After spending a couple of nights in Kelowna to catch up with some old friends who I have not seen in several years, I met up with Fishersak and his father as planned to fish for brook trout before returning to Vancouver. The day started at 7:00am for me as I drove out of Kelowna, which sure has evolved into a rather big city in the last several years.
As I reached the area where I was supposed to turn-off, I began looking for it by rewinding the trip with Chris and Nick. Suddenly Fishersak's truck and boat sped right past me from the oncoming traffic. Oops, I guess that I had passed it.
A quick turnaround and we were at the lake in no time. Fishersak got out of the car. He seemed rather excited as he walked towards me. Behind him, the truck and trailer began rolling backward. I yelled, "The truck! Hand brake! Moving!"
He turned around, only to see the truck slowly gaining momentum. He ran toward it as fast as he could while his dad sat in the car hopelessly. What a son.
Luckily, the trailer turned and prevented the truck to go backward any further. Talk about excitement before the fishing even started.
After we launched our boats, we took some time to observe the water along the lake shore. A closer look discovered snails, shrimps, dragonfly nymphs, tadpoles and many other aquatic creatures that are unknown to us. This aspect of lake fishing is really enjoyable as it brings back memory of childhood days when many of us would poke around a pond for tiny critters. It is also advantageous to spend the time to observe and learn what feeds are available in a particular lake.
As soon as we reached our fishing spots, rises of brook trout could be spotted. According to Nick, this is always a very good sign as they can be extremely moody. He was right of course, not long after I started, I felt a good tap as I stripped a size 8 leech in. Meanwhile, the indicator on the other rod sat idly. A few minutes later, Fishersak radioed and said, "Fish on!"
From that point, the bites came on for the next two hours. My indicator started to dive quite often, many times right after I casted it out. The fly of choice for me was a size 14 chronie that Carlo had tied up for me at Leighton Lake. It has been the same fly that I have caught most of the fish in every lake. Hopefully I will not lose that, otherwise I will have to ask him to teach me how to tie them up.
In total, I managed to hook 12 and landed 7 fish, but instead of learning my lesson and sticking to one rod when the fish were biting, I continued to strip the leech while the indicator bobbed. This resulted in a few dozen misses.
Fishersak and Senior did not fair as well, their total catch was 2 fish. Being their first outing for brook trout may be the factor, but then again this was only my second attempt for brook trout.
The bites seemed to have died off by mid afternoon when the wind picked up. At 4:00pm, I started getting hits again on the indicator but missed all seven of them before we ended the trip.
All the fish we landed were between 1 and 2lb, unlike some very large ones that we found on Tuesday.
Here are some photos from this outing.
First of the day
Another look
The fight
The netting
Success!
Silver bugger
Rowing in spectacular scenery
Author
Topic: The Master, Rodney And Me, Fishing Merritt A Mini Journal May 29th & 30th, 2007 (Read 9053 times)