Fishing New Water

[reevesr1]

This post was supposed to be of the photo variety, but my camera is either at the bottom of the second river talked about below or sitting very near where my truck was parked. Whatever the case, it did not make the trip home, much to my disappointment.

 

I'm currently staying at my place in Panorama. On Tuesday, the wife gave me an all day pass. There are a couple of rivers in the area I've wanted to try for awhile, so I decided that I would do one of those. Which was happily in the general area of one of my favorite stretches of another East Kootenay river system. So after $40 to the BC government, I packed up a the fly rods, food, water, and GPS and headed out of the house at 6 am for the 2-2.5 hour drive.

 

There were just a few clouds in the sky, enough to make the sunrise over the mountains to my west pretty spectacular. The temperature was around 12 degrees, with a projected high of 25. So I was not going to be able to blame weather on these cutty streams! On the way, I had to drive by a couple of different FSR's that all have great water on them. I honestly had fleeting thoughts of turning down each of them, but resisted the temptation and continued to the goal.

 

The river I chose to fish was the headwaters of a very popular (further down) river. I got my first glance of it at just after 8. Very tiny, but some nice looking holding water. I continued down the FSR (and BC sure does have a LOT of them!), passing some active logging on the way. I finally hit the spot I had picked out on the GPS and Google Earth at 9 or so. Rigged up a dry fly and bullie rods, and started the short hike to the river.

 

I was immediately greeted with a nice corner pool. 2nd cast misses a fish, and I miss him a couple more times. After 3 or 4 swings and misses, I finally hook up on a feisty little 10" cutty. He looks like what you would expect a west coast cut to look like. Less spots and a little more blue than the fish in Southern Alberta I think. Anyway, I landed one or two more from the pool. All the fish were in the back of the pool. Nothing in the head and nothing in the fast water. A theme that continued all day.

 

This pattern continued for the next few hours. Hit a pool, catch 6 to 12" fish in the back of pools, then walk a LONG ways to the next pool. It was a gorgeous river, easy to wade and fairly easy to walk in the forest. At around 1 PM I had probably landed around a dozen fish, and had a really nice morning. But I knew that about one hour from where I stood were some fish in a bit of a different class. And since all the fish in this river seemed to be in the slow pools, I knew just the spot to fish. So I made what may be one of the biggest fishing mistakes in my life. I left a pristine river system with lots of willing fish for the promise of bigger fish.

 

Getting out of the river did have it's moments. I hiked up the hill to the road for the 1.5 km walk back to the truck. Did I mention the active logging? 2 trucks passed me while I was walking and I was pretty much covered in road dust. Nice. And I had to pass 3 or 4 of them on the drive out, which certainly slowed me down. But at 2:30 I was at my spot geared back up and walking to the river.

 

It looked just as I had hoped. Summer time levels, crystal clear, and aching to be fished. More footprints than I remembered from last year, but not enough to be concerned. The first couple of pools yielded nothing. And more alarmingly, not a single rise. As I turned the first corner, I saw another angler coming down. I was fully resigned to the fact that I might have to bomb further up river to get fresh water, but after speaking to him, I realized that we were working in opposite directions and were having exactly the same luck I was. One of the group members had contacted me when I put up my post looking for partners, but we never fully got it together. I did know they were in the area, so was not that surprised to find them there. I must say I was hoping they would be on another stretch! But in the end, it made no difference. Guys, hope you got those bullies, and I hope Wednesday fished off the charts!

 

I walked up 5 or 6 pools to get past where they had started. On this river, that takes about 10 minutes as it is essentially one pool immediately after another. After 4 or 5 unsuccessful pools, including one where BBT, Uberfly and I pulled 20 fish out of last year, I resigned myself to the awful, ironic truth. I had left fish to find fish, and was paying the price. I did miss and then land one 16" fish on the way back, so at least I avoided the skunk. Not a single rise the whole day. Which I still find utterly shocking.

 

Other than loosing the camera and the logging trucks, it was a fantastic experience. I loved hitting water I knew nothing about really, other than looking at it on a map. I will confess that I know it fishes well downstream, but I have never spoken to anyone who has fished it as far up as I was. I'll be back, next time to stay for the day.

 

That would be the end of the story, but when I got back to the condo, my wife said she wanted to hike. So the next day my wife, 2 of my kids and my niece hiked up to Lake Diana. I normally wouldn't out a high alpine lake, but since this one takes an hour to reach the trailhead followed by a strenuous 2.5 to 3 hour hike in, I'm not too worried about pressure. The hike is unreal (I might post pictures later off the IPhone) and the lake is full of the most perfect cutties I have ever seen. Unfortunately, the two 14 year old girls were ready to hike down and soon as we arrived, so I only got to fish for maybe 30 minutes. I landed 3 little guys, biggest like 12 or 13". We did see one big (and I do mean big) cruiser before the rod was rigged up, but never saw him again after. The big fish were rising from 50 yards out to the middle of the lake. Next time, I'm coming with a belly boat or small pontoon (I'm getting a bit addicted to this hike in stuff. I might have to outfit myself this winter). You could even bring waders and wade out on the rock shelf that extends 20 yards or so into the lake. I tried to wade it barefoot, but could only stand it for 5 minutes. Very, very cold. I should have known by looking at the 10 foot ice shelf on the north side of the lake!

 

I hope to get one more day of fishing in, but I must say that it looks highly unlikely. Seems that pool time with the wife is in my immediate future. But whatever the case, I had a blast. And my wife is open to hiking into fishing lakes on our hikes to let me fish for a bit while she relaxes and sucks in the views. So looks like I might have to fish some high alpine lakes the next few years. Pity.

[zed]

we didn't get the bullies rick, in fact the only fish landed out of that hole was the stinking whitefish i caught! good meeting you.

[cgyguy]

This post was supposed to be of the photo variety, but my camera is either at the bottom of the second river talked about below or sitting very near where my truck was parked. Whatever the case, it did not make the trip home, much to my disappointment.

 

I'm currently staying at my place in Panorama. On Tuesday, the wife gave me an all day pass. There are a couple of rivers in the area I've wanted to try for awhile, so I decided that I would do one of those. Which was happily in the general area of one of my favorite stretches of another East Kootenay river system. So after $40 to the BC government, I packed up a the fly rods, food, water, and GPS and headed out of the house at 6 am for the 2-2.5 hour drive.

 

There were just a few clouds in the sky, enough to make the sunrise over the mountains to my west pretty spectacular. The temperature was around 12 degrees, with a projected high of 25. So I was not going to be able to blame weather on these cutty streams! On the way, I had to drive by a couple of different FSR's that all have great water on them. I honestly had fleeting thoughts of turning down each of them, but resisted the temptation and continued to the goal.

 

The river I chose to fish was the headwaters of a very popular (further down) river. I got my first glance of it at just after 8. Very tiny, but some nice looking holding water. I continued down the FSR (and BC sure does have a LOT of them!), passing some active logging on the way. I finally hit the spot I had picked out on the GPS and Google Earth at 9 or so. Rigged up a dry fly and bullie rods, and started the short hike to the river.

 

I was immediately greeted with a nice corner pool. 2nd cast misses a fish, and I miss him a couple more times. After 3 or 4 swings and misses, I finally hook up on a feisty little 10" cutty. He looks like what you would expect a west coast cut to look like. Less spots and a little more blue than the fish in Southern Alberta I think. Anyway, I landed one or two more from the pool. All the fish were in the back of the pool. Nothing in the head and nothing in the fast water. A theme that continued all day.

 

This pattern continued for the next few hours. Hit a pool, catch 6 to 12" fish in the back of pools, then walk a LONG ways to the next pool. It was a gorgeous river, easy to wade and fairly easy to walk in the forest. At around 1 PM I had probably landed around a dozen fish, and had a really nice morning. But I knew that about one hour from where I stood were some fish in a bit of a different class. And since all the fish in this river seemed to be in the slow pools, I knew just the spot to fish. So I made what may be one of the biggest fishing mistakes in my life. I left a pristine river system with lots of willing fish for the promise of bigger fish.

 

Getting out of the river did have it's moments. I hiked up the hill to the road for the 1.5 km walk back to the truck. Did I mention the active logging? 2 trucks passed me while I was walking and I was pretty much covered in road dust. Nice. And I had to pass 3 or 4 of them on the drive out, which certainly slowed me down. But at 2:30 I was at my spot geared back up and walking to the river.

 

It looked just as I had hoped. Summer time levels, crystal clear, and aching to be fished. More footprints than I remembered from last year, but not enough to be concerned. The first couple of pools yielded nothing. And more alarmingly, not a single rise. As I turned the first corner, I saw another angler coming down. I was fully resigned to the fact that I might have to bomb further up river to get fresh water, but after speaking to him, I realized that we were working in opposite directions and were having exactly the same luck I was. One of the group members had contacted me when I put up my post looking for partners, but we never fully got it together. I did know they were in the area, so was not that surprised to find them there. I must say I was hoping they would be on another stretch! But in the end, it made no difference. Guys, hope you got those bullies, and I hope Wednesday fished off the charts!

 

I walked up 5 or 6 pools to get past where they had started. On this river, that takes about 10 minutes as it is essentially one pool immediately after another. After 4 or 5 unsuccessful pools, including one where BBT, Uberfly and I pulled 20 fish out of last year, I resigned myself to the awful, ironic truth. I had left fish to find fish, and was paying the price. I did miss and then land one 16" fish on the way back, so at least I avoided the skunk. Not a single rise the whole day. Which I still find utterly shocking.

 

Other than loosing the camera and the logging trucks, it was a fantastic experience. I loved hitting water I knew nothing about really, other than looking at it on a map. I will confess that I know it fishes well downstream, but I have never spoken to anyone who has fished it as far up as I was. I'll be back, next time to stay for the day.

 

That would be the end of the story, but when I got back to the condo, my wife said she wanted to hike. So the next day my wife, 2 of my kids and my niece hiked up to Lake Diana. I normally wouldn't out a high alpine lake, but since this one takes an hour to reach the trailhead followed by a strenuous 2.5 to 3 hour hike in, I'm not too worried about pressure. The hike is unreal (I might post pictures later off the IPhone) and the lake is full of the most perfect cutties I have ever seen. Unfortunately, the two 14 year old girls were ready to hike down and soon as we arrived, so I only got to fish for maybe 30 minutes. I landed 3 little guys, biggest like 12 or 13". We did see one big (and I do mean big) cruiser before the rod was rigged up, but never saw him again after. The big fish were rising from 50 yards out to the middle of the lake. Next time, I'm coming with a belly boat or small pontoon (I'm getting a bit addicted to this hike in stuff. I might have to outfit myself this winter). You could even bring waders and wade out on the rock shelf that extends 20 yards or so into the lake. I tried to wade it barefoot, but could only stand it for 5 minutes. Very, very cold. I should have known by looking at the 10 foot ice shelf on the north side of the lake!

 

I hope to get one more day of fishing in, but I must say that it looks highly unlikely. Seems that pool time with the wife is in my immediate future. But whatever the case, I had a blast. And my wife is open to hiking into fishing lakes on our hikes to let me fish for a bit while she relaxes and sucks in the views. So looks like I might have to fish some high alpine lakes the next few years. Pity.

 

 

Great post Rickr!

 

Heading up to Windermere this afternoon, and will be fishing lakes up the Westside Road next week. May get out and try some of that $40.00 water but sounds like it was a bit slow for you so not sure. All the ame though, beautiful country, and a great place to visit.

 

Thanks again for the well done post!

 

Cgyguy

[birchy]

Sounds like a great time Rick!! Thanks for sharing. We're heading out to BC for a vacation this coming Saturday for 10 days.. hoping to get some fishing in while I'm there.

 

Sucks about the camera. I really like my Pentax Optio WG-1.. and one awesome thing about it is that it comes with a strap and carabiner, so you can just clip it to your vest. http://www.trustedreviews.com/Pentax-WG-1_...l-Camera_review

[reevesr1]

Here are a few shots:

 

Nice alpine lake cutty:

 

 

First view of the lake after a 3 hr hike gaining 600m, with 1000m total climbing:

 

 

The motley crew after the hike was over:

 

 

[loeber]

Yes please. All kinds of goodness in that report.

[reevesr1]

Yeah, my problem now is narrowing our trip down!

[loeber]

Yeah, my problem now is narrowing our trip down!

 

 

That is not a bad problem to have...

 

If you could find a pool (or 6) with 20-24" cutts stacked like cordwood and that have never seen a fly before. That would be great. Preferably not more than 10' from the bars patio.

[SteveM]

Nice report, Tex.

Maybe you should get your siggy line tattooed on your hand or sumthin'???

 

[dekkard2019]

That is a great story! The mistake of "leaving fish to find fish". Who cares? That is all part of the adventure...you never know what you may find. That is fishing.

[bigbowtrout]

That part of the world is worth the money paid. I'm thinking Sept will kick butt up that way.

[lamponius]

Thanks Rick, great story!

 

It s all what I am looking for when I fish. I love the fact that in the rockies you can find almost new water. The feelinf of discovering new water....unique.

And it takes some guts to leave fish to find fish. That s why people usually go to the same spot, day after day. It produces, why would they change ?

 

Anyway, thanks for sharing...

[reevesr1]

Thanks Rick, great story!

 

It s all what I am looking for when I fish. I love the fact that in the rockies you can find almost new water. The feelinf of discovering new water....unique.

And it takes some guts to leave fish to find fish. That s why people usually go to the same spot, day after day. It produces, why would they change ?

 

Anyway, thanks for sharing...

 

Yeah, but I must confess I was leaving brand new water for tried and true water. The truth is I had originally planned the day that way, but I still wish I had stayed and fished the headwaters more. But that's fishing. Sometimes the decisions work, sometimes they don't. And for all I know, the afternoon could have shut down where I was as well. Whatever the case, it was a great day. Even if I lost my camera! By the way, anyone find a Canon D10 on say the White River FSR area, it will likely be mine.