For most people the long weekend at the beginning of August signals a time to get out and party. As of last year it means something more for us. We were married last August at our favourite place in the the Cariboo. I wasn’t surprised when Sarah said that she wanted to go chase fish for her 1st anniversary. She had a room at Elysia resort on Quesnel lake booked in no time. We headed out on Friday evening excited to see friends and fish some familiar waters.
We planned the trip knowing that the fishing would be tough. The small lakes would be close to or in algae bloom. The big lake fish would have abondoned the creek mouths for deeper, cooler water. The Horsefly river would probably close on our way there due to high temperatures. I guess sometimes you just have to do your best with what you get. We made it there in 7 and a half hours and were asleep in a cozy guest room within minutes.
After breakfast on day 1 we decided to head to a small, rarely fished lake that I had success at a few years back. It’s a beauty of a lake that is hard to find without local knowledge. We set up the kick boats and headed out.
The fisrst thing I noticed was the algae in the water. Not too much, but enough for concern. The second thing I noticed were the small caddis flies skittering across the surface here and there. I suggested that we head for the far end of the lake where there was a mid lake island and some nice shoreline shoals. In no time we had rowed across. somehow sarah managed to remove her waders en route. It was scorching hot out, too hot for waders, but I was too stubborn(lazy) to take mine off. I headed for the drop off with a sinking line and a dragon fly nymph. sarah hit the shallows with an elk hair caddis dry. As usual she hit the first fish. And the second. I rowed over and got one on my set up. Then she she got 2 more. Four fish to one is a sign to change tactics so I switched spools and flies to match hers. none of the fish we caught were huge but they fought like they thought they were.I’m not sure how many we caught but it was a blast to have an entire lake to ourselves. At one point we just jumped in and had a swim.
We headed back after the sun had gotten the best of us and had a nice Prime Rib dinner.
Day 2 we headed out on th ebig lake hoping to find fish at the creekmouths. It’s difficult at this time of year but if you search methodically you can come across large pods of bulls and rainbows. The fishing can be fantastic. Other times you find nothing. This was one of those other times. We did find one rainbow at one creek mouth but it spooked from my shadow and was never seen again.
searching for bows
We had a rough ride back to home base but were in good spirits. We had another nice dinner and watched a fireworks display.
Day 3 the plan was to pack up and fish the Horsefly on the way home. Surprisingly, it hadn’t closed like it has for the last few summers (it closed a couple of days later though). We weren’t feeling up to floating and the spot I stopped at had too many trucks for my liking. sarah made the executive descision to head out and stop in the desert on our way home. Good call. We fished our usual spot and did marginally well. I figured it must have been hammered by the long weekend crowds before we arrived. We got fish though and it wasn’t as brutally hot as usual.
It was a good road trip and a great anniversary. Life isn’t always about how many fish you catch. It’s about going out there and giving it a try. We saw caribou, a bear on the road, caught fish and spent time with good people. What more could you ask for?
A couple of weeks ago Sarah and I got our Troutmaster Conversion rods back from the shop just in time for the prime two weeks at our high-country honeyhole. For those of you who don’t know much about R.B. Meiser flyrods, the conversion series of rods allow you to have a switch rod and a spey rod in one nice travel friendly bundle. Sarah’s rod changes between a 4 piece 11′ 4/5 weight switcher and a 5 piece 13′9 5/6 spey. It is part of the Troutmaster series of Conversion rods. Also available are the Steelmaster, the Salmonmaster, and a couple of lighter Troutmasters. My rod is and older System5 11′ switch rod that Bob converted to a Troutmaster.
6 pieces all together
the usual awesome craftmanship
Bob also set us up with grain matched Scandi heads for both versions of each rod (4 heads in total). I had used my 11′ switch for a couple of seasons and knew how it performed but I was dying to try out the 13′9 light spey. I put together head wallets to hold both heads some assorted Rio versileaders. We loaded the reels with Rio powerflex core shooting line.
Then it was off to the river…………..
On the way up the digital temperature reading in the truck read 37 degrees. I’m not sure how accurate it is but it felt that hot if not hotter outside. We decided to make a stop at a popular run before heading to our favourite spot. When we arrived there was no one else around as usual and we quickly geared up and started flogging the water. The rods felt light in hand for almost 14′. It took a few minutes to get the right timing and then the casts came easy. The water was a little too high where we were and complex currents made swinging flies almost impossible. Plus there were no signs of any fish. We packed up and headed for the good stuff.
Again, nobody around. We left the truck with smiles on our faces and began the hike upstream.
Our first fishing spot was in a large deep back eddy. The only way to fish it properly is to high stick. Long leaders and heavy nymphs were the ticket and within minutes Sarah had deep bend in her rod. “I can’t believe how much this rod bends” she said. Line peeled off of her reel but after a few minutes she had the first fish of the day in the net.
Then it was my turn.
extreme high sticking
We managed a few more before they got wise to us.
two of my favourite things
It was time to start mving slowly from spot to spot on our way down river. Although a 70 foot cast was effortless with the 13′9 rods, it was hardly neccessary. Our ability to mend line and high stick was amazing and could only improve if we used tapered running lines instead of level ones. Even the smaller fish put a nice bend in the rod, something I was concerned about at first. I do feel that these rods have enough bottom end to handle mid sized fish like summer run Steelies, Coho and Pink Salmon, as well as Bull Trout and Dolly Varden. We will definately get alot of use out of them.
We continued on down river landing plenty of hard fighting, net filling Rainbows……..
double header
By late afternoon we were done. Sun baked, dehydrated and hungry. We could have stuck around for some evening dryfly action but opted to start the 4 hour journey back home. The rods performed beyond our expectations and have added to our love of two handers. Another masterpiece from Bob………
After our successful lake trip we had a day left to fish. The obvious choice, because of our location, was the Thompson river. A section of the river opens every May but usually by the time I can get up there it has blown out. This year the river was actually on the drop when May 1st hit and I had the weekend off. We headed there not knowing what to expect since I don’t know anyone who had fished it yet. The river was a bit higher than I’m used to when I fish it in mid-summer and it the fish were spread out and hard to find. When we did find them in the afternoon we had fair action for a couple of hours on golden stonefly nymphs. The fish and birds were feeding heavily on the surface pretty far out into the flow. Probably on small caddisflies. We targeted the fish tha were in the back eddies. Here’s a few shots.
So………….. Quite a few years ago I met a fellow from Oregon while vacationing in Belize. He was starting a lodge down there for his company, a company that specialized in sending folks to Pay to Play lakes in washington and oregon. I’ll leave the name of the company out here as i may or may not have done a couple of days guiding on one of said lakes for him at the time. In those two possibly fictional days I was quite amazed at how much fun I had. i had always been under the impression that pay lakes were full of deformed triploid sterile trout that grew huge by eating pellets and would take just about any fly tossed to them. The fish in these lakes were huge and easy to catch but they were wild fish that were left after the lake, which had once been a stream that flowed eventually into the Columbia River, was blocked by a huge beaver dam. The inflow creek eventually changed paths and the outflow dried up. A small tributary of the inflow still fed the lake with enough water for the trout to spawn in and there you have it, a fertile lake full of wild, naturally reproducing trout (steelhead?) on a private ranch owned by a family with no interest in fishing. There are plenty of these all over the United States due to the large private tracts of land. Eventually I lost touch of my friend but carried, in the back of my mind, a hankering to fish a private lake once again.
So this brings us to December 2009. At a christmas party for fly shop customers. A friend who, unfortunately, I only see once a year at these parties turned me on to a private lake in the Fraser Canyon that sounded similar to the ones I fished before. The difference is that this lake is a resevoir former from a dam on a creek and the trout come from the planting of wild fish. He told me stories of his trips there and when he told me the price, I couldn’t believe my ears. Less than half the price my friend in the states used to charge. I made some emails and planned a trip.
Somebody's going to catch fish!
Sarah and I were the only ones to book the lake for the 2 days last week. We had the entire lake and makeshift campsite to ourselves. We arrived on a cloudy Sunday morning and set up camp quickly in order to get at the rising fish on the small lake. We headed out in our Watermasters, 6 weights in hand, for the far side of the lake where I spotted a extensive weedy shoreline. The lake is so small that it only took 5 minutes of hard rowing to get 3/4 of the way across.
I could see on my fishfinder that the lake never got more than 17 feet deep as we crossed. As it started to shallow out to around 10 feet I told Sarah to go into stealth mode and we put the oars down and began to kick slowly with our flippers. We were dragging woolybuggers on floating lines. I was just about to tell her that fish were showing on the finder when my rod bent violently forward. I scrambled to get it out of the rod holder and heard sarah holler that she had a fish on. A double header within 10 minutes of launching. This was going to be fun.
The fish were unusually strong and quite arobatic. Cookie cutter 17 inchers. We proceeded to hook fish like these every 5 minutes or so. I don’t think either of us took note of how many we caught. There was one bay that we fished that yielded 4 big fish that were in spawning colors so we avoided fishing that area for the remainder of the trip.
A little dark for our liking
Several fish were hooked that felt like the big ones that we came for. We never landed anything over 22 inches though. Sarah almost landed one that she said was the biggest rainbow she’s ever caught (7 pounds is her largest). As she was trying to get it in the net I heard a sickening snap and watched the tip of her rod dissapear into the lake. The fish went beserk and snapped the tippet taking her fly and rod tip with it. She fished the rest of the day with the broken rod as the action was to good to bother going back to camp for another one. Besides, our other rods were 3 weights and wouldn’t be up to the task at hand. When we got tired of kicking, casting we moved into another bay close in to the weeds and dropped anchor. I had pumped one fish and had an exact matching choronomid pattern that we tried out. The indicator only floated for seconds at a time. The fish here were smaller though and the novelty wore off quickly.
A "little" Guy
The wind picked up and the temperature dropped at around 4 oclock. The bite slowed considerably as well (10 minutes between fish). We decided to head in and have dinner and then come back out for a night fish. Sarah hooked a few decent fish on the way back to camp.
Night fishing was unusually slow. By slow I mean that the fish were biting tentatively and we couldn’t get any to stick. I think the wildly changing weather was causing them to get picky.
It began to snow at night and in the morning we awoke to about an inch on the ground.
It was a tougher day of fishing. Cold and windy with wildly changing weather. We had everything from sun to snow or hail. We did manage to catch fish but it definately slower than the previous day. We packed up camp in the snow, satisfied with our time on the lake.
Would we do it again? Definately. But not often.
So The other big event for Saturday other than the Spey Days was Adrienne’s birthday. We had planned A party barge, 3 boats anchored together for Sturgeon fishing, for the night. Adrienne had no idea and was actually a little pissed because we all left the clave quickly near the end instead of staying to have a bonfire. We were actually heading down stream to anchor up and wait for her and Curtis to come meet us. There were 14 of us fishing until about 2 in the morning. It wasn’t hot fishing as the tide was high slack most of the time but,I think, everyone landed a fish. The theme was Mexican and we barbequed Quesedillas, Chili Bites, and Taquitos. A blender was on board one boat for the Margaritas and there were plenty of Coronas on hand. It was quite a gong show trying to land Sturgeon in the dark with 9 rods and 3 anchors in the water. Lots of fun though.
The Birthday Girl Arrives
Sarah Fights The First Fish
NICE!!!!
Taquitos on the Habatchi
Bent Rods And Double Headers Were Plentiful
Yours Truly With One
The Big One Of The Night
Here’s a little video taken with my point and shoot during our recent trip to the Lilooet river. Sorry About The Finger
It is one of the remote rivers accessible from the Valley by jet boat. At this time of year there are Cutthroat, Bulltrout, Springs and Steelhead in the system. I was most interested in catching one of the big Cutties that call the river home. A 20 incher isn’t uncommon in the Lilly. Cutthroat that size are huge in most rivers. 7 of us met at the boat launch and jumped in the 22 footer. A big boat is always best to make the 1.5 hour trip across Harrison lake. When the wind picks up it can be like the ocean and can double the length of the ride. Everyone managed to catch a fish. I was able to get a Bulltrout and 4 Cutties, one in the high teens. I haven’t received any pictures of fish from the crew and I’ll post some when I do. It wasn’t as productive as we had expected but just being there is the point.
Here are some of my pics from the day.
Sarah and I spent an afternoon crabbing with Sascha and Anna. It wasn’t fast and furious but we managed to get plenty.
Mmmmmmmm, crab……………………
When trying to decide on a place to spend our honeymoon last August there was really no other option. Sarah had fallen in love with Roosterfish so the Pacific coast, from Mexico to Peru, was the only option. Deciding on an actual location was just as easy. I had always wanted to fish with a fellow named Ed Kunze who I had exchanged emails with quite a few years back. he seemed to know his stuff and boasted about the fishing around the then sleepy resort area of Ixtapa/Zihuatenejo. As it would happen, friends of ours had purchased a condo in the area a couple of years back and we were able to rent it for our trip. I contacted Ed and explained our situation and he sent us a copy of the book he is writing about the area. We used this information to plan everything from the moon phases to what gear we would need. The only thing left to do was get there.
We booked three days with Ed. The first one would be spent gear fishing with a couple of local captains just to get our feet wet. We caught plenty of fish including, jacks, bonita, needlefish and barracuda. Then the plan was to drive 2 hours south of town to a small fishing village where we could have miles of ocean all to ourselves for 2 days. Ed was a great tour guide during our drives. Pointing out sites of interest and teaching us about the local culture. He told us about some must see places and also places that were a rip off. The most important thing we learned was how to catch Roosters on the fly.
We would be fishing from the boat, casting towards fish that would be teased out of the surf zone with poppers. It was a team effort. One man controlling the boat and keeping us from getting caught inside the breaking waves. Another, Cheva, cast the poppers from the bow into the surf and reeled them back, hopefully with Roosters following. Ed coached us on were to cast, what to do with our line, proper stripping technique and explained everything there is to know about roosters. Sarah and I had the job of casting our flies next to the popper when it was in range and hoping that a Rooster would inhale it.
We had tough conditions. It had rained hard recently and the inshore waters were coloured. Although there were plenty of roosters, they were alot more finicky than usual. We had plenty of shots at fish and just as many refusals, some right at the boat. A few of the fish that we teased up were simply huge. Day one we got no takers but seeing the fish following the poper and flies made us all the more excited to get back on the water. Day two was much like day one. Intense and Frustrating all at once. Sarah had a case of the 40 ounce flu and at one point someone joked that she was chumming the water for us. I blew a shot at the largest fish of the trip and needed to sit down and think about it. Sarah took the rod for her turn and on the next cast she was hooked up. She managed to ignore the four guys yelling instructions to her (we suspected her fish would be a world record) and landed the fish after a frantic fight. We tried to fish some more after that but were eager to get this fish back to a certified scale to weigh.
Two hours seems like alifetime when you have a possible record fish in the vehicle.We got to a scale and the fished weighed in at just over the current record. A bit of paperwork and 5 months of waiting and we have now recieved official word that the record has been accepted. Sarah is now the Womens flyfishing 8 kilogram record holder for Roosterfish.
As you can imagine We’re pumped to do it all again this year. This time will can spend more time catching and less time learning and I’m sure sarah will break some more records.
Enjoy some of our pictures from the trip……………..
Imagine there was an Island. The island is relatively small, sparsely populated and dozens of creeks form from springs and flow, for a short length, into a few small rivers that then flow a short distance to the ocean. The creeks are filled with small Brook trout a few Rainbow trout and throughout the season Searun Brook trout, Atlantic Salmon and the odd Steelhead inhabit the rivers. The trout will take any dry fly they see, the Searuns are agressive. The Atlantics and Steelhead, well……., act like Atlantics and Steelhead. The average age of angler is increasing and the population in general is decreasing. On a week day it’s a surprise to see anyone fishing. On the weekend you’ll come across few. A guide is unneccessary but if you want one it will cost you under $200 canadian for a day. Sounds like a dream, doesn’t it? It’s not. Such a place exists on the East coast of Canada.
Prince Edward Island is the island I’m talking about. Not known worldwide as a flyfishing destination but, in my opinion, a world class destination. My opinion might not represent the status quo as I could care less about numbers and size. The experience as a whole is what I am interested in and this beautiful maritime province provided me with plenty of that a couple of summers ago. We went to visit My mother-in-law and took a few rods with us. I hooked up with a guide, Dwayne Miller, to show us around for a couple of days. We fished on our own for a few hours every day before meeting up with him and found brookies in every piece of water we came across. Dwayne got us into a few Searuns and I hooked and lost a steelhead on my 3 weight one afternoon while scouting a river on my own. Aside from the fishing the culture and scenery of the island is worth the trip alone and we feel lucky to have a place to stay there whenever we like.
If you ever get the chance to go to P.E.I. don’t hesitate. You will enjoy yourself, gauranteed. Contact Dwayne at http://flyfishtheisland.com/ and if he’s not out Tuna fishing he can guide you to some great fishing.
Kirk and I decided to remember those who perished in past wars the proper way. We hit the river in search of Coho. It was, as usual for rememberance day, a cold and wet one. We headed up river pre-dawn in “Red Tooth” the zodiac, with a watermaster shoved in between us. Once at our spot, I jumped out and rowed into position. I don’t believe I spotted a single Coho all day. The Chum were thick though and I was able land a couple despite using my 11 foot 5 weight switch rod. If we had come prepared for Chum we would have ahad an epic day as there were plenty of clean, by Harrison standards, fish within the schools. No Coho were caught and in the evening we needed to throw some steaks on the fire and drown our sorrows with beer.
For most people the long weekend at the beginning of August signals a time to get out and party. As of last year it means something more for us. We were married last August at our favourite place in the the Cariboo. I wasn’t surprised when Sarah said that she wanted to go chase fish for her 1st anniversary. She had a room at Elysia resort on Quesnel lake booked in no time. We headed out on Friday evening excited to see friends and fish some familiar waters.
