2019 Bulkley Steelhead

Left the house at 3am this morning to drive the 3 hours to the Bulkley river. A quick Tims stop for a kids menu coffee and some loud music kept me awake after only getting four hours sleep the night before. Oh, and Brrrrrr.... it was cold. Only 2 degrees celcius this morning. Upon arriving at the Bulkley I immediately regretted not packing gloves. However, i soon forgot about the cold as the sun peaked over the mountains and I had my first fish on. A steelhead who immediately became acrobatic and promptly snapped my 15 pound fluro leader. Re-tie my leader and fly. Back to swinging the double hander. Water clarity was perfect, just a bit of colour, and the flow was spot on. A few more casts, a few steps down stream, a few more casts and a few steps then WHAM, fish on. Cartwheels, hard runs, the reel goes zing and the battle is on. This one came to hand, had a quick pic and was released without leaving the water.

The day continued with one more steelhead to hand and one freight train the hit HARD, showed off his big square tail and then broke my leader (again). Next time I'm using 20 pound. In between steelhead there were nuisance fish that were also taking the fly. These fish were getting in the way of finding steelhead *cough* *cough*. Not sure why anyone would want to hook coho on the fly while looking for steelhead.... .. (insert sarcasm sign ) Kidding aside, the by catch of coho was pretty fun too. Landed four of those buggers. Retention is one over 50 cm and one below. Couldnt get the one below 50 but retained one over 50 for the smoker.

Bulkley Double Double

This morning I woke up at the crack of too early, rolled out of bed and drove throught the darkness and smoke to the other side... .. .. Smithers.

I got to the Bulkley river where a couple people were casting spoons in the run above where I began my day. I put together my spey rod, threw on my favorite weighted black and blue intruder fly and started working the water. I had only been there for about half an hour, slowly working my way down a nice long run, when a couple arrive. She goes to the run upstream and he... ..low holes me. I wasn't too happy but I wasnt going to let it ruin my day. At least he was moving down the run, so I followed (at a distance). He was moving a bit faster than I was, finished fishing the run and joined his fishing buddy up stream. No sooner had he left and I had my fly slammed hard like a freight train followed by a big steelhead exploding out the water. After a great battle with lots of heart stopping acrobatics I managed to land the beauty. I snuck a quick pic (hard to do by yourself) and sent it on its way.

As the day went on I managed to hook three coho (two of which I landed) and another steelhead (which I lost) all in that same run. My spey rod got a good workout, my new Monic GSP running line is fantastic and I cant say enough good things about my galvan reel. LOVE those reels. #galvanreels .. sponsor me and I will gladly promote your reels everywhere I go. Oh and while i'm at it.. #monicflylines ?

Things died down and I explored up stream which yielded no fish. I went back to the first run and thought I woud give it one more sweep through before I drive home. The guy from earlier and his wife were there and working there way through. I let them go and followed behind and pulled another steelhead out behind them! This time he came over and snapped a quick pic for me. Nice guy. They came up from Oregon and had been fishing the river for 5 days with only a couple coho to show for it.

The day ended with a double double for me. Two steelhead landed and two coho landed.