Eastslope Outpost - Destination Report 2024 by Ken Morrish

Fly Water Travel has enjoyed and long solid relationship with Cam Jensen, owner of Eastslope Adventures in Alberta. From his lodge near Cardston, he fishes an array of trophy tailwaters, many of which flow through prairie lands just east of Glacier and Waterton national Parks. He also loves the systems a bit further north, true mountain freestone rivers known for their robust populations of wild, surface-oriented westslope cutthroat trout, but the drive time made it so he didn’t fish for them as often as he and some of his guests might like. When I visited him in 2019, we spoke about this, and I encouraged him to find a base further north where these freestone rivers would be the centerpiece of an independent program. Last year he finally found what seemed to be the property and this year we ran two back-to-back five-day trial trips to see if the program would be viable moving forward. My wife Mia and I joined the second group in mid-August to see for ourselves what the region was all about and if we thought it had a bright future for folks that love the simple pleasures of catching beautiful wild trout on 5 weights and dry flies…and in short, we think it does!

How did we get there?
We took the long way. Most folks fly to Calgary and drive just under two hours south to the Eastslope Outpost. We wanted to make a bit more of trip out of it and few into Glacier National Airport near Kalispell, MT. We rented a car and drove due north to check out Fernie, BC on the Elk River. Then we crossed Crow’s Nest Pass and dropped down to Alberta’s Waterton National Park, which borders and compliments Glacier National Park. The next day we did an epic 12-mile hike known as the Carthew-Alderson Trail, and overnighted in the quaint, seemingly lost-in-time township of Waterton, within the park. The following day we headed north to the Outpost.

The Overall Experience
The vision for the Eastslope Outpost was to create a simple, rustic, affordable camp that would offer folks the chance at high quality dry fly fishing for wild fish in the 14-to 20-inch class. The actual experience was exactly that! The property and accommodations that we used had laid fallow for roughly ten years, so it needed some sprucing up, which happened. With that said, there were some kinks in the power system (especially in the opening week) which were worked around, and will be fully resolved in future seasons. The purpose of the trail weeks was to identify all the things that needed to be addressed, and they were. The setting was wonderful and felt both Western and remote. There were deer, lots of raptors, great horned owls and coyotes and the Oldman River flowing through the rolling prairie only 300 yards from camp. The area has a special feel to it and to move each day from the prairie to the forested freestone rivers was interesting and fun. Cam and his crew are sophisticated trout anglers and guides and while I was with them I learned something that may already be obvious to many anglers. That being, when the bugs are active, the fish are active. Sure, that is obvious, but the fact that even the nymphing was difficult when the bugs were inactive was a surprise, as was the fact that when even a few bugs started hatching, the cutthroats would follow suit. On our last day with what I would consider only moderate insect activity, we really got a taste of the dry fly fishing we had hoped for, and watched fish up to 20 inches rise slowly from the bottom to eat small dries. It was a pure experience and the setting was hard to beat.

Who is this thrip best for?
This trip is great for anyone that loves to wade fish mid-sized systems and stalk handsome wild fish. Under most conditions, this program excels as a dry fly fishery, and the region has three major systems to choose from (all with multiple tributaries) and literally 200 miles of fishable water within a 1.5-hour radius. There are sections of river that can also be floated and in addition to westslope cutthroat trout, there are systems with browns, rainbows, and brookies. There are beats that offer high catch rates with somewhat smaller fish and there are beats that offer a chance at some large fish that are not easy, but most of their beats lie in between the aforementioned. This is a place for guests that like simple meals and accommodation and appreciate being able to choose from a four or five day stay that won’t break the bank.

Favorite Moments
Well there were a few! The first was experiencing a wild squall come in off the prairie and hammer us with rain and hail right after arriving. I got to greet a few incoming guests in the midst of it all, and it was pretty colorful. Another was hiking into a notoriously tough trophy cutthroat river with Cam and Mia. Coincidentally it was the stream where the world record westslope had been caught many years before. The first two fish we spotted were a lot larger than I had expected, and I put them between 22 and 24 inches. Ultimately, we spooked both of them into a massive logjam, but when I went and blind fished a beetle on the upper edge of the jam, another large fish that I could not see rose super slowly and ate my fly. As soon as I set on it, I knew I was in deep crap. It immediately surged towards the massive logjam, and I dropped my rod to the side, and started pulling on it like a snook. It’s nose touched wood twice and on its third surge, we parted ways forever. The other favorite moments were watching the full moon rise over the prairie to the east, and knowing the neatest neighbor was a long way away, and that in morning, when the coyotes stopped howling, I would be fishing new water.