Lots of fish

River rounding into form

A July 20 report from guide Kelly Laatsch at St. Mary's Angler (www.stmarysangler.com) in Cranbrook: "The Elk River is rounding into form! "Today was a good day to check out how the Elk River and its fine assortment of wild westslope cutthroat were shaping up for the season. So we floated one of the lower sections of the River. It was evident from the start that some of the runs, pools and riffles had shifted with the big spring flows from early in the year, so it made it fun to search out the new cutthroat resting places! "The weather has been absolutely beautiful the past couple of weeks and the temperature today reached a high of the mid 90’s°F (36°C). The Elk River seems to be leveling off in terms of flow as it is slowly dropping each day. The water gave us about 3 feet of good visibility. "Bank fishing on the Elk is a must as the fish are usually tucked up against the bank structure, or along whatever logs and rocks are available. We could have easily spent our time nymphing on a day like today, but we chose to stay with dries to see if we could entice the fish to come to the surface. Most of the day was spent floating in the boat, but we left it on occasion to fish up the back channels. "Casting from the boat can be a bit of a challenge, which makes it a lot of fun, because one has to present the fly with accuracy to these wily cuts. If you can get your fly to land as close to the bank edge as possible, then make it look like it is floating down a feed lane naturally with no drag, then there is a good chance you will hook a nice fish. Trust me on this point, casting from a boat gives one plenty of opportunity to perfect this technique, which can be so productive when done right. "The fishing was good today. Each angler caught and released 10 to 12 cuts. But remember, this was on dry flies only and everyone was quite excited to see the fish come to the surface looking for their meal! The biggest fish caught was a nice and chunky 16 inch cutthroat which looked very healthy. All the trout put up a good fight before being landed and released on this trip. "There was not much of a hatch on the Elk River today, only a few caddis and midges were of note. The flies that were working on this day included Stimulators (orange and yellow), Tan Caddis, Lime Trudes, Royal Wulffs and H&L Variants. We also tied on some foam patterns as big attractors at the end of the day. "Today we saw a lot of bird life. There were a number of eagles and ospreys tending their young which are still bound to the nests. Fun to see. River Roundup: "The last couple of days have seen a few storms roll through the area which caused the Elk to get cloudy again. By this weekend the River should be back in good shape. The St.Mary and the Bull rivers have both been fishing consistently and very well in the last few weeks."

The river's open for 2014

Posted by Paul Samicya at Elk River Guiding Company (www.elkriver.ca) on June 16: After a great ski year and some adventure that took us to Crooked Island, the Mo, Henrys Fork, the Beaver Head and the Big Horn, the Kootenay, and, of course, our Stillwater lakes, we are now anticipating a great season on the Elk and local rivers. Spring flows are still high but a few diehards were out to cast a line. Some got lucky and managed to land a few despite the muddy water. I would expect we will have an excellent season as most of the snow pack is gone and our flooding last year gave us a "new river" that our guides quickly figured out. With a bit of rain in the forecast we will be patiently watching to see how clarity and flows change. I expect early July will be great for golden stones and if the stars line up we may have driftable water before the end of June. The river is dropping slow and steady.