[Mike D.]

Well, its that time again. Looking back at the previous year and remembering the fights, the hook ups, and the misses. Those moments that were good and those well.....not so good . And also dreaming to what lies ahead for the upcoming season.

Winter

Well yet again I did not fish for steelhead. Yes I know what I am missing out on, just don't rub it in. Although I did manage to get out with my fly rod in hand, and target some elusive Harrison cutthroat trout. After many hours of searching, and many gallons of fuel burnt. I did manage to find a fly in my box and found some beaut's.

Spring

Now comes one of my favorite times of the year. The time when the run off occurs, disturbing the water, and making it an awsome time to target by far one of the best species in the fraser valley. STURGEON! It all kicked off in may, and boy did it kick off. Managed quite a few fish in the 1-4 foot range.
Next up to the plate, spring run chinook. My favorite salmon to angle. Springs came and went, although I must say it was a bit of a cat and mouse game yet again. What ever happend to those days where you could wack em' on the second week of May consistently until August? Anyways, as usual success was assured.

Early Summer

Wow, this was by far one of the best early summers I have ever fished. Lots of springs on the bar rods, and lots of sturgeon on the boat rods. Managed to land a few Chinook in the 10-25lb range, and lots of sturgeon in the 2-6ft range.

Summer

Chinook, springs, and kings! Sockeye? Well, august1st came and well…..no socks…..still wondering now, why they opened it….kind of ruined one of the best bar fishing years yet. So let the gong show begin. All those out there at 4am anticipating for lots of fresh sockeye, well they will go home disgusted realizing that there was a dismal amount of socks to be had. Well springs were being hooked left right and center, while socks were sparsely caught….well….at least where I was….

Late Summer

Sockeye! Yes, they finally show up, around the 22nd of August. Bang, Bang, Bang. Seemed to still be spotty. And extremely large amounts of boom, spring on! To be had by all. Sturgeon fishing was excellent. Had a couple plunk wack! Right away days. The hogs were just teasing us by jumping everywhere. Yet 5 feet was the largest landed.

Fall

Due to the amount of time I spent working I got out twice this fall!
1: A trip up the canyon, in pursuit for some sturgeon. No fish to be had, just one crazy hit and well…..that was it…amazing scenery though, and one hell of a boat ride : ).

2: A trip to Chehalis. People everywhere! Catching any Coho? “Nope” “Nope” “oh I saw one jump”. None seen nor caught. Managed a huge chum, wow, center pinning is fun! Everyone stared at me as I was apparently the first person to catch a fish all day, I showed up there at 3pm LOL. Hiked into a good secret spot, nope….they just weren’t there. Mind you this was late October.

Winter

Winter, well its hard to report now as the season has not really started yet.

Tight Lines & Best Wishes to all in 2007
Mike <”))))))><

 

[professori]

Winter
Started off the new year hitting the Vedder with Finder a couple of times looking for steelhead. First time out with Kevin, no fish but a great day on the water, a trek back to the road through the snow (and through some place out of Deliverance), topped of by me locking my keys in the back of my new truck. A hard tonneau is truly secure when it is locked. A locksmith and 80 bucks later and I was on my way!

Next trip out with Finder I managed to hook up......with my ear. Damn, no-one told me that spey casting had a dangerous learning curve. Was able to have the offending fly removed before getting to the pub for lunch. Decided I was getting nowhere with Kevin, so next trip out I went with Rookiespey. We both flogged the water to a froth in search and came up fishless. At least I didn't get another peircing. Not only did I get to know another great BCFR member, but I was able to rip off his design for a spey rod transport holder
.

A couple more solo trips and I finally hooked into a steelhead at KWB. only had it on for a couple of headshakes and it was gone. At least I touched one.
Spring
Started off the spring with a trip up to Kamloops in May. Had a meeting in Kamloops on a Wednesday, and headed up to Knouff right after. Got blown off the lake that afternoon, but the next day.......

Met up with some friends at Marquart later that same day (2 friends who are teachers and their fly fishing club from school). Although there was no snow, it was brutally cold. In 2 days fishing, we stayed around the fire whenever we weren't on the water. Among 8 of us we landed 3 fish. Didn't really see anything on the surface in that time.
Built 4 fly rods in March and April. Bought 2 Waterskeeter Speycast pontoon boats as well.

Summer
Started the summer by buying a an older 17' travel trailer. Took it on its maiden voyage to Community Lake the first week of June (yeah I know it's not
officially summer. Stayed 4 days. The fishing was slow. You could see 2-3 lb triploids cruising right under you, but they were pretty tight-lipped. We were able to land a few tho and managed to have some great suppers featuring fresh rainbows.

On the second day there I was heading back to shore and the mosquitos were just mauling me. As I took a swipe at some around my face I knocked my glasses (perscription) off my face and into about 20" of water. The next day I spent 3 hours in Kamloops getting anew pair made up. A couple of days after I got home I was looking for something in my glove compartment and found my spare glasses.
On the way home we stopped at Jocko Lake for a couple of hours and landed a couple of nice 4 lb'ers on scuds (something I've always carried with me but never used before).

June 15 Wendy and I packed up the trailer and headed out to visit my mom in Edmonton. After a couple of days there we headed south. Camped just outside of Carseland on the Bow river. The next day we drove to McKinnon Flats and put the boats in the river. Hired a shuttle service to come get the truck and drop it off down river before the weir. We had a beautiful 4 hour drift down river (covered 13 miles) and learned a bit about drifting on a big river, something we had never done before.

At one point, I hooked into an 18" rainbow and was playing it out in the main current just driftin downstream. I figured I should maybe anchor, so I dropped my 15# downrigger ball, but it just bounced along the bottom. It slowed me down enough though that Wendy was catching up to me. She didn't want to interfer with the fight, so she dropped her anchor also. She made a comment about how the anchors didn't seem to be doing much, when hers grabbed. I heard a yell behind me and looked over my shoulder. Wendy's boat was trying to bury the pontoon bows in the river. Wendy shifted her weight and the boat suddenly bucked up, standing almost straight up in the air on its stern. There was nothing I could do except watch Wendy lean as far forward as she could ....and the anchor let loose. We rowed to shore a few yards further downstream and took stock of everything. A close call but no harm to Wendy or the boat (she did get soaked but it was about 30°, so it was refreshing.) I did land the fish, but didn't get a photo.

We left the next day and drove to Cranbrook where we were spending a week with friends over the long weekend. Spent four days walking and fishing the St. Mary's river. 10 to 15 fish days every day.

After a week in Cranbrook we headed to Creston to visit my brother-in-law. On the way there we drifted the Moyie river.

From the highway the Moyie looks to be a dead-slow stream. When we launched on it we couldn't tell which way the current was flowing as the wind was blowing upstream at about 3 km/h. It was slow, so we had to row. Once we left sight of the highway the river changed character. It didn't get really wicked, but the current did pick up and there were a number of deadfalls on the river. At one point we came around a bend just to see a deadfall cut off the major arm of the river, leaving only a couple inches of depth on one side. I rowed hard to ground my boat, but Wendy got caught in the current and was swept into the deadfall. I managed to get out on the deadfall and was able to get Wendy and her gear off the boat and then using the anchor rope we freed the boat and drag it ashore and around the snag and get Wendy going again. I got back to my boat, got it around the fall and back into the current and we continued. For the next three miles, it was constant deadfalls, portages and occasional drifts. We were getting ready to spend the night out there, when the river came back to the highway and within 20 minutes we were at our truck.

We headed from Creston back up to Knouff lake to spend 3 days with friends who were heading to China in a couple of weeks. That is one of the nicest resorts i have been to. The lake is reasonably good fishing, the accomodations are rustic but well-maintained and Gloria and her staff are the best.

The rest of the summer was occupied with 6 or 8 trips to possibly my favorite river, the Skagit.

I made it out in late August to Pegleg with Finder to wet a fly for sockeye. No luck, but once again a great time learning some tricks and techniques. Kevin always makes a good companion, no matter the success rate.

Fall
The fall has been slow for me. I returned to work in September after a year's leave and have spent most of the semester just keeping up to speed. We did get out to Oliver for a weekend in mid September. I spent a morning walking the banks of the Okanagan river casting flies and enjoying the scenery.

As I was about to leave the river I came across a small school of Sockeye. I tossed flies at them hoping on the one hand to entice one to hit, on the other preparing to immediately point my 4 wt at him and break off. Neither happened.Only got out to the Stave a couple of times targetting coho, hooking chum :? I did build a couple more rods in September; a four piece 4 weight and a 9' 7 weight. I landed 12 - 15 chum on the new 7 wt. I remember the thrill I felt the first time I caught a fish on a fly I had tied myself, but that feeling pales compared to the one you get catching a fish on a rod you have built the day before. I'm still planning on getting out to some areas where there are traditionally
late runs of coho, and at least one steel hunting trip on the Vedder before the new year.

My apologies for an overlong look back on my year on the water. All in all it was year in which I was blessed with good friends, a wonderful wife and partner, some terrific adventures and the priviledge of fishing throughout this great province. May we all be as fortunate in in our pursuit of the wet things in the new year.

 

[Rib]

Great Idea for a thread Mike D!!! Nice! I am wondering though...What is your 3rd picture of? It's just a little small for my tired eyes here and I can't quite tell what it is I'm looking at...

Great reads from both you and prof...I really enjoyed those contributions. Prof...the name says it all I guess doesn't it? Well written little synopsis you have there... :wink: Like I said, great reads guys! A treat indeed!

I will try and put one together, but I didn't do much fishing this year...almost all steelhead, just a bit for salmon...we'll
see...
Keep it up...who's next?

 

[Mike D.]

Great Idea for a thread Mike D!!! Nice! I am wondering though...What is your 3rd picture of? It's just a little small for my tired eyes here and I can't quite tell what it is I'm looking at...

Great reads from both you and prof...I really enjoyed those contributions. Prof...the name says it all I guess doesn't it? Well written little synopsis you have there... :wink: Like I said, great reads guys! A treat indeed!

I will try and put one together, but I didn't do much fishing this year...almost all steelhead, just a bit for salmon...we'll
see...
Keep it up...who's next?

Thank you Rib,

That 3rd pic was a buddy pulling up my 6 footer! I have viewed this thread quite a few times today, and 50% of the time the pic was big/small....weird....

Mike <"))))))><

 

[professori]

can't delete post

 

[professori]

aaa

 

[marko]

Hey prof. your computer has run amuck!!!! :lol: ...Marko...

 

[Birdman]

Sanderson, those gum boots are freakin sweet :lol: Nice fish too

 

[Rib]

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[Mike D.]

Thanks for noticing the boots, they're part of my Super Beek costume.

Good one bud! I noticed that your also a guide for Bent Rods, did you do any guiding this past year?

Mike <")))))><

 

[GOFISH]

Port Hardy last fall was sweet trip. My buddy Don and I were into lots of fish, the scenery and nature surrounding us was awesome. Can't wait for a return trip.

After a bountiful season of steelheading Don and I focused on Sturgeon fishing ..... here's some early pics of the season...

As the year progressed we switched gears and focused on bar fishing for Springs...

Gotta love the camp outs on the river...

Even found time for a weeks holidays after an operation relaxing on Osoyoos Lake...

Hooked up with Big Steel & another member of the site on a rare solo weekend for a pleasant day of Sockeye fishing...

Ended the year off in style with some nice Sturgeon again...

Good Luck to all in the fishing year ahead,

GOFISH 8)