AM & JR were up early today and took off for "Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump" a United Nations UNESCO World Heritage Site (http://www.head-smashed-in.com/) .  It was about a 45 min drive to the place which opened at 0900.  This particular location had been used for thousands of years by native peoples to stampede buffalo over a cliff to kill/injure them so the tribes could harvest the animals.  The name comes from a story about a young buck (I think they called him "Low Wattage Bulb") who wanted to see the buffalo jump from below. He was under an outcropping of the cliff but was ultimately crushed (in the head I guess) by the carnage of buffalo carcasses.  So they made him a hero. Hmmmm. 

Coming back from the HSIBJ UNESCO WH site, we got a good chance in the early morning to really see Alberta farming and Big Sky Country.  It seemed every bit as big, if not bigger, than Montana - spectacular country

We noted that after wheat, it appears windmills are the second major crop of the region

Meanwhile GK, MS & AB slept in and had a nice long shower this morning.  (Slugs!!)

When AM & JR returned we had breakfast at the Windward Restaurant, and after a stop at Subway for lunch sandwiches we were on the road at 9:45AM.

Stopping at the Crowsnest Angler (Vic Bergman, proprietor, www.crowsnestangler.com  403-564-4333 right in Bellevue,

Alberta), each purchased a few flies and MS found a book (Fishing the Alberta Trout Highway, (as the Forest Trunk Road is known) and maps he was looking for. AM picked up some G2 on local rivers and we were off at 12:30PM (61-degrees) for the Oldman River. (Oldman is the Indian name for God).

We went back up high on the Oldman River to the Forest Service (or whatever they are called in Alberta) area.  They had staged helicopters for backcountry fire fighting and they seemed to be in use!  We also found a marker explaining the Oldman legend and how it related to the river named after him.

Fishing was still a bit slow; AM & AB both caught nice Cutts. AB found some huge fish slurping bugs across the river, but couldn’t get a pickup before it was time to leave.  The Oldman has some nice structure and then long sections of "blown out" area from the high spring flows.

AM worked a particularly fun spot to coax out a nice cutt from under a stump in the river. It took probably 20 casts to get it just right, had the hook-up, and then of course executed the ever popular LDR!!

We left the tough fishing on the Oldman and headed for the Crowsnest River about mid-day.

We fished some of the open Crowsnest waters first and caught a few fish.

Crowsnest River, (62-degrees), most everyone caught nice fish, but missed many, many more. AM said he must have missed 20 fish.

JR fished under the bridge and when the hatch started, there were literally 50 fish slurping bugs off the surface at anytime. JR could not get one of them to take his fly. He got into AB mindset that by gum he was going to stay here until he caught one of those damm fish!!! He tied every fly he had in his two boxes on his line to try to get one of these fish to bite. Finally the words of Jeff Morgan from his Small Stream Fly Fishing book came into his mind (a fish’s primary diet consists of terrestrials (hopper’s ants, beetles etc.) beetle huh? Looking in his box JR finds a small black beetle Jeff Morgan tied for him a few years ago, JR says what the hell lets give it a try, on it go and first cast is a hook up and JR proceeds to catch 4 more fish until the hatch is over.

Stayed at the Parkway Motel again.