The ice has arrived

Well despite mother nature's best efforts, the cold has arrived and with it the ice fishing season. Now if I could only find time to get out more often. Thankfully, winter break is coming up which means two weeks break.

I did manage to get out for the first trip this season. I wasn't there for long due to the onset of darkness in the late afternoon. I unfortunately got to the lake late, and had to make two trips there, because the first trip I had forgot my auger and had no way to penetrate the six inches of ice.

On my second attempt that day, auger in hand, I fished for about an hour and a half and managed a small rainbow and a brook trout. The procured deli shrimp I use when fishing under the ice proved its effectiveness again.

Hopefully a more fruitful and lengthy day of fishing is in the near future. After all, its just the start of the hard water season.

Something different

Some of my recent available days for fishing have turned into hunting days. This is my first hunting season and the first couple times out I saw nothing but a few rabbits and a grouse. I was fortunate enough to take a couple short trips with a friend who is knowledgeable in the area of hunting. In those two short trips I either learned quickly or luck came my way because this morning I finally saw some big game while hunting this morning.

I went out for first light, parked and walked up the gravel road to the next logging road and began hiking up the hill. The ground was frosty and crunchy so I took my time and when I reached the crest i was able to look down on a clearcut and up the other side. Out came the binoculars and low and behold there was a bull moose slowly making his way up the other side of the block. Unfortunately for me he had too much antler for me to shoot it legally. He wandered up the block and slowly dissappeared into the trees.

I glassed the rest of the large block and spotted another moose. This one was a cow and was wandering the block. I watched for about half an hour as it slowly left the block, heading out the other side.

On my trek back down the trail, a few hundred yard back from where I had turned around and I spotted a black lump down another side of the ridge. Up came the binos and there sat another cow moose. This one I was able to get to within 150 yards where I sat and watched for 15 minutes. The moose just sat and watched me. Too bad theres no cow season or I would have taken the shot. She was sitting pretty.

Off I went, back to the truck and driving down the road again. I didnt see anything else except a nice black bear in the middle of a cut block.

Maybe next time a legal bull will show itself.

Stellako on a dry fly

I had a bit of time this weekend and my choice was take the boat out to a lake or wade the Stellako river again trying to fool rainbows with a dry fly. Well, dry fly fishing won, so off I went.

Last night I tied up a few dry fly patterns and had one on and ready to go before even reaching the river. Having fished it just last week I already had a plan for where I wanted to fish and went straight for those spots.

Despite some pretty good wind, all it took was one cast and I was already into fish. A healthy rainbow who put up a nice fight and some acrobatics came to hand and was released. The first stop produced a few decent fish and then went quiet. I wandered downstream, hooking into a few small fish on the way. I stopped at a nice pocket of water and happened to look upstream just in time to see the back end of a black bear duck into the shrubs on the opposite bank. As I looked down stream around the corner I could see another black bear, on my side of the river, standing on the bank.
I figured I had better leave them alone and went back up stream to where I started.

When I reached the head of the river, the rain and hail decided to make an appearance which made my decision to leave a little bit easier.

Today wasn't the fast and furious action of last weekend but some nice fish were caught. I think something was trying to tell me to put away the fishing rod and pick up the rifle. I saw six deer on the short drive to the river and two bears on the river. We'll see what happens next weekend.

The fly of the day was a cinnamon caddis type pattern, larger than I would have thought seemed to be more effective in bringing the rainbows up.

Hook: standard size 10 or 12 dry fly hook
Thread: 8/0 tan thread
Body: rusty brown dubbin
Body hackle: brown dry fly hackle
Rib: extra small copper wire
Wing: elk hair

Stellar day on the Stellako - Dry Fly Fishing

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.

On the vise

In preparation on my trip to the Skeena River and surrounding area tomorrow, I have been trying up all sorts of salmon and steelhead flies. The latest of which is a variation of a favorite steelhead fly of mine. I have tied it in a variety of colours such as pink/purple, blue/black and now an orange/copper. I'm hoping to entice some steel and maybe a coho with it. I have had good sucess with copper flies for coho in the past.

For those of you interested the recipe is:

Hook: Owner size 2 - model 5115-091 tied as a stinger on a 25mm waddington shank.
Thread: 140 orange
Tail: copper flashabou
Body: wrapped copper flashabou
Hackle: black hackle tied in at the tip
Dubbing ball: holographic - gold orange diamond dub
Under wing: uv pearl crystal flash
Wing : orange fox fur (or craft fur)
Over wing: black angel hair
Collar hackle: natural guinea

Family trip to a local lake

Today was one of the best fishing trips I have taken in a while. Not because of the number or quality of fish caught but because I got to share it with my family. It's not very often both my kids join me fishing and it is even more rare my wife joined me.

We got to the boat launch just before lunch and I was pleasantly surprised my skills at reversing the boat trailer down the narrow launch have improved despite it only being my second try at it. We launched the boat so it would be ready and I drove it down to a campsite a hundred yards down to meet my wife and kids where we lit a fire and cooked some hotdogs on it.

After lunch I went out fishing. I got into a couple on the fly while anchored and then went back to get the kids who were done exploring the shore. We decided to drag a couple flies behind the boat and troll around. It took us a bit to find the fish but we did manage to hook a few. Most importantly both my kids hooked into fish. The smiles on their faces said it all and made the trip worth while.

The fish were hooked just off the drop off, some with a black doc spratley and some with a black/red mohair leech pattern.

Hot day of sturgeon fishing

Today's fishing adventure was hot. Not fantastic fishing hot, but temperature hot. In fact, at my house we would refer to the weather as "hot enough to boil a monkey's bum". Bonus points if you know where that expression comes from, or your name is Bruce.

Anyway, back to fishing. Since I am heading back up North next week I thought I would hit the Fraser again for sturgeon fishing. I arrived at the river later than I normally would, but I'm on vacation so sleeping in is a right I am taking advantage of. Thankfully there was no one at my spot and soon after arriving I had my bait on the bottom of the big muddy.

The weather was hot, the fishing was not. I was baking in the sun, drinking lots of water and eating a delicious peach from my recent Okanagan trip. Waiting and waiting for a  bite. Since there are salmon migrating through the river at this time of year my first bait was sockeye belly. It produced nothing so I tried a few different baits. I tried pink salmon belly and some roe. Nothing. Since salmon and roe was all I brought for bait, and neither species was working I thought I would cover all angles and put on a strip of pink and a strip of sockeye. I sat and waitied with not even a nibble from a pike minnow.

I was beginning to think I may get skunked when all of a sudden, without warning, my rod slammed down with a big hit. I quickly scooped it up and set the hook. The fight ensued and after a couple head shakes and a bit of line pulled off the reel the sturgeon showed itself with a nice tail stand. The sturgeon ended up giving three nice jumps before I managed to get it to hand to unhook it and send the little four footer back on its way to grow and be caught another day.