British Columbia Fishing Blog

In this video blog, we followed Curt from the Fraser Valley Trout Hatchery to Deer Lake in Burnaby, where he released 250 rainbow trout at catchable sizes (300g to 500g). Curt explains what anglers can expect this season from the Fishing in the City program.

Yesterday we made our way up to Squamish and took a look at a couple of lakes in the area. We had expected pretty good fishing at Browning Lake, which was stocked with 1,300 rainbow trout by the Freshwater Fisheries Society of BC last week, but it turned out to be rather challenging. We also took a look at Alice Lake where I had success in the past, but they were still too shy. Despite of a lack of catches, the nature surroundings at both lakes made up for the trip. This video is intended for those who are interested in getting into freshwater fishing in British Columbia but still not sure how to do so. Locally stocked lakes are the best places to start!

So what’s with the weather? We celebrated an early arrival of spring back in February and suddenly it is back to December again. Lakes around the Lower Mainland have been stocked since last week (see stocking database) so this morning when we saw sunshine, we decided to drop whatever work we had and headed to Como Lake for some easy fishing.

Easy fishing it was not to be, because as soon as we left Richmond, we found clouds all around us. We forgot that the sun shines in Richmond, it is most likely raining in the rest of BC. We arrived, sat down on the floating dock, and flurries greeted us! The light westerly breeze did not help either.

Once most of the clouds moved on, it was slightly more pleasant to fish. I managed to catch and release one, while Nina missed several good tugs. So much for foolish urban stocked rainbow trout, but that is good because the fishing wouldn’t be as exciting if it is not challenging.

Environment Canada has forecasted a few days of sunshine, so lets see how accurate that is. If the sun indeed shows itself, be sure to take advantage of all the catchable rainbow trout stockings that are happening in the Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley this month.

This video blog was supposed to be published a couple of weeks ago but we ran into some technical problems recently. The computer that has been working so hard to render all the video that you watch finally gave up. The silver lining of this is now we have a better machine that can do the tasks much faster and produce better quality flicks.

Anyway, this video blog features the second trip that we did to Kawkawa Lake. Unlike the second trip, we had a relatively sunny day so most of the fish were feeding on the bottom. We managed to tag a few but missed much more due to the soft bites.

A 12 minute video tutorial on this particular fishery is now available for subscribers.

There is always a good reason to be excited in the Lower Mainland at the beginning of March. Birds sing, flowers bloom and fish bite! With unseasonably warm weather, we loaded up the boat this week for a trip to Kawkawa Lake in Hope. Although the fish that we are after barely reach 12 inches in length, this is one annual trip that I always look forward to. Catching countless fish among friends after spending many months away from the boat is surely a great way to celebrate the arrival of spring.

After a rather sleepless night, we left Vancouver with the loaded car at 8:00am. With clear sky above us, we were confident that it was going to be a fun day of fishing while basking under the sunshine. Could we be more wrong than that! Misty weather greeted us when we passed through Chilliwack. By the time we arrived in Hope, rain was coming down in buckets! We made it this far, it only made sense for these fair weather fishermen to brave it and catch some fish.The first two hours were rather uneventful. Beside catching the odd landlocked coho salmon, the bite was not on at all. As time passed, the boat slowly turned into a bathtub. Nina had enough and decided that it was time for her to head back into the car.

The look after being pounded by rain in a bathtub for a few hours.

After dropping her off at the boat launch, I proceeded to head back out and join Nick, Marco and few optimistic others. Funny enough, the fishing turned from night to day as soon as I anchored. Perhaps it was my tiny sensitive float, perhaps it was my well rested arms, I was hooking fish one after another. Within minutes, I had kept my daily quota of kokanee as well as releasing a couple of coho salmon and cutthroat trout.Nick explained that these kokanee, which are mostly three year old, typically measure 10 inches in length around this time of the year. Because the lake lacked ice this year, the feeding period is lengthened, therefore the fish that we encountered were at least 1 inch longer than average.

Landlocked coho salmon.

Spotty cutthroat trout.

Head shot.

I phoned Nina to report my instant success and lure her out of the car. It was time to cruise back to the launch and pick her up. We returned to the spot in no time and luckily the surface feeding frenzy did not fade away. In fact, it was becoming more intense. For the next several hours, we hooked, lost, kept, released many fish until the groomy weather was once again too much to put up with. We packed up at 4:00pm, only to see sunshine approaching in the horizon as we drove out of Hope!A 8 minute video diary of this particular trip is now available for subscribers.