Little Smokey Trip

[DennisS]

Will Big Stone Road didn't let me down. One hell of a ride in & out. Lots of rigs and logging trucks. Rough and really rough. About shuke my gizzards out. Managed flat tire when I got out there. The weather was beautiful but somewhat chilly at night. Woke up to frozen water. Arrived thur fished until dark didn't move much as tired out changing the tire. Very slow for the Little Smokey. I caught about 10 grayling on thur Caught mostly on my llama leech with red tungsten bead along with Grifiths knat. Caught my biggest grayling of the trip here about 16inches and nice & fat. rest average about 11 inches.

 

Fri dawn clear and chilly. left camp and hiked up stream nice walk. Walked up to a hole that Keith & I found last yr. Fish there for some time. Lost a size 4 semi zonker to a bull. Did even get to see how big he was. A couple of more fellows venture by one came and ask to fish the same hole which I said there lots of space by all means He fished the seam from the other said and his buddies want up to the next bend. He started catch a few will I still was fishless. He fished for about 1/2 and hour and then left he thank me for letting him fish in the same hole told him that there was a lot of room he said there a lot of guy that would have let him. As he let he told me to try a small black caddis thats what he was using and to come over to his siad as it was ovious that the fishing were lying on the seam on his side. I slid over to the other said and proceed to catch a few more fish mostly on a dark brown (had no black elk hair caddis) caught my second biggest grayling here about 13inches. I caught about 20 fish for the day. caught mostly on brown elk hair and prince nymph. A little better day but again not your typical Little Smokey day. Left that night following a logging truck out and eat enough dust to last me a life time.

 

Hope to make it out at least one more time. It seem that the grayling have not s tarted to pool up yet maybe means a late fall. Hope so.

 

Tight Lines Always

Dennis S.

[troutbum]

Hey DennisS.

 

Good post.

 

Only someone that's been there would chuckle (or cry) about the road. I will admit that the portion south of the first bridge crossing on the hill is a damn sight better since they rebuilt it several years ago. Still there's enough 'nut busters' on the road to remind LSR vetrans to keep their foot poised over the brake pedal.

 

At least it sounds like conditions are better this year than last - water wise that is. I plan on making my fall pilgrimage up there next week. Hopefully the grayling will have become more 'seasonable' with the bulls keeping them on their toes.

 

At least - here's hoping

 

-bum

[DennisS]

Good Luck. I hope to get up there for another bash. One of these day I would like to go and just fish for bull. As I mention got broke off in the one pool I was using

 

My future Son in Law is out from Ontario and I am doing a family thing possibly on the weekend for a day on LSR. But I would like at least another day with a fishing buddy to do some more exploring and learn to use may GPS to its potential.

 

Tight Lines Always

Dennis S.

[troutbum]

Well I'd invite y'all to come along with my buddy and I - but we'll be up there from Tuesday through to Saturday. The only time we'll leave the area is if we need supplies - or if we go to fish Deep Valley Creek/Simonette River - which I've been wanting to do for several years now.

 

I spend half my time targeting Bulls, and the other half for grayling. Years ago - I used to get the odd bull that would hit a grayling I was fighting. Now I pretty much have to bite the bullet and tie on a streamer. The pool upstream of the bridge at Grizzly used to be a pretty good spot to get them. Position yourself on the inside bend and cast the streamer slightly upstream. Allow it to drift down mid pool and retrieve it back to the head. There is a dropoff there that seems to attract them.

 

Of course, the high water in September last year seemed to mess the bulls up a bit - but I'm hoping that I can find some next week. By the way, it used to be that big ones were caught right at the grizzly bridge pool on the downstream side. Back when you could keep some, I saw a 10lb bull harvested by a spin fishermen. He used to set up his trailer at the bridge for the month of September, and target bulls.

 

I haven't seen him back there to fish since bulls went catch and release province-wide though

 

-bum