Having A Lake To Yourself
How many times have you fished a 500-acre-plus lake full of 20-inch trout - some as long as one of your legs - and had the lake all to yourself?
Well, not quite to yourself. The only other angler on the lake may have been your fishing partner.
Dwight Tipton and I fished a British Columbia lake north of Radium Hot Springs a few days ago that’s a scenic paradise and the home of bald eagles, loons and a variety of other birds. Everywhere we paddled our pontoon boats, we saw big Gerard strain rainbows cruising over the marl bottom looking for something to eat. Rugged snow-capped peaks of the Bugaboo mountain range and a dense forest of Engelman spruce and tall pines formed a backdrop.
So what’s the catch? The lake is off the beaten path. In British Columbia, “off the beaten path” means you often have to drive over incredibly bad roads to get to where you want to go.
The 1.7-mile-long road to the lake - if the glorified path can be dignified as a road - was filled with potholes so deep they’d make Spokane’s worst look and feel like a gentle bump. And the puddles were so big and deep the fisheries department could plant them with trout. With Tipton’s big pontoon boat roped precariously on top of my pickup, I drove even slower than usual. The potholes were so concentrated it was impossible to miss them all, so my truck was rocking and rolling much of the time.
OK, so I’m exaggerating. But only a little.
Nearly all anglers fish out of float tubes, canoes, rafts and pontoon boats. Getting a small car-top boat from the parking area down to the lake can be a major undertaking.
Even getting our pontoon boats to the lake’s edge wasn’t easy. Mine weighs 54 pounds. Tipton’s bigger boat weighs more than 85 pounds. They’re both awkward to carry.
If it hadn’t been for Tipton, I would have had to dismantle my pontoon boat and carry it down in pieces.
Tipton, owner of the Evergreen Truss and Supply Co. at Deer Park, is incredibly strong. With a steel bar on the boats digging into his back, he carried the boats and 10-pound anchors several hundred feet down to the water, crossing slippery, muddy sections in the trail. When we were ready to return to his motor home, he carried the boats back up the steep trail. I carried the oars, depth finders, fly rods and swim fins.
Not many anglers, including Canadians, drive over the rutty path that passes for a road and then work hard to get to and from the lake.
By the same token, another lake we fished was so popular with Canadians, mostly fly fishers, that the small parking area was jammed with six or seven vehicles. As many as 15 anglers fished the 80-acre lake while we were there. To Canadians, that was a slobbering mob.
The lake is only a quarter of a mile off a first-class gravel road.
The big rainbows in the more remote lake weren’t easy to catch. Although some midges, mayflies and caddisflies hatched, choosing the right fly patterns and presenting them where they’d attract the trout often failed to bring strikes. They’d ignore flies that didn’t satisfy them.
On our first trip to the lake, Tipton got on the water before me and started working the shoreline. He uickly discovered a big pod of rainbows, some in the area to spawn and most to eat the eggs of the spawners.
Tiny midges were hatching when he anchored his boat. He tied on a Lady McConnell, a pattern that suggests a hatching chironomid. He soon hooked a 20-incher.
Finally, I joined him and anchored near him. By that time, he had caught several big fish. He stayed awhile and then went exploring the rest of the lake. I caught four of the 20-inch plus rainbows on sizes 16 Lady McConnells and Parachute Adams.
We returned to the lake a couple of days later and Tipton immediately headed for the spot where he had experience previous success. He had competition. An immature bald eagle was perched on a pine tree overlooking the pod of rainbows.
The eagle wasn’t about to give up his claim to his dinner. He had arrived first and wasn’t as wary of people as his parents. Tipton got out his point-and-shoot camera and took the bird’s picture. The flash may have alarmed the eagle. It took off and flew low along the shoreline. I wasn’t quite ready as it passed about 20 feet in front of me, its huge wings creating a loud whooshing sound. A missed photo opportunity.
As we were leaving the lake, loons sang their eerie, haunting calls. Tipton, a satisfied fly fisher, said he had caught more rainbows 20 inches or longer during our two trips to the lake than he had caught in years. We saw one rainbow that must have weighed nearly 10 pounds, but we couldn’t get it to sample our offerings.
An hour or so later, after we bounced and rocked over the rut-filled road, Tipton cooked big steaks over the charcoal burner. After dinner, he built a fire and we watched the clouds turn orange just before sunset and fought off an army of mosquitoes.