This morning I woke up to beautiful sunshine as fall approaches at a steady pace. I grabbed my fly rod and off I went to what has to be my favorite trout stream, the Stellako River. Thinking there would be sockeye in the river I packed some egg patterns I could drift under them to entice the many rainbows lurking behind them looking for an easy meal. Along with the egg patterns I packed some stone flies in olive, tan and black (all of which were effective this time last year). Lastly, I threw in some dry flies, and among them a few cinnamon caddis.
When I arrived at the river there were a couple of guys pounding the water near the inflow from Francois Lake. With a smile and a nod I walked on by, down stream, to find some water of my own. I didn't have to go far and I found some pockets of water amongst shallows. Thinking it looked fishy I tied on a cinnamon caddis a sent out my first cast. Should have started the Gopro before I cast because that first cast yielded a 12" rainbow. Oh well, next fish maybe? After releasing the little rainbow I turned on the Gopro and kept fishing the pockets of water as I waded down stream. Every pocket of water gave up fish. Some more than others and some bigger than others. Put it this way, I didn't have to work for any fish today. The rainbows must have got the memo and were hungry. I lost count of how many fish I landed, the majority of which were around 8" but there were some big fish in there too. I landed a handful of 14-16" acrobatic and strong rainbows and fought a beast that I thought was a sockeye before it leaped into the air and showed its chrome.
I had a bunch of new egg patterns I wanted to try out on this trip but couldn't bear to stop fishing dries. Some of the takes were aggressive and the fish flashed up from the bottom and slammed the fly. Other takes were a slap of the fly to drown it and then they would take the fly. I missed a few being too over zealous and trying to set the hook at the sight of the first splash. It's so hard to hold back and wait before setting the hook. The water was crystal clear and you could see the fish holding, flashing or coming up for food. At one point I watched a little rainbow snap at my fly on the surface four times as it skated across the current before it finally got a hold of it. Very fun to watch.
If you are up in this area I would highly suggest a stop at this little gem of a river. Bring lots of flies, they trashed a number of mine.
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