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.