End of Part 1

On Sunday, after a cool night we were up to a damp fly, but thankfully no ice. We had a relaxed breakfast then took down the wet camp and loaded everything into the truck. It was still a cool morning, but we continued off on the road. Cataract Creek looked a little different in the heavier clouds.

We went back to the Highwood River in under the bridge at Highwood Junction to try out the couple of pools that were good the last time we were there. Things looked a little darker and were much cooler this time.

The first pool didn't have anything happening in it, so we moved along to the second, where Mike had caught the largest fish of the trip.

Things were cold and it was starting to rain. Mike did manage to get one fish to rise up to his fly, in the same spot he caught the big fish the last time, but it was once, after many, many casts.

I had no luck at all, so it was time to retreat back to the truck, to the heated seats, and call it a trip. When the next time happens, we will start from Highwood Junction and work north, through Kananaskis Country and up the Smith Dorrien Trail to Canmore, before continuing on the Trunk Road off Hwy 1A.

Cataract Creek

Saturday morning we awoke to overcast and cool, but not cold which was very welcome. We stayed at site having breakfast and packing up for the day. We had a big lunch and everything for a day of wade in fishing. We drove the 1km out of the campground to the Cataract Creek Snow Vehicle loading zone and I put my waders on and we were off.

Cataract Creek has a waterfall that is about 4km downstream of the campsite, which is about 7.5km upstream of its confluence with the Highwood River. The falls provide a barrier to the fish and as such, only brook trout are upstream of the falls. The book Alberta's Trout Highway: Fishing the Forestry Trunk Road by Barry Mitchell was our deciding factor with a good recommendation to go upstream with the sweeping creek through the willows. As such going down to the falls will have to wait for another trip.

We mistakenly stated up the wrong creek that parallels the Trunk Road, but getting past the first couple of bends it wasn't looking like the description we read, so we turned around and found the proper trail to take us to the creek. We worked upstream, and it was a great day catching many, many brook trout. Mike caught the first fish in a nice pond near a log on the first corner, and we were off.

The scenery was absolutely stunning with the short willows and the creek running through it with Mts Farquhar, Scrimger, and Etherington in the background, with the divide behind it.

I can't even go through the fish we caught; we were trying to track it, but lost count shortly after lunch. We figure that Mike caught around a dozen, and I caught about 20. I had the biggest with two fish that were around 10". Mike's largest was around 8".

Most of the fish were little 4" or 5",  that another Fisher passing by called minnows. It was a great time as we kept working up stream and figured we were well over 2km of walking along the creek, but just over 1km as the crow flies.

Brook trout are distinguished by the white tips on their pectoral fins, the red slashes on their bellies, and the vermiculation on their dorsal fin.

After we were about done for the day, with many fish caught, sore shoulders from casting and a desire for me to get our of my wading boots and Mike to get out of his wet Keen sandals, it was time to head back to the truck. That was not such an easy task as we had worked our way upstream around all of the bends, crossing the steam many times to avoid high banks and willows. We took one route that led us into a swamp, another that took us into a beaver pond, but finally we found our way out.

After our luck the day before at the confluence of two streams we tried the confluence between the creek along the Trunk Road and Cataract Creek right by the truck, but there was to be no more luck there. After much great success for the day we got our gear back in the truck, and vowed to come back another time on a day trip.

We were quite exhausted as we sat for dinner, but as the sun started to go down we again headed for Cataract Creek in behind the campground. This time we went upstream and both found success. The PMDs were hatching abundantly and fluttering all about. We found a good stretch that Mike cast and caught a little 5" brook trout and then a 4" brook trout.

On the latter, four trout surfaced for the fly with the last one taking it. I worked into the stretch too and pulled out a little 4" brook trout as well before setting my sites on a bigger one that was surfacing across the stream behind a rock and log, much harder to cast to. After quire a few times casting from a couple of angles the fish finally took the fly. I pulled out a nice 8" brook trout, the largest of the evening.

As it was getting dark, we left the fish to rise and retired to our last campfire of the trip. just before we were about to go to bed a rain shower started so we had to scramble to put stuff away before going to bed.

Highwood River

We woke up even colder than Thursday. The truck thermometer showed 2C but it had to be colder. There was a slight shower during the night and condensation from inside the tent. As such, there was ice droplets in the fly and it was frozen to the tent where it made contact. Needless to say we were both quire chilled waking up.

We packed up as quickly as our frozen hands would go, throwing the tent and fly in garbage bags after shaking off as much ice as we could.  There was some concern about not having a site for the next couple of nights with all the regular work folk coming out on the start of the weekend. We drove back down to the Trunk Road and then continued on as it parallels the Livingston River. At this point we realized that the kilometer markings we now decreasing towards the Highwood Junction.

We stopped at the Livingston Falls Rec area for breakfast at the picnic area and to check out the falls. I don't know if it was because we were up early or there wasn't anything going on in the water, but we didn't even get our rods out and just kept pushing up the road.

We continued upstream found a place to cast almost at the end of the Livingston River in behind a nice little beaver dam. The water was clear but the bottom was quite covered in sediment and we didn't see anything.

Just past our fishing spot on the road we made it to the end of the Livingston River where it splits into three creeks at the Johnson Creek Road turnoff. Next for us was to continue on the Trunk Road and there was a distinct change in the road itself, not as well compacted and the gravel was less washed stone instead having more soil in it. This was as we went up and over Wilkinson Summit (pass), at 2000 meters elevation, from the Oldman drainage to the Highwood drainage, following a small steam bed up one side and another down the other side. This part of the road is also closed though the winter which made sense given the terrain.

The road descended down to Cataract Creek and the campground there. We took a look through the campground then went to look at random camping up the Lost Creek Trail, but read the map wrong and there is a permanently closed gate there, so went back to Cataract Creek and got set up on a site. However, the view up Cataract Creek is breathtaking. There were nice neighbours that were just checking out beside us, and gave us some good advice for fishing in behind the campground.

We drove the last stretch of the Trunk Road that we are going to drive on this trip, the last 13km to the Highwood Junction, where we stopped for ice.

Being here we wanted to fish the Highwood River so started our way towards Longview. We decided to drove into town to get cell service and let everyone know we are okay. We headed back and started looking for places to fish the Highwood without a bunch of other people there.

We found a spot just across from Stampede Ranch where we went through a person gate and scrambled down a steep slope to the river. It was nice, sunny, and warm out which was a welcome change. It was a big change of pace to be on a river this size with as much flow as it had.

Mike was working with an ant which he had no luck on. I managed to got 10" rainbow on a nymph. This was our first non-cutthroat we landed on the trip, and it was definitely a different fish, with a little more fight.

Leaving there, we continued upstream and took a look at the river Greenford Rec Area, throwing a couple casts in there  but didn't see anything. Looking even further up on Hwy 541 in the upper areas where they are doing riverbank repair, but we couldn't get to a bank that was accessible.

That left us back up to Highwood Junction and went under the bridge to fish the confluence of the Highwood and Etherington Creek. It was a great little pool but the currents of the two coming together made for some really interesting approaches. I was still using a nymph and it was tough to get it to the depths as it swirled and churned. We saw a fish rising sporadically so Mike took a shot with a foam hopper he had on. He worked it a little bit then caught a very nice 14" cutthroat; our biggest of the trip yet.

After landing it, another fish (or possibly the same one) was rising up again, so I tried with a Frank's Hopper. The fly being mostly of hair rather than foam didn't work as well in the currents and kept getting sucked under. Downstream another hole was calling to us. There was a nice log along the bank and a fish rising off the end if it. I tried going after it with my hopper but then cast a bit too far and got my fly stuck on the log and broke it off. Mike put his hopper in and hooked him. We landed him and it was a nice 15" cutthroat, much thicker than the previous.

After a couple minutes that fish (or another in the same location) was rising again, so I tried with a foam hopper, and after many, many casts he went for it, but I didn't hook him.

We went downstream to yet another hole with a nice log along the bank. It was very tough to cast in an awkward position with lots of branches everywhere. I hooked a fish on my first cast and tried fighting it downstream of the log and just about got it there to Mike with the net, but got my line tangled on the last branch and it got away. I could see 5 or 6 fish in the hole but put my hopper over them a few dozen times and had no other takers.

Being quite exhausted, we drove back to site and had a sit and enjoyable Strongbow. We were both tired after the early morning and lots of walking, especially on all the cobbles. We made up dinner and cleaned up afterwards before walking towards Cataract Creek which is about 100m off of our site. After a couple of casts with our hoppers on (rather hopefully)  we both swapped over the the size 14 PMD that was recommended and we picked up at the fly shop in Coleman.

I hit it off in one pool I caught a little 5" brook trout. It was good for the diversification of the trout species we caught on the trip.

I went to a pool a touch further down and managed to catch a nice 8" brook trout, followed by two different 6" brook trout.

It was fun schooling all the little brookies; I gave Mike a chance at that hole but it wasn't working for him. We tried one pool further down, but it was getting quite dark, so we made our way back to camp for a fire and a drink.

Clouds had settled over the valley, and they didn't look like rain, so we were hopeful for a bit warmer evening.

Upper Oldman

On Thursday morning we worked up quite chilled. It was cold and humid and felt much cooler than the 4°C that the truck said. We cooked up hot drinks and had a fire to warm up by. After we felt more like doing something aside from warming up, we drove downstream to find some spots to fish. We worked our way on one bank and went around a couple bends, fishing as we went. Mike hooked a fish on nymph in one pool there, but it managed to get away. We tried another hole that looked promising but we weren't seeing anything and it was starting to rain so we headed back to the truck before the trail to the river got too slippery. Once we got to the truck, we were really glad we did as it stated to downpour. We just sat and waited it our for the 10 minutes or so that it lasted.

We went back to site to see how it fared the rain and waited for the rain to stop before having some lunch. Just after that it looked like we were going to get a 45-minute-to-hour long window between rain showers, so we took advantage of it and drove up to the end of the road where the washout was, walked across it and down the road a touch before cutting in to the river.

We tried a couple spots unsuccessfully while working downstream then got to a nice little pool at the bottom of the cliff face under the washout. I tried casting in a bit with a fly but couldn't get positioned well enough to do much. Mike cast in with a nymph and had a nice break on one of his first casts and then hooked one that went for a little run but got off the hook before I could get him in the net. Two casts more and Mike hooked and landed a nice 6" cutthroat.

The funniest part of that was that there was most of an old fly that the fish must have had still hooked in him which ended up staying in the net. So not only did Mike catch a fish and remove his hook, he took another from the fish and left the fish in better shape than before.

That kind of matched what we were doing on the trip in which finding any cans or garbage where we were, we packed them our.

Happy with that we worked our way back up the slope to the road and noticed the clouds, figuring we only had about 20 minutes or so. We hiked down the washout to the other side side of the pool. I tried first and saw a chase and then hooked and landed a 10" cutthroat on a red Chernobyl ant.

Mike was up next and since we were running out of time before the rain, he just fired his nymph in the pool. There was a nibble, but then he got his line all tangled up, so I cast a few while he was untangling. I hooked and landed an 8" cutthroat. By that point the rain was coming down and the rocks were getting slippery so we had to leave to wait our the downpour.

We headed back to our site, which was about a 5 minute drive, and waited out the rest of the rain. We had a snack and then saw another opening before the next rain. We headed back above the falls again although not as far as the last time. We pulled in beside the Beehive Natural Area sign and walked to the river.

There was a good pool up against the cliff face which we went straight for. The pool itself didn't offer much, but the band of water between the current and it was teaming with fish. Cutthroat trout were jumping all over the place.

I caught a 6" fish on my Chernobyl ant as Mike was changing over from a nymph to a dry fly. Then he caught a 5" fish on a foam hopper.

I got another 8" trout and then Mike got a 10" one.

It was a great little pool; a lot of fun, with a great view of the Beehive portion of the continental divide behind us. We even saw an osprey fly by to complete the scenery.

I worked a bit upstream where I hooked a small cutthroat but he hopped off just before landing him. Looking further upstream, we tried some other areas before the rain hit yet again and we walked back to the truck.

We drove back to site and I put on my waders as I was off to see if I could go find the very large bull trout I had seen the day before. As I was getting my waders on, we heard a splashing in the river. I looked our and saw something beige. Thinking it was the waders of another fisher, I said hello. That's when I realized it was a small bull and cow elk walking upriver, and my voice spooked them to run downstream and to shore and up into the trees before I could even get my camera out.

From there it was back to the bull trout, who by this point we had lovingly nicknamed Gigantor.  I went to the corner he was hiding in but didn't see anything there. I tried casting for a bit but all I saw was a solitary cutthroat that wasn't interested in anything. Working back upstream to the next log jam I saw two big brook trout. I slowly crept into the water and laid out some line, but as soon as I cast and my line touched the water it spooked them both.

In all of that my hook ended up caught on a stick on the edge of the logjam and I waded in past my waist to rescue it, unfortunately ensuring the big fish were safely away in their hiding spots.

We went back to the nearest large pool to our campsite but saw nothing happening there, so went back for a late dinner and fire before bed.