Hitting the brakes hard to slow the behemoth of a rented F-150 from highway speeds we nosed off the highway down an embankment to an obvious parking area. This was the spot we had been assured of by the Canmore outfitter we dropped in on earlier.
After ribbing the employees about their lack of ability to sell us any firearm not needing a scope or bipod, we had picked up a brand new flyrod. The unanticipated expense was caused by the broken tip on Jake’s current flyrod—an internet special, all in one package complete with reel, line, flys…the whole shebang. Of course, its tip was the cheap non-replaceable sort, so when asking the outfitter if we could pick up a spare tip for a quick fix, we received an eyeroll, a “Just where on earth did you find this getup?” response and a plea to buy a real rod with a replaceable end if we were going to continue fishing on a fly.
Some hour outside Calgary we were on world class trout water. The year before it was the Flathead and a year before that the Snake, both times on guided floats. Jake had picked up the fly bug during those trips and in between was fishing for largemouth back in New Hampshire with his blue light special setup. Not that we knew or cared…it was a flyrod and it caught fish, that’s about all that mattered. Now we were out to catch trout (cutthroat, rainbow, bull, brown…whatever) on our own, and with a new setup we needed to know where the best of them pooled.
The kindly storekeeper hadn’t taken offense at our firearm jokes and took pity on us knowing the local trout were in little danger of being enticed by our offerings and mentioned a spot just upstream from the Trans Canada Highway bridge outside of Dead Man’s Flats where there were enough eddies, gravel bars, river bends, and depths to gather hungry trout in numbers enough to give us a chance.
Dropping the pin in the high fence’s latch behind us, we had done our part to protect others out on holiday from careening their rentals into the local elk, bighorn, black bear, and muleies and turned to the Bow. Rolling gently under and around the cement bridge and its stanchions it didn’t possess the cerulean colors of the far upper Bow or surrounding glacier silt filled lakes but held enough hints of it in the late day light, betraying a decidedly frigid nature despite the early July timeframe. This immediate spot wouldn’t do, it was more of a boat access point for those putting in to drift the Bow towards Calgary. Closer to a dirt parking lot than a place to choose our own adventure. An unattractive option for casting in a wide-open country with unlimited options.
Opting for a well-worn footpath splitting some high canary grass strewn with the billowy white clumps of flowering cottonwood seedlings, we headed upstream, hoping the path would curve back to a better landing. As it worked its way back to the river, the grasses closed to the point where Jake was using his rod to hold back and part the branches and overhanging vegetation to his left and the same with his hand on the other. That this would be a good spot for a couple flatlanders to have a canister of bear spray crossed our minds; having seen a cinnamon black bear yearling earlier in the day and the buffalo berries just ripening, we knowingly could have been putting ourselves in an interesting spot given the lack of visibility or notice either Sapien or Ursus would be providing.
No Ursus, (Americanus or Arctos) were met and the overgrowth ran itself out just as the shoreline appeared down a rocky bank. No bear could have brought us up quicker than the two individuals already present in the spot we had come to.
Both blonde and obviously female of build and long hair, they were thigh high in the river some twenty yards upriver. Out now from the vegetation we feared masked our sounds from the ears of more threatening wildlife, we could clearly hear the timber if not the content of their womanly banter. As interlopers we decided in the time it takes for a fish to blowup a perfect cast that the lesser of evils was to enter “their” river just a bit downstream from their location, raise our hands, and voice a query as to if they minded our cutting in on their stretch.
“It’s a free river” came the response and we were in the moral clear to get on with our fishing. Or rather Jake’s fishing. I hadn’t brought a rod and only intended to watch him in action and hope to help land any fish he hooked up on. As the last summer before Jake headed off to college for what he hoped is a path towards a CO career, I was taking moments to just observe and enjoy him at a distance as he seemed to quickly drift farther away from what I had always assumed would be as much a part of me as any appendage, taken for granted and a known entity under my direction.
From my rocky riverside perch, I got to contrast both fishing parties. One, wading his way out to a mid-river riffle in Birkenstocks, shorts, and his high school lacrosse tshirt (de rigueur fly-fishing fashion where we come from) and the lead female in her Patagonia Swiftcurrent waders and matching professional accoutrements such as a chest rigged canister of bear spray.
I say “lead” as the second member of the female pairing wasn’t there to fish. Carrying a full frame Japanese clicky-click in her hands, crouching for proper lighting angles, and giving occasional directions, she was there to obtain that oh-so unstaged appearing image creating just the right kind of feels for a given set of brands and sponsors. Which is not to give the impression say that Becky was not a topflight caster—she was. Watching her and Jake back-to-back left me with little hope for his success this evening.
Her dry fly casts being crisp and perfectly directed towards her targeted pool, where she had been watching a medium sized brown circling near the riverbank, the tippet snaking out with each wave of her arm in the same pattern over and over again, one indistinguishable from the next. Jake’s casts were rarely reminiscent of each other with numerous false casts preceding a real one where his line would loop and wave in an awkward attempt to land his sinking nymph slightly upstream from a willow branch that was leaning out over the river creating a likely area to target, often needing to be recalled immediately as it had been placed too short or too far down river from its intended location. One facing upriver, one down, back-to-back reverse and opposite images of one another.
Becky and Beth (the photographer) would click and cast, cast and click, over and over seeking the right moment to capture. The light was great, the water clean, the background grasses and peaks of the Three Sisters crafting a backdrop without need of editing. The brownie just wouldn’t take more than an occasional look at the topwater offering before darting off again creating peals of incredulity upriver. Jake’s luck, suffered in silence, was no better and without the polarized glasses of a sponsor, he wasn’t even seeing any fish through the mountain sheered glare.
Both parties moved shoreward at the same time. Jake because his bare legs had lost all feeling, his toes had whitened in the icy waters in a score of minutes, Becky and Beth in order to grab some sponsor products and a change of camera gear.
Always eager to learn from his betters, a suggestion for a dual fly setup (one sinking nymph for bottom dwellers and one dry topwater for those looking at meals dropping from the heavens) over the single sinking stonefly, was quickly absorbed in the course of a discussion revealing that she was out this late afternoon to generate some content for a local micro distillery and its hard-seltzers.
Jake returned to his chilly mid-river station to now cast his dual fly setup into the flow hoping for better returns and Becky and Beth proceeded to dip, and re-dip and dip again, the newly produced four packs into the river trying to get the water to run off them just right. Voicing that maybe getting a can of snot to cover the cans with so the liquid would look better in longer rivulets returned some smiles before the four packs were staged carefully within a fishnet, half in and half out of the water and then a propping up of cans on the dry riverside with the flows barely lapping at the bottoms.
Golden light appearing and sun disappearing meant a final chance at some shots of Becky in action and perhaps wrangling that brownie out of its pool—this time with a fizzy berry seltzer in hand to portray that je ne sais quoi of fishing in the wilds of Alberta.
It was downstream though where the yelp of “Got it!” came from. Jake’s sinking nymph had presented itself as just the treat another brown trout was looking for under that oft cast at branch. Realizing that his two hands were not enough to reel, hold the rod, and grab his net at the same time, I found myself rapidly shoeless and wading fish-ward only to realize these office-soft footsoles were no match for the Bow’s glacier honed, Lego-sharp rocks and pebbles. Seeing my lack of progress resulted in a rightful dismissal of the need for my services and a careful balancing of disparate tasks had the brown scooped up in short order. The fish itself was nothing remarkable, just one of thousands of 10-inch browns in the upper Bow and was last seen Calgary bound, post our admiration of the engineering driving a transition of its spots from little black OMR looking ovals on its upper back to the orange, setting sun roundels, beginning at exactly its lateral line, and fading out by its belly.
Picking that moment to conclude the day’s fishing seemed wise with the four of us gathered momentarily as more seltzers demanded photographing and I soggily fashioned my baby bottomed dogs within their dad sneakers before heading out. Good natured congratulations by Becky were festooned upon Jake and an inquiry as to which lure it was that had nabbed the brown was made. “Nymph”
“I only brought topwaters. I should have brought some sinkers!” came Becky’s disappointment-tinged chuckle.
Before leaving the two to have the river to themselves for what photos lingering light would allow, and perhaps feeling a bit sheepish over not only having intruded on their preferred section of river but that despite our lack of any discernable fly fishing skills or preparation, it was not those of the perfectly positioned ponytails, logos, or presentation coming away with the only fish this evening, we tried to offer a small gift in return.
“So you can tell the seltzer company that you two are helping their sales, where can we pick up a couple 4-packs?”
“The distillery itself is only about one exit up towards Canmore…and they don’t make just seltzer. They craft their own vodka and whiskey too.”
Our earlier concern over roaming carnivores was found missing on the brisk walk back to our truck that saw all gear tossed in the bed and directions quickly plugged into the GPS. Ten minutes later we were buying what turned out to be some quite excellent whiskey and two four packs of the seltzer (whiskey for one and the other has a lot to learn about savoring the better sides of adulthood) and leaving a few kind words with the distillery about their marketing efforts and an obnoxious tip to assuage the lingering guilt over having gotten the far better of the deal this evening.
Becky and Beth deserve to get the Instagram worthy shot of whatever they wanted on this evening as we got the fish and the whiskey and left us only trying to figure out whether to either drink it faster than prudence would allow or what items would need to be jettisoned from our baggage to make room for its flight home.
