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Weekly Tall Fish Tales

Episode #4

Howdy fellows, ladies, welcome to Scuttlebutt Lodge in Hawgwild Country and another episode of Big Jim's weekly tall fish tales along the Bow River. This week's guests, fishing in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, are the mighty fishy Jonnie, Jamie, Neil, and and the Mitchell's.

Not much to tell this week. The Bow river is getting higher and higher and higher and will continue to swell until it's apex sometime in the next couple of weeks. After the river really rages for a while the fishing on the Bow River will then get better. Chocolate milk I think is the colour today . We did persevere and catch a couple in previous days. I think we caught more of a tan than fish but a fun time was had by all.

So it's off to the Lakes and ponds for a while. Watch out for the whole trees, limbs, broken canoes, anything near the bank and all other debris that will be washing down the Bow River soon.

The End

Thanks for visiting us at Scuttlebutt Lodge in Hawgwild Country, come back next week for another one of Big Jim's real life tall fish tales along the Bow River and adjacent blue waters near Banff Alberta Canada.

Episode #3

Howdy fellows, ladies, welcome to Scuttlebutt Lodge in Hawgwild Country and another episode of Big Jim's weekly tall fish tales along the Bow River. This week's guests fishing in the Canadian Rocky Mountains are friends from Texas and Nevada, the mighty fishy Steve, Bridgett, Alison, Steve, and Ray.

It was early, breakfast time, when we met up out by the revolving doors at the Banff Springs Hotel. Fresh spring breeze, some good company, sunshine, what a delight that we were going fishing. First stop was the JK Bakery in Canmore; mmmm...fresh jelly dougnuts, ham and eggs and the good coffee, Danish breakfast it's called. Oh boy was it good. We ordered up some ala carte lunch while scoffing a bit of pastry and got the licenses on the go too and then we were off into the wild blue yonder.

We drove deep up into the mountains and turned off on an unmarked gravel road. We bounced down that cart-track till it turned to a goat path ...Yeeeeehaaa!! Ray said that it felt like he was driving with his Dad when he was a kid. So after our wild ride was over we were there. Our fishing party piled out and geared up and headed down the trail. Not the easiest hike to Zippermouth Lake but well worth it and we made it there in good cheer. I rigged up some of my G. Loomis five weights with some sinking and stripping nymphs and on the four and three weight rods I put on some dry flies. The wind was just right and was blowing the flies right out onto the Lake into the kill zone. Even my tiny six foot six three weight G. Loomis fly rod was launching the flies in the air and out there.

Steve broke the ice and got into a nice one before every one else was in the water and we were off to the races. Once we all got our all lines wet, the Lake started to boil and I mean BOIL. KabaaammmoWhammo..Couple of double headers right off the bat. Alison and Bridgett were hooking fish and bam bam, bam really started nailing them one after another. Ray, despite a slow start, came to life after a few minutes and some how managed to get the stink on his fly and well, put on a bit of a fish catching exhibition for the rest of us. Not to be out done, the Steve's kicked in the afterburners was going fish for fish with Ray. I started calling them the VonSlayenHammer brothers, they caught so many fish. Soooooooo many bites were had by all that we renamed Zippermouth Lake the Lake of a Thousand Bites.

The End.

Thanks for visiting us at Skuttlebutt Lodge in Hawgwild Country, come on back next week for another one of Big Jim's real life tall fish tales along the Bow River and adjacent blue waters near Banff Alberta Canada.

Episode #2:

Howdy fellows, ladies, welcome to Scuttlebutt Lodge in Hawgwild Country and this week's weekly tall fish tale along the Bow River. This week's guests, fishing in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, are mighty fishy looking Garedinar Lightfoot, Matt Brown, and Derrick McDuff.

It was Saturday night Hockey Night in Canada, snowing like crazy and some of the good fellows of the town were having a few sasperellas and watching the game, the Stanely Cup Play-offs. We got a talking about fishing, bragging you know and by the second period intermission the plan had already been hatched. Two feet of snow or not we were going to go fishing tomorrow 10am start. Now that the fishing party was set; well it just opened up the can and the bragging and bravado of each gentlemen's fishing expertise came out. That third period was wild, the sasperella flowing, insults and challenges a flying. Who was the best fisherman, who was going to bag the big one tomorrow.... You know, stuff hockey and fishing buddies talk about. By the end of the night it was decided that arm wrestling was the only sure way to determine who was the best fisherman

The 10am start was good. We had bacon and eggs at Garedinar's loaded up the trucks and off into the wild blue yonder we went. We decided on a two truck stop walk and wade. We dropped Derrick's truck at the get out and then drove a bit further down stream and pulled off the road. About a half an hour walk in and we were on the river. What a beautiful day!! Snow all around but melting, a bit of sun and not much wind. A nice spring fresh day. We had about 3-4 miles of river to walk so off we went.

Not much action at the start, great looking water; boulders with a nice bit of riffely water but nothing. We persevered and carried on. Derrick broke the ice and hooked into a nice brown. Big one. Second leap out of the water, twisting and turning that big Hawg with a mighty shake of it's head flipped the lure out and got away. That rejuvenated the debate of who was best angler and the casting got intense. I managed to hook and land a small little 12 inch brown. Garedinar had a few good solid bites but nothing in the net. The later the day got, the cooler it became and the fewer the bites so it looked like that nice little brown I had caught would stand as the tournament weinner!!!

It was almost last cast time when Derrick McDuffed one big giant slob. What a Hawg. He was yelling and screaming help, help, help, get the net , Get the Net!! We just laughed and said Net??? what net, we don't got no net. One big leap out of the water however changed our minds and Garedinar scrambled for the net threw it up to Matt. Derrick had already battled for a good five minutes and managed to get the fish in close. One look at Matt's mug and the net however and that crazy fish took off into the current and it was gone. ZZZZZZZZinggggg went the drag and that powerful fish almost spooled Derrick. Run, Run Run!!!! we were roaring and Derrick ran, running after the fish down stream turning the handle as fast as he could. Derrick finally managed to gain the upper hand and maneuvered the fish in by shore. Matt had ran down with him, jumped it with the net and with a mighty scoop landed the big one of the day. The End.

Thanks for visiting us at Skuttlebutt Lodge in Hawgwild Country, come on back next week for another one of Big Jim's real life tall fish tales along the Bow River near Banff Alberta Canada.

Episode #1:

Howdy fellows, ladies, welcome to Scuttlebutt Lodge in Hawgwild Country and the inaugural great story episode of Big Jim's weekly tall fish tales along the Bow River. This week's guests, fishing in the Canadian Rocky mountains are the mighty fishy Al McNaughton and his dog Lucky.

It started out kinda funny. I wanted to fish and Al did too but we only had a bit of time because he had to pick his kids up after school and it was already high noon. Anyway Al said he couldn't go so I thought that was going to be the end of it that day. To my surprise, two minutes later Al was on the phone and said he was on his way to pick me up and that we'd go on an emergency fish, just two hours and then home. I always want to go fishing, so it was set... I was in.

The 1986 big Ford red rambler rolled itself and rumbled in and before I knew it we were on the road setting out into the wild blue waters. We gotta be quick Al said. No sneaking looking for fish, investigative fishing, but rather straight to the fish kinda shooting them in a barrel was Al's mood. Fortunately for us, I knew of just the fishing locale that we were meant to go to. Lucky, the black lab fishing hound, always ready for a party, was in our company, so before long we were already at the side of the road at our fishing stop. Lucky jumped out, did a few summersaults while we geared up and we set off down through the woods, following Zippermouth Creek to the Bow river all the way down to "the Honey Hole" right in the middle of the mountains grand central for some big fish of the Bow River. Al seemed to recall a big rainbow falling to my fatly tied brown drake last year at the same place. He was right, it was just that spot. I joked that if there ever was a time for us to hook into a big double -header this was going to be the place.

Well we go there finally, a bit of walk it was, and we could see one big Hawg near the head of the pool submarining near the bottom. It looked to be at least six pounds so a career trout for most fellows. Then we spotted a couple more fish, harder to see, cruising camouflaged in the tail-out of the pool. I thought they might be a couple of those crafty leopard rainbows rarely ever seen and even harder to catch.

We tied up. Al ever the dry fly enthusiast, chose a jumbo Royal Coachman Dry and said winter or no winter I'm gonna skate one of those pigs up to the top and he did just that. Ka-whammo second drift on the drop at the end of a couple skates and wiggles, a five pound rainbow just smoked his fly. Well that fish must have been a gifted acrobat as it put on a spectacular aerial show flipping and a splashing.....With all the commotion going on that fat Hawg that I'd spotted at the head of the pool was moving around. It swam right up to the rainbow Al was fighting and tried to get the fly out of the rainbows mouth!!!

I dropped the net and flipped my fly in the water. I'd tied on a minni minnow clauser with a bit of weight to it...it hit the water and started to sink.... at about three feet deep that big dirty Hawg noticed it and he just leisurely swam over and chomped on my fly. I needed no second invitation and set the hook solid.

Double-header!!!!!! What a battle we had....criss-crossing lines, one fish running up the other down, mine very nearly snapped the line on a submerged tree limb but it miraculously sprang free. Lucky that was. Al, being the athlete he is, almost pile-drove himself into the river slip sliding on the ice managed to net his fish on his own and then the one I had on gave up too and we had both of those Lunkers in the net at the same time. Al=5/6lber Rainbow Jim=6/7lber Bull trout.

THE END.

Thanks for visiting us at Skuttlebutt Lodge in Hawgwild Country, come on back next week for another one of Big Jim's tall tale adventures along the Bow River near Banff Alberta Canada.

Contact Big Jim Direct at 1 403 678-7980 or e-mail BigJim@BanffFlyfishingGuides.com