Dirty Water, Hungry Fish
With no fishing plans for the day I decided to go out and scout locations to fish along the Bow. That way once the water improved enough I wouldn’t waste any time touring. On the off-chance I brought my gear; wouldn’t want to see fish rising and not have a rod nearby.
It was a good call - after finding my way around southern Calgary I found a good area to access the river from and walk along. After parking and walking to the river I noticed all the debris left over from the flood - picnic tables, trees,mud, etc scattered the shore. Once I picked my way through I got my first close-up look at the river. Water clarity was around 6"-8" or so; as an ontario steelheader that meant it was just fine for drifting some nymphs through 
I grabbed my gear and rigged up. I moved along the shore towards some structure while drifting a stonefly and #12PT close to the banks. I found a nice seam in the water along with some slower water to fish. On the second cast I felt a tap but I was still trying to get a feel for where the bottom was. Around the same time I saw a decent brown splash the surface chasing a caddis - hmmm, there are fish here I note happily. Third cast I get another tap and set the hook to find a nice male brown on the end of the line. This Alberta thing is working out for me I said to myself
Over the course of the afternoon I managed to land a few more browns in the same size range. I hooked up with two smaller bows - each quickly expelling my hook after a few acrobatic moves. Also managed a few nice sized whitefish - these are the incidentals on the Bow apparently. I’ll take them over suckers or carp The pair I caught all had bruising on them - not sure if it was a skin issue or if they’d had something attack them… I’ll add in here, as cliche as it is, that you should have seen the one I lost. I hardly had him to begin with actually, on the hookset the beast came up to the surface quickly thrashing its head. It was over almost as soon as it started as my flies came soaring back at me 
I was pretty frustrated at first, then thought to myself - its your first time out, you’ve got years to catch hook another. And from what I’ve read and heard - big browns are not uncommon here
This was another nice male from the evening:
After releasing that guy I noticed something bobbing in the water in front of me - a deer was crossing the river and coming straight at me. Obviously it hadn’t see the warnings to stay away from the river, let alone swim in it.
Might go back and see what I can do about getting a monster tomorrow
Dan
