Spring fly fishing is hot in cool Kootenays

I haven't had much time these past few weeks but I did manage to make it out to Summit Lake and Champion Lakes recently.
Two weeks ago, I met Julius from Grizzly Bear Ranch and a few of his guests for a day of fishing on Summit Lake. I arrived two hours prior to our arranged meeting time and so put those minutes to good use.
Generally, I don't have much luck on Summit until the afternoon but this day I anchored off a shoal at about 10 a.m. and proceeded to catch a dozen fish in the next two hours. Most were caught on a bead head-leech pattern but a few on chironomids.
Once I met up with the party, I took Patrick, an author and ex-bureau chief for the London Daily Telegraph, into my boat and got him into a nice 16" rainbow almost immediately. I also landed one shortly after that and then the trout went into lock-jaw mode and I could only coax two more to the boat the rest of the day.
Still not a bad day.
My good friend Colin visited me this past weekend and we had a great time catching small rainbows on Second Champion Lake Friday. The lake is at much higher elevation than many other local lakes, and you can tell by the long skinny trout that they hadn't much time since ice-off to pack on some weight. By June the fishing should be excellent.
Check out this video of a classic How "Not" to release a fish:


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Spring Chironomid Fishing - nothing like it

photo: chironomids pumped from trout's stomach

Lakes are open which means targeting rainbows with tiny chironomids can be the most effective way to catch trout. I headed to Rosebud yesterday with visions of huge triploids caught in past years. (see chironomid section of Etomology at http://www.fly-fish-bc.com/ )

The day started slow with no wind and a hot sun beating down. I rigged up with strike indicator, chironomid and a small split shot. I anchored at a favourite drop-off in about 18-ft of water. I set the indicator to allow for 16-ft of leader and cast out two rods.

It never fails, you look away from your strike indicator and look back only to see it bob to the surface signifying another missed strike.

This happens more times than I care to admit - occassionally if you twitch the line in a little the trout will return and take the chironomid. That's how I landed my first Rosebud rainbow.

After that the action improved as I caught another one right away then missed two and caught one more. It wasn't a bad day but I've had days when the action is so constant I had to stow the second rod and just fish one.

I was on the lake for about three hours before I packed up to get in a round of golf before dinner.

I can't wait to return - it's only going to get better.

Also, I have an article in BC Outdoors this month, entitled "A Fly fisher's Guide to Catching Bass" - It features a photo of a huge bass caught by Kyle Bartsoff, 10-yr old son of friend Mike. Not that he caught it on a fly but the fish is giant, so had to include it with a healthy dose of poetic license.

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Columbia River Rainbow Trout,

This past Sunday Mike and Dave invited me on another outing, this time a trip up the Columbia River on Mike's Starcraft fishing boat. The day called for rain and it looked like most of the day to be inevitible, however, it held off. The fishing stayed as cool as the weather for the first part of the day. Up near Fairfield we could see large rainbows in the shallows but they were too busy spawning to pay attention to our offers. Dave and I sent cast after cast, and after one initial strike, they ignored us completely.

Down river we went, checking out various spots. Dave had one fish on ever so briefly. Mike, tired of watching us lose fish, pulled out the meat rod with weighted 3-way and worm and cast into an eddy. 30-seconds later, literally, he'd hooked a beautiful 5-lb doe, played and released her unharmed.

The two of us fly fishers were getting desperate. Finally, after I lost another one, Dave connected and pulled in a beautiful 3-4lb buck. What a relief. It had only taken the two of us almost four hours to land one fish - Mike had done it in less than 5-minutes.

An hour later, Mike and Dave had both caught another. The sun was setting, darkness loomed, the air chilled but we could still see trout rising. I knew I was down to my last few casts. Dave gracefully let me take the open bow, after reminding me how he had caught a couple already and seeing I had caught nothing today I might as well have one last shot at it, and what kind of fly-fisherman did I think I was and that I should consider changing the name of my site from fly-fish-bc to no-fish-bc...etc,etc...

Well, as Dave remarked, 'There is a God' though cruel, he does show some mercy - after a good drift I felt the tell-tale thud of a strike, set the hook, and was into a nice doe. Finally, the drought was over. In the last week I had lost three fish outright and missed a half-dozen. As Mike tailed it, I breathed a sigh of relief, admired the beautiful Columbia River rainbow, took a couple pics then released her into the dark water.

Thanks guys for a great day. Click on the Link below to see a video of the trout that broke the streak.

Dave entitled it "There Is A God - Jim's First Fish"

http://sharing.theflip.com/session/719cab86a40a578feab53d9d6107db32/video/11920185

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