I love water so it's hard to feel bad about the amount of it and how it effects the fishing so I won't bother feeling bad about it and just feel blessed that we have so much of it. The guide season will be shortened by this which means my planting season has been extended and really I feel okay about it especially now that I am back in Nelson enjoying the flavours of Kootenay living. This is such a cool little town with so much going on. I feel connected here and even though I never seem to spend enough time here, I have an easy time saying and feeling that it's my home.
My favourite new rivers are here as well and one of them, the Columbia River is probably the only Kootenay trout fishery that is providing some good angling. Good is a bit of a stretch unless you condense those periods of goodness into moments; but those moments seem to make up for the lulls.....at least a bit.
The last few days has seen streamer fishing evaporate and dry fly and soft hackling techniques emerge. The caddis are starting to appear in large numbers along the bank since we've had some hot weather but I havent' seen the 'show' yet but anticipate any evening now. I was a bit surprised we didn't see them swarm in tonight and I'll spare you my theories but it's gonna go off any day now and it's gonna be big.
The trout of the Columbia River seem to have condensed their feeding periods into the last couple of daylight hours and into the dark and the last hour and a half tonight was quite productive as we fleeced trout of the mixing currents and seams of the Waterloo Eddy.
The fish were not breaking the top and were mostly tailing so I went to an emerger pattern tied on a Daiichi 1310 and my guest Douglas Green got busy pinning the soft taking rainbows. It was a nice close to a pretty tough day. Here's the Freestone "tip of the day" which came in handy this evening. When you see fish rise but without heads popping out (tailing) you can pretty much be assured the trout are feeding on emergers or spent adults. Another way of deciphering this is if you see bubbles on the surface after the rise, it is indicative of a fish that has taken an adult fly off the top.
As far as Fernie goes.....well it can wait probably another 10/12 days. In the meantimes I'm waiting for the caddis to get their shine on and start choking the skies.
more soon
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