We had a new guide for day 3, Skeed from Northern Lights Lodge on Quesnel lake was going to do his best to get us into some decent rainbows in some beautiful waters. There were only a couple fish caught this day so all of the shots are just scenery. The guides in the area were spending evenings on the phone with each other because they'd never had the fish be so uncooperative before. We hardly noticed, we were still getting a half dozen trout per outting which by my standards was pretty good. Apparently we should have been hooking up with a dozen or so fish per pool and with double digit 20"er's per day. But like i said, it was hard to notice because we were getting hits and the view was always spectacular.
The first walk and wade stop was a large pool with a strong back eddy that introduced us to some new fishing techniques.
this is the two of us, she has a dry fly in the slower water and i am pitching a nymph into the fast current, stripping my line to the backing and then slowly bringing it back along the seam. I had trouble keeping fish hooked with so much line out and no barbs (love the barbless fishing though).
I also got introduced to fishing what i called boiling water. The water moved so fast that in some of the smaller pools it would upwell like springs and cause wacky currents that you wouldn't even think of fishing. Skeed had me tie on a dry fly and "just let it drown in the currents". I stripped out 20' of line, roll casted into the mess and thought "he has to be friggin nuts" until i was hooking fish and getting hits every few casts.
The guide had left me to go see how Charlene was doing so i have no photos to prove i caught fish in that pool. Looking up that big rock wall was incredible, it was a couple hundred feet high at least and the eagles and osprey would perch on some of the trees that were hanging on its steep face.
Next we moved to a pool at Skeed's friend's place. She woke up every morning, not more than a 50 feet from this view
We managed a few small trout from this spot but didn't take and fish pictures. It was a beautiful day and we were too busy enjoying the view and Skeed's knowledge of the area to worry about taking pictures of 12" trout. Skeed took us back to the Lodge for a Pop and to shoot the breeze a little longer. Everyone we met in BC treated us so well it made us feel like we were hanging out with close friends.
Day 4 - Caribou River
Day four brought about another guide, Walter from Skeed's lodge in Likely BC. We were loaded into the "Bush truck" and told we were going to travel to some remote pools in hopes to hook us up with some big fish. We had been told to show up a couple hours earlier than expected because they wanted us to get first crack at the pools. Of course, we were happy to complie.
Here we are in front of the bush truck
The morning started out well, Charlene was fishing streamers for Bull Trout and i was using dries and nymphs for Bows. It wasn't too long before she got into a BIG fish
That fish became the "one that got away", Walter figures it was a very large bull trout. It moved into a pocket and just waited until Charlene the hook came out from trying to horse it out of its hole. Walter blamed himself for that one getting away, he thought Char might of been snagged but the fish had taken line before the hook came out. This brought on lunch at Caribou Falls.
After lunch we fished below the falls for a little bit, Char got the biggest Rainbow (17") of her week on a prince nymph
We then moved down river a bit and Char began to put on a Bull trout clinic. Starting with her biggest at 21"
Her post release reaction made my week.
She made a couple more casts and then had this 20" bull still on a Prince Nymph
At this point i was persuaded to toss my little flies into the back of my pack and pull out the big streamer flies. I took a perch on a rock above a swirling mess Walter called a "pool" and not 5 minutes later had a 19" bull in the net. We released it quickly without a picture because it was bleeding and we didn't want to stress the fish too much. Three casts later I set the hook into a solid weight and held on for what seemed like an eternity to land this 25" Bull.
All told I landed 5 bull trout in a little over an hour. Charlene had 2 landed and a tonne more on. She said after she realized what the hits felt like she probably had close to 20 fish on that day. The bull trout don't hit or fight like other trout. There are no head shakes, just solid driving power and a lot of holding at the bottom of a pool.
We took many many more pictures, some of which can be seen on my photobucket site if you're intereseted http://s152.photobucket.com/albums/s165/Gravelguy4/.
It truly was a trip of a lifetime (although we're going back so maybe it's one out of many trips of a lifetime...). I would recommend Tyee Lake Resort to anyone looking to stay in comfort while fishing remote waters.
I guess that's enough from me.
thanks for letting me share.
My Favorite picture from the week... Char with the 21" bull on sharing a good laugh with our guide Walter.
I love that woman....
. Now that I've taken up the fly, I've goy to work on getting her into it so we can put places like that on the list of cool places to catch fish.
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You have been fortunate to fish some of the most prestine waters in the world.