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Bright lights, big fishy
Wilderness, schmilderness. Cast for trophy trout without leaving town.
By Jake MacDonald with photography by Todd Korol
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| Click map to enlarge |
IIT’S A BLUSTERY DAYBREAK in October, with rain squalls
blowing in off the Rockies, and I’m standing knee-deep in the
rushing green torrent of the Bow River. As I unlimber my fly
rod, a group of geese swing overhead, honking sonorously,
and a fat beaver cruises along the shore, hauling a branch of
fresh-cut aspen for its winter feed pile. A few minutes ago my
fishing guide, Curtis Lawrence, spotted a nice trout rising to the
surface. Now I’m out here throwing one of his hand-tied
grasshopper imitations to see if the fish is interested in a spot
of breakfast.
I last touched a fly rod a couple of months ago and it’s good
to be casting again, to feel the delicate spring of the rod and to
watch the line loop out and settle on the water. On my first cast,
as the fly drifts downstream, a gaping mouth suddenly emerges
from beneath. It’s like a scene from Jaws — written from a
grasshopper’s point of view — and with excessive enthusiasm
I lift the rod, succeeding only in jerking the fly out of the
trout’s maw. Lawrence is lowering the boat into the water and
he laughs as I slop back to shore. And it is funny, after all —
it’s a weekday morning, we’re in the middle of a big city surrounded
by freeway concrete and speeding cars, and we’re
going trout fishing.
THE BOW RIVER DRAINS OFF the glaciers of the Rocky
Mountains and tumbles down through the foothills into Calgary.
The river is cold enough to provide good growing conditions for
trout, even if they did get here by chance. In 1925, a provincial fisheries
truck carrying a load of trout fingerlings broke down as it was
crossing the Carrot Creek Bridge near Canmore, about an hour
west of Calgary. The truck driver, faced with the prospect of
45,000 young fish dying before he could get the vehicle fixed,
dumped the fingerlings into the creek. The trout made their way
downstream and thrived, and now the Bow River is one of the top
trout hotspots in North America.
The trout are not only dense (about 1,500 per kilometre) but
exceptionally large and strong. In most rivers, a 50-centimetre
trout is a lifetime trophy, but on the Bow anglers can catch fish
that large every day. The river’s reputation has stimulated a
growing industry of tackle retailers and fishing guides. Lawrence
is one of about 50 guides who work on the river full-time.
His clients come from all over the world, but they’re not
necessarily hard-core anglers. “Many of them come here on business
trips and decide to try a little trout fishing on the side,” he says. “I supply all the equipment and teach them the basics
of fly casting. Even if they’ve never touched a fly rod I can usually
get them catching fish on their first outing.”
Lawrence lives in Canmore and when he has clients in Calgary,
he gets up at five in the morning to prepare lunch, tie flies and
get ready for the day’s work. Last night I stayed at the Fairmont
Palliser, Calgary’s grand old railway hotel, and this morning as
I was partaking of my breakfast Lawrence was driving down out
of the mountains to pick me up. On the phone he had told me,
“You’ll recognize me because I’ll be the only vehicle towing a
boat.” Sure enough, the trim, fit-looking 40-year-old was easy to
spot. We loaded my suitcase into his truck and headed off into
rush-hour traffic. After a short drive, we pulled off at a bridge on
the Glenmore Trail and backed the boat toward the river. I had
forgotten to buy a license, so I cut across the freeway and went
into a shopping mall, getting not so much as a glance from the
other shoppers as I squeaked along in my neoprene chest waders.
After getting my license and unsuccessfully stalking that
first trout, I climb into the boat and we set off. Like all the
guides on the river, Lawrence uses oars, and the current is
strong enough that he has to put his back into it. As we go rocking
down the river, the morning sun emerges from the squall
clouds and gilds the towers of downtown Calgary and the distant
Rockies. Lawrence tells me he grew up in southern Ontario
and gravitated west to pursue his love of skiing and fishing. He
has been guiding full-time for 10 years and seems to know his
business. We have barely drifted away from the shore when he points out a large boulder protruding from the river. “Do you
see the current dividing as it goes around the boulder? Cast
upstream and let your fly ride that seam of current as it goes
around the rock.”
The boat is moving quickly and I have only a few seconds to
execute the cast. I get lucky and the grasshopper fly drops in the
right spot and goes swirling down toward the boulder. I get even
luckier when a metallic torpedo shoots out from behind the boulder
and grabs it. Feeling the tension of the rod, the rainbow trout
leaps with astounding agility, once, twice and three times, each
leap ridiculously high and terminating with a moment in which
the fish hangs in the air for a half-millisecond, surrounded by
spray and as weightless as a Platonic ideal.
When you’re hooked up to a big fish in hard current among
boulders and dead trees, the main challenge is to multi-task at
a rate that averts disaster. After more jumps, the trout charges
the boat, an alarming move, but the hook stays put and a few
moments later the rainbow slides into Lawrence’s landing net.
It’s a beautiful creature, with an olive-green back, chromiumbright
skin and a strip of rosy pink along its flanks. Lawrence
immerses the trout in the current, where it rests in his hands
briefly, gulping water, then wriggles free and departs. I shake
his hand in gratitude. We’re relieved of the embarrassment of
getting skunked and we’re still in sight of the boat launch.
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