Book Review
   Alberta’s Trout Highway:
   Fishing the Forestry Trunk Road
        by Barry Mitchell
Reviewed by Michael Dell, Manager Children's Library, Stanley A. Milner Library

Alberta has some of the world’s best trout fishing, but only a few streams seem to get the lions’s share of attention from writers and from anglers. In this book Mitchell directs our attention to many of the other fine trout streams accessible from the Forestry Trunk Road (FTR). The FTR, also known as Highway 40 or 940, runs along the foothills from Coleman, in the Crowsnest Pass, to Grande Prairie. Mitchell covers all the drainages that the FTR cuts through, and ventures off the road to explore nearby streams that feed into these drainages.

Mitchell also publishes the Alberta Fishing Guide (AFG), an annual magazine with listings of more than 1,300 streams and lakes with details about which species of fish they contain and how to get there. As in the AFG, Mitchell tells you about the trout streams on Alberta’s eastern slopes, but goes into much more detail about access, how to fish them and what you can expect. Along the way Mitchell tells a lot of good fishing stories. All of the information about streams comes from Mitchell’s personal experience. If he hasn’t fished a stream, he tells you, but he doesn’t repeat what others have written or said just for the sake of filling the book.

The theme of the book is encouragement to explore new streams and get out of the rut of going to the places where everyone already goes.

Jim McLennan’s Trout Streams of Alberta, a good book in its own right, described the major drainages of Alberta, but only picked out one stream in each drainage for special attention. Mitchell's book complements it by describing many more streams in each drainage and identifying others worth exploring.

The first half of the book is about trout and how to fish for them. Mitchell describes the species of trout and how to tell them apart. This is important because the new East Slopes regulations allow harvest of certain species. (An online version of a Fish ID quiz developed by Trout Unlimited Canada and Alberta Fish and Wildlife can be found at http://www3.gov.ab.ca/srd/fw/fishing/FishID/index.html )

Mitchell also describes how trout live, and the factors that determine whether the fishing is good. He describes the insects that trout eat, and how to imitate them. Mitchell is a fly fisherman, but not a purist, so he also says when a spinning rod will work better.

I’ve had the good fortune to fish with Barry Mitchell a few times, and he has always been generous with his knowledge and experience. This book is a gift of that experience to anglers. I’ve read this book cover to cover four or more times, and I am going to carry a copy with me as I explore new territory this summer. I highly recommend it to all trout stream anglers. Besides that, there is a very good picture on page 263.