driving rain that crept inside his camper shell. Scott was all smiles. Just another day in British Colombia.  He lit a cig, fired up the Coleman and was around the campfire coffee and cig in hand. He always found the silver lining

Ellen casting to a pool that held Bull Char and Cutthroats

Ellen and I felt like one  of the "Three Little Piggy's" who made his house from bricks. I fired  up the Yamaha eu3000 inverter and handed out espresso to all, the camp was right and plans drawn up to attack the river. Jim and Scott would float and Ellen and I would meet them down river for a shuttle.

A strong wild Cuttie taken on a #6 foam hopper.

They were off when Ellen and I drove to the lower landing rigged up or 5 weights and looked for pools that might hold trout. Ellen first cast on the Elk brought a strong Cutthroat up and the fight was on. All smiles Ellen landed the wild trout and after several more fish we went back to wait for the floater.

Scoot on the left and Jim in his new pontoon boat

We finished mid afternoon and after picking up Jim and Scott who floated some wild stretches we headed back to camp where we had been slow cooking a rice mushroom chicken supper on a dutch oven .

Adding water to our dutch oven supper

FREE DRIFTING THE ELK RIVER

The 2012 summer in Montana had a different routine in mind for us.  Seldom can I grip the immense beauty as I travel from the Great Basin over watershed divides into the land of cool days, rivers and streams that house accommodating trout and blue skies that change little with polarized glasses. Being there during the Montana summer is about hoping like a teen hoping for the best at a co-ed summer camp. Here desires are fulfilled with the fish and people that live there enduring the winter. The spirits of an impending summer filled with water bugs morphing from their underwater homes into duns and then spinners drives a fly fisher to drink.  Montana has  two seasons, winter and August so time is precious and so is fishing the dry fly. It is a contagious feeling.

We had traveling to Montana since the early 1960's to escape the Arizona heat and dry fly fish. But this summer, smoke filled our historic fishing valleys and waved us onward telling us not to stop for the  summer but come back after the first September snows.  The trout would still be waiting for us. So driving several hours further north seemed reasonable.  Besides my gypsy wife craves more adventure


A simple invite by several fly fishing  posters on a internet board I had been on and off since 1993 got me excited about catching Cutthroats.  The board is split into three audiences.  Mostly easterners, a few western Canadians and a sprinkling of American urban westerns.  Clearly an inverse relationship between fishing opportunities and posting. I dreamed of Cutthroats coming from the clear waters to grab a floating bug my aging eyes could celebrate.

I had a three point hitch trailing my Grand Cherokee behind my truck camper.  Behind the Jeep I trailer ed my Koffler Rocky Mountain Trout Drift boat. At the crossing in BC they made me disconnect my rig. Ellen drove the Jeep and I trailered the drift boat.  Our first stop was a fruit stand in Fernie.  We bought some apples (not so good) but the cherries were to die for.  While eating them at a the only stop light in Fernie, I heard my cell ring.

"This is Jim, your klave host! Are you driving a big diesel truck camper hauling a drift boat?" 

"Yep," I said but how do you know that." 

"I'm driving next you," Jim laughed.

 And so we connected from an online presence to a real handshake and excitement that we are going to make this fishing trip happen. Jim from Calgary had done and excellent job of recon.  We spent the night alongside the Elk River in Fernie awaken to Ellen returning from her morning wake with the hunting dogs seeing black bear. It was a prelude of events to come the next week.

Your spirits soar when you see jagged peaks looming in the towering mountains. So these were the Canadian Rockies so much more impressive than I imagine and there are wild fish as well. Camp was within yards (meters) of the river about 40 km north of Fernie south of Elkford.


And them a force of nature showed up that next day.  Scott was a Peter Pan like man child with a smile from ear to ear and an easy going nature that put you immediately at ease. A classic Canadian fellow who knew how and when to party, fish and cook.  He was the most self contained man I had meant in awhile and above all he loved dogs. Scott unbashfully was enjoying life and his and Jim energy was contagious. Dry fly fishing was quickly taking a back seat to the camping and comradely.

Scott