Hello everyone...
I made the 2+ hour drive from Cochrane for my first trip to Travers on Saturday with my 5-year old and my Dad. I've heard it was a decent fishery for the walleyes and pike and that what I wanted.
The water did not disappoint!
We got there about 5:15 pm and drove through what I thought was a very nice campground at Little Bow Prov. Park. Incidentally, it is $22 for unserviced lots and $28 for power. There is a nice beach for the kids and a concession stand. The boat launch was mildly busy and there are two ramps to launch from. There is also a floating dock but it was very crowded with what I assumed to be the boats of people staying in the campground.
We launched and headed to a few spots that I had picked out on a bathymetric map that a fellow board member had pointed out to me. What an excellent map it was! If you need it, here is the link:
http://srd.alberta.ca/fieldoffices/p...ps/travers.pdf
I actually brought my laptop with me with the map on it so I could zoom in to get the fine details because it is 34 inches long if you print it out.
We arrived at a point that I wanted to try and was surprised to find that my fish finder had crapped out!
So now I was on a strange, huge lake and I felt blind! It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. I have since found out that my auxillary battery had died...oh well. And then the battery on the laptop died as well! I guess i should check these things a little closer before I leave...
I remembered from the bathy map that there was the canal inlet from MacGregor Res. and I had heard that might be a good spot so away we went. We got there and there was probably 15 people shore fishing and about 6 boats. I took that as a good sign. We took a crack at trolling some crankbaits but had no success with that so I decided to manuever into a spot and throw the anchor.
As I was making my approach, my daughter thought she would try one last cast with her brand-new Spiderman fishing rod that I had bought for her the day before at BPS. She had spent the afternoon prior to us leaving Cochrane practicing on the front lawn with a dummy weight. She had become rather good at it and was quite proud that she could cast 30 yds. Well...you can guess what had happened. Sploosh...right into the water and sinking fast! I couldn't swing back with the boat fast enough and it sunk outta sight. She was devastated...I have never seen her so upset! She's screaming and crying and the rest of the people out there must've thought I was commiting murder or something. It was so sad....so if anyone ever snags a Spiderman rod there, you know who it belongs to.
Once I had her calmed down and the boat anchored, it was time to get down to business. I had some 'inside' info that white jigheads with red iodized shafts tipped with minnow were the ticket and they were! I bought some that also had stinger hooks on them and that was a good idea...the stingers definitely saved a few missed strikes. We fished at that spot from about 7 pm right up until almost dark at 9:30-9:45. In that time, we pulled in about 40-50 walleyes and two pike. Most of the walleye were under the 50 cm limit size but we did manage to get two that were over. The two pike were too small as well. Guess what's for dinner tonight?
Overall, it was a great time. Fishing was good, weather was beautiful and my daughter was super excited...except for the lost rod issue. I'll definitely be returning to Travers sooner than later....complete with a working fish finder. Look out!
Fishing Report from Travers Reservoir
Guess ya didn't need those expensive BPS minnows...
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