West Kootenay Fly-Fishing Symposium

Rod Zavaduck welcomed symposium visitors and gave
some invaluable advice on fishing local waters.

Well with a little prodding from fly-angler and tyer Rollie Hill, I've finally navigated my way back to my fly-fish-bc blog after a weekend at the West Kootenay Fly Fishing Symposium in Castlegar.

I showed up Saturday and was pretty happy to see such a nice turn out. I immediately grabbed a fist full of raffle tickets and started stuffing the prize buckets that were drawing a variety of fly-fishing parphenalia from 2-wt. fly rods to guided trips and a lot more . . . still waiting for a call.





Don Freschi and John MacGillivray spent the day greeting
fly tyers and offering advice on their unique patterns.

Lots of great guests including Don Freschi of Sport Fishing on the Fly, East Kootenay guide Kelly Latsch, exquisite fly-tyer John Newberry, casting guru Ruben Brekreitz as well as many local fly craftsmen, tyers and businesses that made the whole event possible.

Lon Lachthaler lends a hand to show
 youngsters the finer points of fly tying.

I also stopped in on a great presentation by Castlegar Sports and Fly Fishing's Rod Zavaduk. Not only did he show a group of about 30 fly-fishing enthusiasts how to tie a killer emerger caddis pattern, he also divulged many helpful secrets on how to fish the Columbia.



Ruben Brekreitz offers instruction on fly and
Spey casting over a field of white water.







Bill Hanlon and his finely
crafted portable fly-tying kits.





Had a superlative time and picked up some great casting tips as well as a beautiful portable fly-tying station, handcrafted in cherry wood by Trail resident Bill Hanlon.

Thanks guys.



Back to fly-fish-bc.com 

Men in Plaid - the video

Well I finally got around to editing some footage of Plaid Lake in the Kootenays of British Columbia. Hiked up to the lake in late August and caught a lot of feisty little brooke trout.
Sorry, the upload quality is not very good, if anyone knows how to achieve better quality without taking forever to load, let me know.

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Brooke Trout in Plaid



Paiz and I finally make it to Plaid

  
Well after three years of planning and then cancelling, Paiz and I at last made it up to Plaid Lake.

We'd been talking about it for years and finally late in August we tackled the ascent.

Plaid lies nestled amid the peaks of the Purcell Mountains on the East Shore of Kootenay Lake.
A steep 4X4 goat track takes you to the trail head where a narrower goat track climbs a couple thousand feet to a nice view of the Kootenay Lake, Kokanee Glacier and the Selkirk Mtns.