British Columbia Fishing Blog

We took advantage of the sunny weather that was expected in Merritt by doing an overnight lake trip several days ago. Interior British Columbia offers excellent stillwater trout fishing in May and June. Those who have tried it always make sure their holiday is planned around this time of the year. The trip was short but very successful, with plenty of fish in the 2 to 4lb range landed. Here are some photographs that I wish to share with our readers.

This trip allowed us to try out our new products from Stryker Rods. Stryker Rods is based in Surrey and its custom built fishing rods are first-class. This is a 9′ 5wt flyfishing rod, nicely coupled with an Islander LX 3.4.

Expect this to happen from time to time when using two rods. Interior rainbow trout have a tendency to make a mess when the angler is not paying attention.

Dress for all types of weather when fishing in Interior BC during spring.

Monstrous northern pikeminnow take a fly from time to time when they can get to it before hungry rainbow trout.

Interior BC rainbow trout in the 14″ to 20″ size range is probably the most popular gamefish in this province.

A quiet boat companion. Hatches take place during the day while fishing. It is a good idea to pay attention to what land on your boat to understand what the fish are biting on.

A casualty. After numerous tough battles, this fly finally retires.

I took a tour of the Chilliwack River Valley Monday evening to see if the the “tough new measures” mentioned in the article below would actually happen this May Long weekend. The area up to Tamahi looked good but from there up things were near the worse I had ever seen, as the pictures relate. Pictures were taken showing some of the sites including by the washout, “The Cedars” and by Borden Creek where the bears were getting into some of the bagged up garbage. The other pictures were on the Bench Road which was a disaster area with shotgun shell casing every where.

If we are really serious about dealing with this destruction of this area we must have a stronger support from the RCMP and the Province with both providing enough personal to deal with this stain on our environment. Sometimes I think these law enforcement people are stretched too thin to cover areas like this.

Once again, from what I observed today and what was mentioned in this recent newspaper article I have posted below it appeared to have little impact on these thoughtless campers that have no regard for our ONCE beautiful Chilliwack River Valley, shameful.

Discuss this now!

Today’s outing on a Lower Mainland lake was the best one so far this season. After hooking numerous fish on a brown leech pattern, I rigged up a flyfishing rod with an indicator for my friend Erin who has never flyfished before. After several misses, the indicator took a dip and remained under for a long time. Without being alerted, Erin yanked the rod back and the full bend suggested a much larger fish at the other end. I had to stop Erin from stripping in the line so quickly because the fish was pulling just as hard at the other end. With constant headshakes, this fish remained in the deep as it made its way to the boat.

Its first surfacing had me looking for the landing net frantically. It was easily the biggest cutthroat trout that I have seen from this lake! I leaned over to see where it was. A couple of times it made us hold our breath as it went for the anchor rope. The fly line’s loop connector to the leader was now caught at the rod tip. She had no way to bring the fish to the surface and I was too afraid to grab the line. Finally with some pulling the loop freed itself from the tip and the fish resurfaced. On my third try, I managed to slipped the entire fish into the net.  Not only was it long, it was fat unlike some of the early season fish that we often see. The semi-silvery, heavily spotted body also made it the prettiest specimen I have seen to date.

The Freshwater Fisheries Society of BC produces and stocks a strain of cutthroat trout that are known as Taylor 3N. Even though most Southern Coastal BC lakes’ low nutrient productivity is unable to yield large trout, these ferocious cutthroat trout often grow rapidly by feeding on larger food items such as leeches and sticklebacks. Released as yearlings, their average size can reach 5lb in two to three years. The fishing is especially good at lakes that are stocked with Taylor 3Ns and designated as a catch and release fishery. Look out for these lakes by searching the stocking history and take advantage of the first class fisheries around you.

This past weekend we spent two nights at Lakeside Gardens Resort, fishing St Mary’s Lake on Salt Spring Island. St Mary’s Lake is mostly known for its smallmouth bass fishing and we typically visit it in June or July. This year we decided to pay it an earlier visit, hoping to see some topwater bass action. Unfortunately the season is delayed, but we were treated with a good substitute. Both cutthroat and rainbow trout were pretty eager to chew on our fly and bait. Just take a look at this video on the floating dock shot for 35 minutes straight.

Because Lakeside Gardens Resort is an advertiser on Fishing with Rod, when you book your stay, mention “Fishing with Rod” to receive 10% off. The resort offers campsites, small lakeside cabanas for 2 people as well as larger cottages for 4 to 6 people.