Bow River Alberta
After yesterday’s Bow river fly fishing (Canada) outing I was eager to head out to fly fish the Bow river again. I was somewhat shocked by the amount the water level had lowered and the clarity. Water was over two feet in visibility today and had dropped by about a foot. That was enough to change some of the bank areas I had been fly fishing into exposed gravel bars…
I started out this afternoon around the same area of the Bow river as I had success last night - might as well pick up where I left off 
Early into my outing I hooked up with a scrappy rainbow of about 17". What a pretty fish. With all of Alberta having barbless regulations you can get some quick releases when using weighted patterns 
like a stone fly… As soon as there is slack in the line you can loose a fish - hopefully its in the net when that happens! Here’s a shot of what seems like a typical Bow river rainbow (based on what I caught throughout the afternoon).
In fact today I only landed rainbows on the Bow river. It was strange because yesterday I was catching all browns. I have to admit - I like the variety! Also caught my first western sucker in a river. They always give off one good run to get you excited before showing themselves The issue I have with suckers is how they slime your line and smell awful - otherwise they offer a good battle. I hooked up with a nice brown in the same pool but lost it during the fight. Great day to be out on the Bow river
As the afternoon progressed the the bows started slashing the surface. At first it was hard to determine what they were hitting. I waded out into a riffle area above where the fish were feeding to get a look at what was moving down - there were large amounts of small nymphs moving their way to the surface. Some of them had more defined wing casings than others:
With the number of adult PMDs on the surface I suspect they must have been PMD nymphs. The sizes matched… Here are the adults from later in the evening:
Also saw a number of these guys wiggling around.
Spending time to examine what is happening in the water around you can really shed some light onto what the fish are feeding on. In the slack water where I had been standing I couldn’t see anything, but moving into a riffle allowed me to find out what was hatching. Made a difference as I was able to fish emergers for a few hours with success.
I took a few more moments to examine the rocks in the area. I’d seen some caddis and stonefly nymphs and shucks around so I thought I might see what they looked like/sizing etc…
Found some awesome looking stonefly nymphs - in the image is the imitation I’ve been using after being beaten up a bit. Not exact - but does the trick I may try tying up some more accurate imitations now that the water is clearing up though. The stoneflies are amazing crawlers, but once they’re loose from rock they seem to actually just float along. So fishing them closer to the surface actually produced better than right on the bottom it seemed.
The other very popular food item floating along is leeches. Ick. But I can see how a fish might like them… Flipping over rocks would often reveal 3-5 leeches on some stones just larger than your fist.
One of the many types of caddis:
I saw a number of cased caddis running around - they reminded me of hermit crabs out east. Apparently the Bow fishery benefits from a significant caddis population. Something I have some experience with
Just thought I’d share as I learn about the river - hope everyone is having fun in the sun
DanJ
