Egging for trout in a salmon stream
Published on September 23rd, 2009 by Shane
Having not fished at all in 2009 due to a lack of motivation to fish spring stillwaters followed by a ruptured achilles tendon, I was just itching to hit some moving water. Usually by this time, multiple trips to the T and Skagit have been done and a longer road trip to the Kootenays has been accomplished.
Two weekends ago I had decided that my leg had healed enough to at least try a walk and wade, preferably on a smaller piece of water. As I enjoy exploring new areas and waters almost as much as fishing, I decided to hit an indirect Fraser River’s tributary that I had visited in the past on a non-fishing trip. I knew then I could hit a more familiar piece of water on the way back. As I would be going solo because my usual flyfishing partner was was up north popping his Skeena cherry, I treated the trip as more of a scouting mission for the following weekend. As part of my scouting, I scoured through the regulations to see if the creek I was intending on hitting was indeed open. After not seeing any mention of the creek and double checking with Rodney, I knew that I was ready.
The drive up was uneventful but the obligatory stops at Timmy Ho’s, McD’s and a quick pee & smoke break at a bridge over a river, I finally reached my destination in just under four hours.
The piece of water where I was to hit first was not very big at all, but I was aware of that. I tentatively began wading the river, more focused on my leg than fishing, but that quickly changed as I totally forgot about my leg. The creek was not very wide or deep but there were very little obvious structures and riffles. Targeting the slower seams and slicks, I finally got into a bully of about 16 inches and then a nice rainbow before I reached what was to be the only pool on the creek. The pool had definite potential as it was nice and deep with the water funneling off a shelf at the head due to a nice logjam and slowly broadening out with a nice tailout. Also, there was a whack of sockeye just milling about and you could see the grey shadows of some nice bulls hanging around.
The creek
The reason to target this creek
Here are some of the results of the initial scouting trip.
Scarface
After landing two rainbows, thirteen bulls and losing a bunch more, I headed off to tributary number two but after such a successful scouting trip on my initial trip of the year, I found that I was not very motivated and more than a bit tired. I did fish for a bit but found that the fishing was slow and was not able to land any fish.
Last weekend, I headed up again but this time with Carlo. As usual, when fishing with Carlo, you start your drive up when it is dark and your drive back when it is dark. Â
After we reached our destination, I was disappointed to see that the water had risen and had a very slight bit of colour to it. I also could tell that Carlo seemed a bit skeptical when we did not get into any fish after the first twenty minutes or so. The slower seams and slicks that were so evident a week ago were all gone due to the higher water. It seemed that the fish had either moved to different holding areas or had dropped back down, but I was not too worried as I knew we were approaching the only pool on the creek. In the meantime Carlo managed to land a smaller bull trout.
Carlo playing his first fish
After reaching the pool, things thankfully picked up and we both landed a couple of fish and lost a few more.
After exhausting the pool, we quickly moved our way to the mouth of the creek and were immediately into some nice fish!
Checking the time, we realized that we needed to head to tributary number two if we wanted to have time to fish it. 30 minutes later, we were at tributary number two and although the fishing was not as fast and furious, we were able to each land some decent fish.
Tributary number two
Untangling the leader from a branch while fighting a fish…
and still landing it!
Rainbow
Fall is upon us and the fishing will only get better.