Fishing In The Snow With Caribou

[hiketofish]

So out last weekend with a pretty poor forecast. Periods of rain and snow and generally cold temps. Another National Park hike, all on trails, I was a bit out of my element. No secret where this is, you should be able to tell by the very distinctive mountain range rising up from the lakes.

Here is along the way in, its about 23 km to the campground the way we went in on easy (but really really muddy) trails.

That night saw the first of many caribou, this really made the trip for me. It doesn't matter how cold and rainy it was when you're seeing these guys. This group had a male caribou that still had blood on its antlers from I'm guessing rubbing the velvet off.

 

He was very distinctive looking.

 

Finally went fishing in the Pack Raft again. You might get tired of seeing pics of it. Pretty neat perspective in the middle of the lake. This lake was a long paddle across. I stopped counting paddles after a 1000. The weather kept changing, some rain, some snow, some sleet.

 

After paddling across the big lake, We went to the smaller lake. Beautiful mountains rose right up from the side of the lake.

Finally started catching some fish. Even some on the dry fly, or on a nymph dragged below the surface. Really fun casting to rising fish in a beautiful setting.

Then 10 minutes later some weather moved in and really made for interesting paddling, brrrr

Next day some more caribou, they are such quiet animals. The big male was more how I imagined a caribou to look like.

Fished the big lake the next day. I did not do well. My friend with a spinning rod caught fish from 17-24 inches all from shore. I had the advantage of a boat, and both sinking and floating line and nothing. I trolled streamers, nymphs, backswimmers, and then still fished various flies under an indicator. I felt like I may have set back flyfishing several hundred years... Here's a pic he was nice enough to take showing me in the raft behind a nice rainbow. I know its a vertical fish and I know its out of the water and I told him after to leave the fish in the water when taking his pics.

All I got was some nice views. The next day we hiked out in the snow. Several inches by mid morning.

Still not a bad weekend to see some weather, some caribou and a few fish.

[bigbowtrout]

LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!! Awesome post

 

Thanks

[Tungsten]

Good to see you didn't go alone.After reading about that other kid i though it might have bin you.

 

Stay safe.

 

[murray]

Boy this report was simply a pleasure to read. You do get to some beautifull and remote fishing spots. I cannot imagine how tough the hike in was, the pictures show me why you do it. I love those shots of the Caribou, not many people get to see them like that.

Keep on hiking into those kinds of locations and dont ever forget your camera. I really enjoy your posts.

 

Murray

[mvdaog]

Awesome stuff... hope you know how lucky you are to have seen those guys.... might not be around much longer. Southern herd isn't doing to well overall..

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/edmonton/story/20...ou-numbers.html

[echinopora]

I was up there in 2002, at the time there was an absolutely gigantic bull caribou hanging around, he really stood out because he was frosty grey in color. It's nice to see those fellas are still up there. In 2004 I worked some research projects for the U of A on the Little Smokey, Highway 40, Redrock and Narraway herds, and the news was definitely not good. The wintering site for the Narraway herd is fantastic though, Alpine tundra just littered with Sheds.

 

Tonquin beat the crap out of us, it rained non stop, the bridges blew out (except for the first crossing of the Astoria) and every gravel pad was under 2" of water. Sure is beautiful though. Great pictures, looks like it was an epic trip.

 

Rob

[126barnes]

wow........................can't believe how healthy those caribou look...............and dark too...............the ones over here always look like a bag of bones.

 

Thanks for the post.

[beedhead]

Awesome Dude!!!...Fantastic pics...I plan on doin some hike in Lakes next week, weather/snow pending...Im Pumped...

 

Cheers...Jeff..

[McLeod]

 

Great pictures ! It is very special place. The first time I was up there I came around a small tree and a HUGE bull was standing right there 6 feet away..I thought I was dead. But he just looked at me and then started eating while I backed away ..and then run to change my underwear !

[fishfreak]

Great hike, amazing views, good fishing, awesome caribou.... sounds like an excellent trip!

[adams]

Fantastic adventure as always and great report.

 

Just curious, is that pack raft multi-chambered? When I saw the picture of the big lake I was thinking "hate to spring a leak in the middle of that".

 

Adams

[Heimdallr]

Great pics and post. Looks like an awesome spot.

[hiketofish]

Pack raft is one chamber. Very rugged though, I'd say its easily more structurally sound than a Belly boat at least the vinyl ones. The weekend before, I went over lots of rocks on the Snake Indian River plus a few trees in the shallow lake and it held up fine. This trip, I dragged it across a meadow for about 2 km on the way to the first lake (mostly marsh and small willow) and again no problems. Here's a few more pics of the caribou, the snow and fishing from the raft. So far I'm pretty happy to have it. Its very kid friendly as well.

 

The male caribou seem to have really powerful necks.

 

This was the only time I heard the caribou when he was shaking this bush. They don't seem to eat the willow leaves like moose do, but rather seem to be pretty picky eaters.

 

Here's the lake from the campsite. This was evening, every morning we had low cloud, snow and or rain.

 

This was a more typical morning, grey cold and drizzly. These guys were seen on the way to the food hanging pole.

 

Here's some from the raft.

 

Another one from the raft on the big lake. I wasn't catching fish but drifting around in circles enjoying the view wasn't bad either.

 

I talked to another guy at the lake. He directed me to a bay he called "Brook Trout Bay". It was all the way across the bay I was in and it took me 30 minutes to paddle to it. I trolled my sinking line with various flies but no luck. Soon I christened it "no trout bay" after doing my best with both types of lines.

 

We did keep one fish to eat on our last night. We ate well that night, as you can see.

 

This was our next day hiking out, the day got progressively better with snow turning to rain and then finally just cloudy. No views unfortunately. Talked to a horse party and they said they'd had either snow or rain everyday for the past 14 days.

[PAV]

I love caribou, the meat tastes fantastic. It's been some time since I have seen pictures of them, it brings back

many good hunting memories with my father in the Yukon as a kid.

 

Thanks for that.

[fliesbymike]

Looks like it was a fantastic trip, Thanks for sharing the with us.