Trouting in the Yellowjacket Coosa

With a break in the spring thunderstorms predicted for the weekend a few of my favorite fishing buddies and I decided to fit in at least one more trip down the Bow river before the run off turns the it to chocolate milk. We decided to float from Fish Creek to Mckinnin Flats, a section of river most popular with the local guides and can quite often log jammed with drift boats. Although this isn’t normally my favorite section of water the thought was that with the recent rains it would be cleaner than the lower section as the Highwood river enters just before Mckinnon and can add a lot run off downstream. This section of the Bow flows much quicker than the lower section and has a few more obstacles to watch out for which is another reason I haven’t fallen for it the way I have the lower section. I find myself with paddle in hand more than I like which limits my fishing time and may be the reason I haven’t unlocked it’s secrets to the big numbers preached by the drift boat crowd. Although if I had a second body doing my paddling allowing me to focus solely on the fishing I may find my production goes up. But I’m just not a drift boat guy. I’m in love with the ability the Coosa gives me to get to the back channels and holding waters that they just can’t reach. Now all that said my morning ,as with the rest of my buds ,was slow with a total of 3 fish hooked in the first hour which made it appear that it was going to be business as usual for this section of the Bow. But as luck would have it all fish were caught with the same lure. And I just happened to be in possession of one of these relatively unappealing looking spinners. Within minutes of tying it on I was finally into fish. Now I’m not sure what It’s official tag is but over the years we’ve dubbed it “the you know salamander looking one” and in all honesty I’ve never really had much luck with it in the past. But today it was the only lure I used and it put me into double digit Rainbows and 1 brown. They were averaging 14 – 16 inches with the highlight being a couple nice 20+ inch Rainbows full of fight and more than willing spring from the water for some great acrobatic displays.This latest trip hasn’t completely convinced me of the greatness of this section of the river but it’s a good start. Now if I could only get the rest of the fella’s in Kayaks.

Stephen Laurie