The Bow is a world-class wild-trout river running straight through Calgary, cold and nutrient-rich below Bearspaw Dam and stuffed with big, wild brown and rainbow trout that have never seen a stocking truck. It fishes all year and is mostly a float game: long riffles and seams, prolific hatches, and fish that pull hard. Summer brings strong hatches and hopper fishing; the shoulder seasons reward streamers and nymphs through the deeper runs. Release these fish — they're the whole reason the river is what it is.
The Bow through Calgary is one of the great trout rivers of the world hiding in plain sight in a city of a million-plus people. Below Bearspaw Dam it runs cold, clear and astonishingly rich — treated municipal nutrient input and dam-buffered flows grow wild brown and rainbow trout to remarkable size and density, with no stocking. It's a big, powerful, even-flowing river of long riffles, drop-offs and bankside seams, fished mostly from a drift boat through the city and the prairie-edge reaches downstream. Prolific hatches and big, hard-fighting wild fish make it a destination in its own right.
Wading: Big volume, strong current, drop offs — much of it is float water
- Gravel
- Partly confined
- Pool riffle
- Large river
