Quote:
Originally Posted by trigger7mm
Can anyone give me any advise about fishing the Red Deer River around the city of Red Deer. I have to come to there for a couple of weeks, and would love to have something to do in the evenings. I’ll be bring my spinning and fly tackle. Thanks, might even be able to trade a fishing trip on the river for a goose hunt?
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I grew up in Red Deer. I still fish it a couple times per year. Red Deer is where the river changes from a cold-water fishery to a cool-water fishery. i.e. upstream of Red Deer, the river becomes more 'trouty', downstream more 'pikey'.
I exclusively fly fish (I am not judgemental, just have no recent conventional fishing experience). In Red Deer, you can catch a huge breadth of species. As you go upstream, you increase the chances of catching an elusive brown. Rocky Mountain whitefish become more numerous and the goldeye less populous.
In Red Deer proper, if I were looking for an evening of almost guaranteed fish, I would probably go fly fishing for goldeye. They are almost stupidly eager and they give up a good fight for their size. A balanced leech under and indicator, or swinging a smaller (sz10) wooly bugger is an easy way to catch them. In the evenings, a sz12 caddis, ant, or beetle will regularly fool them into eating topwater. They will hit almost anything, but they have somewhat tiny mouths, so you need to downsize your flies a little if you actually want to hook them.
RDR is somewhat shallow, so the holding water for walleye and sauger becomes fairly obvious. Swinging a clouser minnow or leech pattern through these areas will pick up a few. Where there are walleye, there are usually pike nearby, so you may make a few 'donations' without bite tippet.