Last week, my brother and I fished in the Nehalliston Plateau area of
BC, which is served by BC Highway 24 between Little Fort and 100 Mile
House. We got to Little Fort on Monday evening, and spent the night
camped in town. It is a really little town, so camping in town is not
that big a deal. We hit the Little Fort Fly Shop at 9am and got
recommendations on where to fish, and picked up a few flies. This is one
great fly shop for nearly the middle of the wilderness, and I bet that
everyone needing anything would be satisfied there. Not to mention, but
they have an awful lot of polar bear hair for the discriminating fly
tyer. Not that I smuggled any in, you understand.
>From there, we trekked up on to the plateau, dropping in at Peaceful
Cove resort, where we ended up staying in a cabin. From there, we relyed
on the info from the owner, as Peaceful Cove is a fly fishing resort
first, and lure draggers, bait drowners second. We fished Crystal lake
that afternoon in a pretty good wind, and had no strikes, but we found
the first of the shoals that are so significant to these lakes.
Wednesday we fished Lorenzo and Bear Paw lakes taking many small trout,
and one sucker on a myriad of flies. We saw a small mid-day caddis
hatch, and had callibaetus fluttering about to little commotion from the
fish all day. My brother missed one which seemed significant, maybe
12"+. It again was windy a good part of the day. In the evening we were
employed to paddle our canoe across Lac des Roches to a shoal on the
opposite side in order to see on of the great sedge hatches that we had
been expecting, which we did, and there was none to speak of, and we
paddled in after dark.
On Thursday morning we hit Wilson Lake, where we found fish to be rising
right off, and they turned out to be suckers. Desperate we played with
them for awhile and split to Fawn Lake (near Sheridan Lake) and fished
the afternoon away in the wind, to find some small fish crusing the
shallows in the shade as the sun started lowering around dinner. As the
sky got darker, the wind faded, and fish started rising all over the
lake, but not concentrated enough to cast to without serious
frustration. We paddled to the west end of the lake where a good tule
bed is, and found a few fish rising along the edge in about 3 feet of
semi-cloudy water. I cast a elk hair caddis at one rise, and got a
strike, and felt a good fish break off an instant later. We fished the
hatch until we finally got frustrated with the failing light, lack of
any fly grease (I had left my vest at the cabin), and nature's call.
Friday, our last day fishing, we were offered a boat and motor by the
resort, gratis, and we were directed to fish the biggest shoal on des
Roches which we did all afternoon and evening. The fishing was off until
about 4 pm when giant sedges started hatching during calm periods. If
the wind would hold off, some fish would start to rise, but wind would
pick up before the rise was strong enough to fish. during this hatch, I
fished the Mikulak Sedge, and Jim the October Caddis, a similar
steelhead pattern. during our waits, we let our well greased flys sit on
the water, ready to be casted at a moments notice. The terns and small
gulls that were on the lake also took an interest in the hatch and our
flies. It became a challenge to get our flies away from the birds when
they raided the shoal. A heavy rain started, killing the sedge hatches,
but the fish seemed to shift to callibaetus that continued to rise for
awhile. I lost a gulper special to one of these fish when the knot
failed.
We left Saturday morning in a pretty hard rain, and found that although
we did not catch anything of bragging rights, we did have an excellent
time, saw incredible numbers of loons, fished very lightly impacted
lakes, and found a new spot to fish, and learned about the great sedge
hatches of BC. I will be back, and it may be as soon as fall.
--
Rob Blomquist
Kirkland, WA
Gone to the penguins...Bye, bye, Billy-boy....
