Oh, Canada

Published 11:59 am Wednesday, July 6, 2011

I just returned from two, back-to-back road trips in British Columbia, having spent a lot of hours in a truck and then an SUV.

The first trip to my favorite lake, Dragon in Quesnel, was a bust. After a 10-hour drive, we stopped to buy a license at a sport shop only to learn that Dragon had been bad fishing for the previous week.

That was a Friday night.

On Saturday, we were among four people on the entire lake, which is pretty massive. Actually there were six people if you count the two water skiers. The lack of anglers should have been a clue.

The lake had recently turned over, and we just couldn’t find any decent hatches or any fish.

So we hightailed it to Fawn Lake north of Kamloops. It’s a much smaller lake and it, too, didn’t have a lot hatching. It was stormy and cool. But there was a decent caddis hatch and the fish really liked a black leech. Most of them were between two and four pounds.

The highlight was a small hatch of traveler sedges. We caught some nice fish on a size 8 sedge dry fly.

On the second trip, I hit Corbett Lake near Merritt.

There was a lot more hatching, chironomids, mayflies and damsel flies.

The best fish was a little over eight pounds, caught by Dale Dennis from Arlington.

I got one near seven, and so did Chuck Morrison. We caught a lot of fish in the five and six pound range.

I got to listen to a lot of blues on satellite radio during the trip, with a medley featuring truck stop women, trailer park women and outside women. But I wasn’t singing the blues. It was a great trip.