Back to the St. Mary’s after missing last season.

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This is my 9th trip to the St. Mary’s river in the past 10 years. We have seen it all from high winds to hot weather. From Low water to chocolate brown water. From hail the size of baseballs (killed all birds exposed to the weather and some sheep!) to river closures due to high water temps as in this year.

 

This is the first year the boys joined us. Uncle Meng, Papa John, Dick and Michael Sasaki completed our group. The weather was warm but not as warm as we have been experiencing in Northern California. The boys and Papa John spent a week in Montana before driving up to the lodge in Alberta. The fishing was poor for the most part in Montana so I was hoping they would get into some better fishing. I flew to Calgary and drove to the lodge to meet them.

Our first day we fished the St Mary’s with Cam’s (the lodge owner) best guide Pauly Kype. When we arrived to the river, there were lots of fish sipping on the surface on tricos. Both boys landed fish on small dries and thus a great start of their St. Mary’s River experience. The rest of the day we fished with hoppers and ended up with 20 hook ups. Matthew landed fish to 23 inches and broke one off that was well over 25 inches. I had not seen a fish that size in many trips. Michael landed fish to 25 inches. Most of the fish ate hoppers but Michael’s 25 incher ate a small PMD emerger!

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The next day, the government closed the St. Mary’s and the Bow rivers due to high water temp. That has never happened since Cam has been guiding the river which dates back 20 years. This was bittersweet because now it forced us to fish other waters in the area that we usually pass up.

On day 2 we fished the Castle River which is a clear and cold mountain stream. We had 30 or so fish come up for our dry flies and hooked about 20 of them. They were rainbows, cutbows, cutthroats and 2 bull trout. Fun river to fish but the hike was brutal.

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On day 3 we were the first in our group to fish the spring creek ponds. The trout in there are freaks of nature. They grow to 20 pounds… and still growing! We sight fished massive rainbows on 4X tippet using black ants, cowboy leeches and black Fat Alberts. Michael hooked 3 of those monsters and landed 2 of them. The big one measured 35 inches! Matthew did not land a behemoth but landed a few of the “small” ones which are 22-24 inches. He had 2 big ones take his fly but did not hook up.

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Day 4 took us to the Old Man. The river was running high due to irrigation demands but still fishable. We caught rainbows, cutts and cutbows to 21 inches. Mainly on dries but a few took red copper johns.

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We spent day 5 looking for pike. The boys have been wanting to fish for pike for years now and Cam said there are some ponds near the spring creek ponds that hold some nice size pike. So off we went to the local pond. The pike ate just about anything put in front of them. The hot fly was a huge brown deceiver I use for Loreto. Michael landed 12 and Matthew landed 6 but he landed 2 of the biggest ones. Fun day pike fishing but when the day was over the boys said they would have preferred to fish the St. Mary’s again.

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The St. Mary’s is primarily the river we travel there to fish. It would be tough for you to find a better trout stream on the globe. The fish grow big, thick and strong. They like to eat dries and they fight harder than any other trout we know of. Too bad the boys only got to experience one day on the river. The one day they did have was stellar so I’m sure they will want to return.

 

More pics and video on Uncle Meng’s Blog http://www.mengsyn.com/2015/08/southern-alberta-trout-fishing/

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