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.