Bass Fishing PdO

Fly-fish-BC goes bass fishing

In an effort to cutdown on the introduction of alien species, such as bass, perch, sunfish, walleye etc., into BC waters, BC fisheries has implemented a "no fishing" ban in its 2009 regulations. It is now unlawful to fish for alien species such as the aforementioned on any lake or stream in Britsh Columbia. However, read your regs carefully because many waters are exempt from the ban.

This past week my sister, Juli, and I hit one such local reservoir to fish for smallmouth bass. It didn't take long before Juli had a hit on a bright red woolly bugger. Minutes later she landed a nice smallmouth bass. I followed right behind her with another caught on my own bass fly creation. We exchanged fish for the next three hours and even had a few double headers.

The retention limit is still a generous 8 fish and we caught over 20, casting from shore or trolling streamer patterns, releasing all but two. We saved these for our mother who absolutley loves fresh fish and chastizes me everytime I return home without a couple for her frying pan. My sister doesn't get out much since the birth of her third child so it was a pleasure to spend a few hours on the water with her.

I understand and deplore the spread of alien fish to our fine BC trout waters but alas, as a wise old fly fisher once told me, sometimes you just got to catch fish. And a morning spent fly fishing BC for bass in those areas that are still allowed, is a morning well spent.