Here's the pics from our trip to Banff and Jasper in July. I'll just recap some of the highlights. Most of the lakes in between just had little brookies.
Our first hike up to a lake- the lake was filled with little brookies (7-9''), but on the way out I hit the outlet, where the fish were a lot bigger and more aggressive.
This guy stood out since he was so dark. It reminded me of a dolly varden.
The next pool down had some of the fastest brookie fishing of the whole trip. On my first 3 casts I got these guys:
And lastly the clear dominate male of the pool
That evening we hit the Bow River. The only fish was a little bull trout I got, but I was super stoked to catch it. It's probably one of the rarest fish I've ever caught. It was also the exact same color as the river (which is glacier-fed).
A few days later we hiked up to Arnica Lake, which was full of westslopes (the only other native trout in the park besides bull trout.) The biggest pushed 17'' (not this one btw.)
My brother and I:
IMO the best looking one of the day:
One the smallest ones in the lake:
The next lake had the biggest brookies of the trip. My brother got one that was 16''.
The lake had slopes and brookies so I kept this guy:
I think that this was my biggest fish of the trip, about 15''.
The last lake we fished was stocked with Yellowstone cutts a while ago. Before the trip, I wasn't sure if I'd be able to tell the yellowstones apart from the slopes, but in the park they looked really different.
Male in spawning colors:
A chunky female:
Another nice male:
Overall I was really happy about the fishing this trip. It was better than I expected it to be after the letdown on our trip to the Wind Rivers last year (nothing but little brookies except a few goldens.)
The two most important things to remember are that the best fishing is usually a few miles in and that the biggest fish aren't always in the lake-fish the inlets and outlets, especially during spawning season.
