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      New Trickflies.ca Website Is Now Live!

      Trickflies.ca New Website

      We are very pleased to announce that our new website for fly fishing flies is now live and ready to serve your fly fishing needs. Among the obvious visual enhancements, this new and improved website is optimized to help you spend less time shopping for fishing flies and more time fishing with your flies. One of the many improvements is in the way the cart behaves, our old cart was clunky and obtrusive. Our new cart makes you aware that you added something but still allows you to browse at the same time.

      Our new website only adds to our already top notch customer service and will continue to be improved upon to keep us as Canada's top fly fishing fly provider for years to come.

      Alberta's Top Fly Fishing Locations: Prairie Creek

      Alberta's Top Fly Fishing Locations: Prairie Creek

      There is an amazing brown trout stream that’s around a 2.5-hour drive southwest of Edmonton that rarely disappoints. Prairie Creek is one of those Alberta fly fishing streams that always seems to produce for us. Our favorite section to fish is referred to as “The Miracle Mile” and starts right by the Prairie Creek Inn just south of Rocky Mountain House.  
      Prairie Creek Bridge Trickflies.ca 
      From the moment we step out of the vehicle the excitement builds.  As we’re paying attention to the bugs that are flying around, we’re putting our gear together piece by piece, anticipating the experience ahead. With a nice long look over the bank it often reveals some small fish rising in the slow-moving deep pool below the bridge. When no hatch is noticeable, we will typically start with an Elk Hair Caddis, Foam Hopper or a Stimulator. Often times we will attach a dropper such as our Beadhead Kaufman's Stone. As the browns at Prairie Creek seem to enjoy the dry flies more often than not, we rarely catch a fish on the dropper. Being a popular section of stream, we tend to go during the weekdays. On weekends it’s busier and there are almost always at least 3 other vehicles parked here. At times when we are by ourselves, we will tend to start upstream, work our way down and then fish our way back up. Once the first slow section is skipped, it seems that there is a pool around every bend and they almost always have fish.  
       
      The browns here can be very finicky but can also be convinced to rise by trying a few different techniques. One of the most effective is swinging a dry fly or a hopper. We will almost always start at the bottom of a run and work our way up making sure the line fully extends behind us at the end of every cast. A lot of the time the fish will hit as the fly moves across stream which gives it a bit of a life like appearance. Oddly not very often do the fish strike on a solid drift with the exception of one run in particular. The run has a lot of logs on the outside of it placed there by a landowner to protect from bank erosion. On that particular section cast as close to the logs as possible and try to drift the fly right along the logs to pull a brown out from underneath. Quite often the fish will also strike during the retrieval. After the line fully extends behind you make sure to hand retrieve a fair bit of it dragging it over the near bank in hopes of a rise. Just make sure to always swing the line completely straight behind you before recasting. When nothing else is working we like to tie on a Clouser Minnow and use a technique we learned while fishing for steelhead on Vancouver Island, swinging heavy flies. For this one, cast all the way across the stream to the opposite bank at a 45-degree angle upstream and let the fly sink, swing and fully extend behind you, then take a step upstream and try again. In order to change the depth of the fly, change the angle of the upstream cast. Cast further up to get the fly deeper and more straight across for a shallower swing. The browns at Prairie Creek generally only rise once, so when we miss a strike on our way downstream, we will make a note of the location and try again on our way back up stream. Often times the fish will rise again on the way back. 
      Prairie Creek Upstream Trickflies.ca 
      Prairie Creek is a dry fly stream that will often produce double digit numbers and usually one fish in the 18 to 20-inch range every time we go out. For these reasons Prairie Creek will always remain one of our favourite Canadian fly fishing streams.

      5 Must Have Dry Flies in Canada

      5 Must Have Dry Flies in Canada

      We here at Trickflies.ca tend to fish dry flies most of the time and tend to find success with a wide variety of dry flies in Western Canada. We felt it was a good idea to compile a list of our favourite dry fly fishing flies for Canadian waters and how/when we fish them.
      Every fly fisher has their go to fly, that one fly that always seems to find its way on to the end of their leader. For us it has to be the Elk Hair Caddis. Whenever we go to any stream it seems to be what we always start with unless there is an obvious hatch. One of our more popular dry flies the Elk Hair Caddis comes in a wide variety of sizes and colours but we usually like to start with a size 16 or 18 in our brown or yellow varieties. When it comes time to get the fly in the water, we apply a little bit of floatant and drift it as drag free as possible. We tend to find that this fly best imitates a falling caddis with a slight slap on the surface upon landing. My brown trout at our local stream have also been taken on the swing, let the fly extend straight downstream before recasting.
      Our most popular dry fly is that for a reason, it catches tons of trout. Anytime there is an mayfly hatch this is usually the one we go to. The exception is when we are in choppy water and need a little more buoyancy to keep the fly on the surface, then the Humpy Adams is our go to. What makes our Parachute Adams so amazing is the white "parachute" on the top of the fly making this a very visible dry fly to fish with. Even in our smallest sizes it can often be seen at full cast. Once again, a little floatant will keep it riding high and staying dry. This fly is the current Trickflies.ca record holder for Arctic Grayling.
      Stimulator Royal Trickflies.ca
      Our local stream Prairie Creek, always has tons of dried up stonefly shucks on its rocky shores. For that reason we started carrying quite a number and variety of Stimulators when fly fishing in Western Canada. Not only do they do an amazing job of imitating stoneflies, but also work well as an attractor pattern. Maybe it's the large size or how bushy the Stimulators look but trout seem to go nuts for them. Stimulators tend to split duty with our next fly as the top "indicator"  fly in our dropper set ups, in this case the indicator catches more than the dropper. We carry many colour and size variations both in store and in our boxes.
      Whats our absolute favourite dry fly fishing fly? Our Foam Hoppers of course. As the current Trickflies.ca record holder for Cutthroat Trout we always have at least 4 of each size and colour variation in our boxes. Often seen as an easy meal, hoppers hit the surface with a splash and are helpless once they do. We like to drift it to a rising fish and just as it floats into the strike zone give it a little twitch to add some life and entice a strike. Often times if we encounter a picky fish that wont take anything we offer, a Foam Hopper gets the job done. Also a favourite dry fly for the hopper/dropper set up.
      There were are few dry flies up for the final spot but it was decided that it should go to the Griffiths Gnat. When the hatching bugs are small and there is a lot of surface film the Griffith Gnat is our go to fly. The Griffiths Gnat is a fly fishing fly that has caught fish all over Western Canada, in a wide variety of streams. It is really the only fly we fish foam with and have had great success in doing so,
      Not only are our Top 5 Must Have Dry Flies our favourites for fly fishing in Western Canada but are proven by fly fishers worldwide. Try them on your local stream and see the results.

       

       

       

       

       

      Rusty Lake, Saskatchewan

      Rusty Lake, Saskatchewan

      I've been hearing about the wonderful fishing opportunities that Saskatchewan has to offer and Rusty Lake in Meadow Lake Provincial Park didn't fail to impress.

       

      I rolled into Matheson Lake Campground late in the evening on Tuesday May 22, quickly set up camp in the dark and went to sleep thinking of the upcoming days fishing. I find pike to be most active during the morning so I was up at 6am and in my car for the short 10min drive to Rusty Lake. As always, I start pike fishing with the Yellow Bunny Leech as it has been my most consistent pike fly. In the first hour I caught 6 or 7 small 18" pike and decided to pack up and go to one of the bigger lakes in the area known for bigger pike.

       

      Waterhen Lake is considerably bigger and one of the biggest lakes in the park. After a short time fishing I was quickly intimidated in my small float tube. If a big wind came up (and they quite often do in Saskatchewan) I could end up in a fair bit of trouble and find myself on the opposite side of a very large lake. At this point I decided to go back to Rusty for another hour or two before heading back to camp to take a nap and rest before evening fishing.

       

      Fishing started up again at 5pm and continued the high catch rates of small to medium sized pike throughout the evening. By the time the day was done I caught over 40 pike with the smallest at 10 inch and the largest 22 inches. Determined to get something larger I went to bed early for another 6am wake up call.

       

      The morning of May 23 started much like the previous morning but my desire to hook into a larger fish convinced me to kick to the opposite side of the lake that had what appeared to be a small bay. The 30 minute kick across the lake did not disappoint as I was greeted to shallow slightly weedy waters with a decent drop-off 100 meters off shore. The action started up almost immediately as I pulled in 18 to 20 inchers on our Double Bunny Olive and Black. As the it started to slow down I decided to switch to the ol' faithful Yellow Bunny Leech and that's when I hooked into a big fish.

      Immediately I knew this fish was much bigger than any of the others I caught as it took line right from the initial hit and every time I took some back it would run off again. I had it close enough to the float tube on 3 occasions that I could see the end of the line out of the water but each time it took off again. Finally on the forth time I got it just out of reach of landing it, the fish spit out the hook and was lost to the depths. It was a fun lengthy battle but I lost the big pike I came out here for.

       

      Later I did catch a decent 24" pike however and will return for some more action at Meadow Lake Provincial Park, Saskatchewan soon enough.

       

       

      Buffalo Lake Opening Day May 15 2018

      Buffalo Lake Opening Day May 15 2018

      Most of the lakes in central Alberta are closed from March 1 till May 15 for spawning season, so when they finally do open we like to get out and do some opening day pike fishing. With the concern surrounding Whirling Disease, our local stocked ponds have seen stocking numbers reduced to less than 30% of their normal levels thus making stocked trout fishing less appealing. Either way opening day pike fishing is always a good time and this year was no exception.

       

      I started the day at first light (6am) and after pumping up the float tube was ready to hit the lake. I started with my good ol' faithful Yellow Bunny Leech and the action was non stop. I caught so many pike that I decided to try one of our new flies, the Double Bunny Olive and White and the fish kept coming. After an hour of that I decided to try a variation of the Bunny Leech in red and white that we are testing for sale. I couldn't believe it when the pike went even more crazy for this lure. There was a point where I missed the same fish 6 times and it kept coming back before I finally caught it. It was a beautiful 24" pike with amazing coloration. The day didn't stop from there as the fish kept coming by the end of the morning I had caught 25 pike in 4 hours.

       

      With the lower stocking levels in Alberta last and this year I plan on avoiding the stocked ponds and going for stream trout or pike in lakes. The thing about pike on the fly is that once you get one the excitement never stops.