Stamp River, February 18 & 19 2012
My wife and I arrived in Port Alberni around supper time on Friday night after a white knuckle drive over the hump in the pouring rain complete with a recently burnt out headlight and a truck fully weighed down with a camper. We geared up at Wally World with new headlights and supplies and dropped anchor for the night at a friends place.
Saturday
6:00AM Wake-up call and on the water by 7:30AM
The weather was cold and wet. Overnight rains were heavy but were trickling off. Light rain as we made our way to the Sproat/Stamp confluence. We were not more than a few hundred feet into the Sproat, dropping freshly tied roe bags behind some boulders. It didn't take long before the floats were diving, though our reflexes were a little slow as the coffee was still taking affect. About 30 minutes of moving and casting and my float dove hard. I set the hook and held on. The first fish of the morning was hatchery doe between 12-14lbs and was as chrome as any fish I had ever seen. We chased her down river into some calmer waters where she rolled to her side and into the net. A few more bites in the same hole didn't yield any results so we headed up river. The rain must have made the fish bitey as I've never enjoyed so much steel so quickly. From the rifle range down we found fish in every spot. We released a few wild does back to nature, and proceeded to get our limits with lots of time to watch the Canucks beat the snot out of the Leafs. A great day!
Sunday
6:30AM Wake-up call and on the water by 8:00AM
The sky was clear all night and only slightly clouded over around 7:00AM. With no rain overnight and high tide being a full hour later than the previous day, the fish were a lot less inclined to take the bait so early. We got a few bites in the Sproat but lost them all. We travelled as far as the bucket with no success. We made our way back down river slowly and decided to try the shallows at the rifle range again. Pay dirt! We picked up a small hatchery doe hiding in the shadows of the overhanging trees. It was slow today and the rifle range had given up all she was going to. The clay banks yileded no joy and neither did the sweet spot from the day before. Just down from the cow run we moved into some nice slow moving water and we saw a few chromers move up and hold not too far away. It didn't take long to get our casts into the right spot and before too long we had our limit and our day was complete.
P.S. My wife is a photographer by trade so she is to thank for the amazing photos.
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Topic: Stamp River, February 18th & 19th 2012 (Read 1559 times)