Time to Float The Bow River Once Again

Winter, what winter?

It has been a long time since I witnessed a winter this mild after living in Calgary all my life. Usually it is still cold and fishing is entirely out of the question, float fishing is anyway. I would guess to say this has been our warmest winter on record, so warm in fact that I have already floated the Bow River. I can’t believe in the second week of March, the boat touched water. We had a phenomenal day on our float from Policeman’s Flats to MacKinnon with ten killer sized fish caught and released. It was a slow float as it took us approximately seven hours to complete the trip, with hardly a breeze blowing that sunny Tuesday morning. I was asked by a former client and friend Ben to row his Hyde Low Pro drift boat for him and his buddy Barkley. It was a big difference from my inflatable Saturn raft, but once you are a skilled rower it really makes no difference as far as I am concerned.

The top end of the trip started out with a bang, both Ben and Barkley had their first fish in under an hour, two sweet rainbow trout were hungry and willing. The fishing was sporadic at times but we did seem to have good bites between fish that were actually boated. Just being able to be on the river at this time of the year had me smiling from ear to ear. I went down to MacKinnon Flats a few days before the trip to see if we could actually get the boat out over what was a pretty steep ice ledge. There was a nice place to dock at MacKinnon and one decent place to drag the boat up and over the ice. I am sure glad we floated this section of river. I think it would have fished better than the city stretch of river due to the low pressure and lack of boats that could get down here.

The trip was less about the fishing and more about getting happy and escaping the interior walls of our houses. For Barclay Ben and me, it was seven hours of pure trout bliss. We docked out at MacKinnon just as happy as when we arrived at Policeman’s Flats. The boat was a bit of a challenge to get on the trailer but with some rope and some brute force, we pulled it off with no issues.

I will be pulling my boat out of it’s winter hibernation and be ready to float the Bow by this coming Friday. For those of you, who would like a float trip prior to the Bow River run off, feel free to contact me and we can drift the day away.