During the 2003 fishing season, I contacted a government employee trying to learn more about how the Alberta Government managed their web page listing real time stream flow stats . This person told me that the page was initially created to provide information and warnings for people throughout the province when there was an imminent flood event. The purpose was not to provide stream flow information for fly fishers. But, as with most things when something is done with a particular intention in mind, there quite often is another event that occurs. This phenomenon happens regularly when governments are involved.....but I digress. The flow rate data for rivers through out the province allows the guiding community to view this information and make an educated guess as to what might occur on any given river on a particular day. Having said this, there are still surprises for the Bow River guides as the people at Trans Alta ( a provincial power company ) indiscriminately manipulate flood gates and raise or lower flow rates, it seems, on a whim. I'm sure they have their very good reasons for such an occurrence, but it doesn't have anything to do with fishing.

During our lengthy conversation I explained how using misinformation might directly affect the angling day experienced by a visiting fly fisher. The problem was that the flow rates were not updated at a time that would be useful to me. Checking the web site before leaving to pick up the client seemed to me to be a good thing to do. But there in lay the problem. The information at 7:00 AM was not current. He explained that some rivers had a high priority for retrieving data, some rivers used a telephone as opposed to a computerized recording station to obtain data and some rivers were on a set schedule which was every 5 hours or so. Unfortunately, the Bow River was a lower priority, telephone retrieval, 5 hour data river. After some begging on my part I was promised that the Bow would be upgraded in importance and the data would be collected at shorter intervals. Hopefully the data would be updated in the very early morning making it relevant for the start of an angler's day. The flow rate data, after my conversation with this government person, seemed to be more reliable for the remainder of the fishing season. 

To view water basin data ( stream flow data, snow pack data etc. ) for the entire province of Alberta  Click here. To navigate the Alberta River Basin web site, first click on the provincial map or on the drop down menu ( #1 ) to obtain a web page for a particular river basin. Next ( #2 ) click on "River Flows and Levels" and then click on "View Results". This takes you to your desired river drainage. Then click on "Select a Station" and from the drop down menu choose your recording location. Be sure to select "table" to view numerical data. Then Click on "View Result". You now have a numerical flow rate for the desired water. "River flow and levels" is just one of many choices to be made. In this menu you could view snow pack data, precipitation data, lakes and reservoir data and much more. 

To go directly to flow rates on the Bow and tributaries click on the appropriate link in the Rivers Menu. Flow rates are available only during the angling season. To view current and archived stream flows click on the Stream Flows menu. To navigate to other sections in web site click on Site Navigation.