Trout Streams of Alberta

Foreword by Gary Borger  

A national best seller published in 1996, this book examines the fish species, types of streams and fly fishing methods for fly fishing in Alberta.  There is general fishing information for each major watershed, as well as a “Great Waters” section that focuses on a particular piece of water in greater detail.  The streams highlighted as Great Waters are the Crowsnest, Bow, North Raven, North Ram, Maligne, and Little Smoky Rivers.  Trout Streams of Alberta was winner of the Andy Russell Outdoor Writing Award in 1997.

Chapter Titles: The Seasons of a Trout Stream; The Cold-water Fish of Alberta; The Requirements of Stream Trout; The Mechanics of a Trout Stream; Chasing Alberta Trout; The Oldman River System; The Bow River System; The Red Deer and North Saskatchewan River Systems; The Athabasca River System; The Peace River System; The Health and Welfare Report; Fly Patterns; The Dream Season

Trout Streams of Alberta – (238 pages) soft cover - $22.95 Canadian+ GST, $19.95 U.S.

Trout Streams of Alberta 
An Excerpt from Chapter 2, The Cold-water Fish of Alberta

Cutthroat Trout

It’s a long, rough logging road that takes you from the campground on the center fork of Prairie 
Creek, southwest of Rocky Mountain House, up past the swampy headwaters of the north fork 
and ultimately into the Ram River drainage.  But it’s a drive worth making, especially in the fall, 
when the sky is cloudless blue, the morning frost lingers until midday and the North Ram’s big
cutthroats want dry flies.

From its headwaters east of Abraham Lake, downstream to its confluence with the South Ram, the North Ram River’s clear waters flow through a wide gravel floodplain cut into dense evergreen forest mixed with occasional aspen and willow.  Deer, moose and elk live here, and the last time I fished it the warden told us there was a grizzly in the valley.  The North fork of the Ram River may be Alberta’s best cutthroat stream, and its story is a shining example of what can be accomplished through thoughtful, enlightened management.

The North Ram is a high elevation tributary to the North Saskatchewan, so its water stays cold well into summer.  It is subject to scouring in spring and anchor ice buildup in winter.  The insect population is fair but not nearly as dense as that of very productive rivers like the Crowsnest or Bow.

There were no fish of any kind in the river until west-slope cutthroats from southeastern British Columbia were introduced in 1955.  The North Ram was chosen for introduction partly because it has a set of falls that keeps the cutthroats isolated from other species, particularly rainbow trout with their hybridizing ways.

The North Ram was a mediocre fishery producing small numbers of small fish until 1982, when the provincial government implemented full-time no-kill, no-bait regulations on the stream.  This change has allowed the North Ram to develop into an exceptional fishery.  Though the population is still relatively small, the fact that the fish can be caught more than once means that fewer of them can satisfy a larger number of anglers.  The new regulations also allow the fish to get bigger and ensure there are adequate numbers of mature fish left to spawn each spring.  Today the North Ram gives a capable angler a very real chance to catch twelve- to twenty-inch west-slope cutthroats in beautiful, wild surroundings.

Trout Streams of Alberta
Review by Bob Scammell, from The Red Deer Advocate . May 8,1996  

            First, the disclosure: author and master fly fisher Jim McLennan has been a close fishing friend since you had to show him how to tie his wading boots.  When I first opened this book I was surprised and touched by the dedication, in part to me.

            All that, if anything, makes you take a harder look, read it twice, thrice, if you are going to review it.  That out of the way, let me say that, with a few minor suggestions, this is a wonderful and unique addition to the fishing guide-book genre.  As fly fishing guru, Gary Borger, who does the Foreword writes: “This is not just another “where to fish” book.  This is a book about the fishing.  And it’s a good one.”

            Not only that, but the book is a handsome paperback, readily transportable in the old rig, with superb drawings and good maps by Calgary artist Dave Soltess.

            It is instructive to compare McLennan’s book with the closest and most recent guide published, John Holt’s “Montana Fly Fishing Guide,” (Vol. 1, West of the divide), a very large format, thick book.  Holt goes river by river and up into the headwaters, laboriously listing streams, even those that are barren or too small to fish.

            By contrast, Part I of McLennan’s book is a general overview of the seasons of a trout stream, the cold water fish of Alberta, the requirements of stream trout, the mechanics of a trout stream, all full of valuable tips, hints and help toward finding your own secret “hotspots” in Alberta.  Then there is a chapter ”Chasing Alberta Trout,” which will help anyone get started catching trout in Alberta streams.

            Part II, named “Streams, Flies & Dreams,” contains a chapter on each of Alberta’s five major watersheds and river system, plus a chapter on the health and welfare of each of those systems and a chapter on Alberta fly patterns, with fine color plates of the patterns, which may be a tad more complex than necessary, certainly for these old fingers.

            From each watershed, McLennan deals in detail with one major river under the heading “The Great Waters.”  His updating on the Bow from his 1987 book “Blue Ribbon Bow” for many anglers will alone be worth the price of this new book.  The river is difficult, McLennan says, and is getting more-so, but notes a surprising number of trout in the five to eight lbs. range are taken every recent summer.  “Nobody gets very many of these fish,” he writes, “(I still don’t get any)…” 

            But too many resident anglers know nothing of the magnificent lower Bow known to anglers world-wide, mainly because, whether they can afford it or not, the locals just cannot bring themselves to pay a guide to show them how to fish anywhere in Alberta.  Some day, somebody is going to have to write a treatise showing these people, step-by-step how to go about arranging their own trip to the Lower Bow, either by floating it or by gaining foot access, then wading.

            One thing that saves Holt’s Montana guide with its interminable lists from total tedium, is his frequent accidulous comments on what he thinks about Montana fisheries mismanagement or industrial and forestry atrocities committed in various valleys and watershed. McLennan is still too nice a guy for that sort of thing, measured, pointing out in a nice way the many good things about Alberta management in recent years and warning, in a nice way about looming problems, such as in the Peace River watershed, almost before we realize what a fishery gem that is unless we abuse it, like McLennan says we have already done with some fine waters in the Athabasca watershed.

            About as mean as this man gets is when he refers to the “tired coal-mining” towns of the Crowsnest Pass.  I must admit I would not have the guts to do that, although I have written about the fish-killing “Crowsnest regulars” who live in those towns. Still, there is a fine humour starting to ooze into McLennan’s writing like— and as startling—as ice water into spring waders, that makes me look forward to his next piece, book, whatever.  Any of the many North Americans who really know what I call the “Trout Stream From Hell,” will just have to grin at this passage from McLennan’s “Great Waters” piece on central Alberta’s tiny, North Raven River just after he tells us it is the best of a very few spring creeks in Alberta, easily accessible, with good hatches and big fish:

            “What could be wrong with all this?  Listen.  The stream is slow, clear, deep, narrow and almost completely lined with thick willows.  The bottom is silty and hard to wade in.  The fish are moody and paranoid, and  most fly-fishers don’t even see let alone catch the big browns the biologists tell us are so abundant…  If the North Raven were a person it would be a beautiful, petite woman who had a black belt in karate, the kind of lady who could break both your legs and never stop smiling. This is not a stream for beginners.” 

            But this book is, and for veterans too, an absolute must for anyone, whatever method they fish, who wishes to know better Alberta’s best trout rivers and streams.