Fishing Advisory Southern Alberta
 

Just a heads up to all who maybe don't know, there are fishing advisories in effect for the Sheep, Oldman and Castle rivers as well as a few others in Southern Alberta. No closures are being issued yet. Check out this website for more info https://mywildalberta.ca/fishing/adv...s/default.aspx.

North as well...
 

Good heads up, cheers.

Though it isn't official by any means, anglers ought to be aware for the northern watersheds as well. I was out at the Freeman a couple of days ago. Water was 68F. The grayling were sluggish / lethargic. We quit early.

People should be carrying thermometers wherever they are in the province; July-August are the 2 worst months for stream temps. Anything over 18-19C / 65F, anglers should be starting to get leery. Or at least consider fishing the mornings only. Montana has rules where you have to be off the water by 2pm...

-Smitty

Typical?
 

Are these surface temps typical for this time of year, in your area?

^^^this^^^

bw

Hmmm, kinda tough to say; once spring snowmelt and runoff are done in June, it really depends on rain.

If you get 4-5 days of sunny, hot weather, then yep, the temps become typical. Rain always provides relief to temps and flows.

It especially hard on watersheds commonly north of highway 11 that get the muskeg-tannin stained water. The Freeman does typically look like a cup of strong Earl Grey tea when it's flowing clear, and the problem there is that the darker water / darker bottom absorbs more sunlight and retains heat. So pretty much the swath of water from the Cardinal River north to the Berland / Muskeg River can get fairly warm.

When it gets super hot, I try to fish glacially fed cutty streams. :)

-Smitty

I was fishing the castle, crowsnest and Carbondale rivers a week previous. They were all high at the time of this post. Im not sure what rivers they were referring to, but couldn't of been those. The water temps for the castle was really col ( less than 10 degrees ) and flowing around 10-12cms. Fishing was slower than normal. I know in the past these advisories have been needed, this one seems incorrect for the castle, oldman.

Justst Fyi, if anyone is going to fish the castle, bring lots of mosquitoe spray and sunscreen. The mosquitoes were brutal. Just came at you in swarms.

I fished the Oldman 5 days ago. It was low and the water was warmer than I would have expected. I believe the advisory is appropriate.