Is this weather great or what? It came late, yes, but we will take it.
I left my favourite area and fishery for the last segment of this series. The Thompson is a tried and true fly fisherman’s river. She doesn’t give up her trophies to easily, but she does give them often enough to keep the wonder in it. The section from Lytton to Ashcroft is an enigma. Daytime temperatures in this region are often the second hottest in North America, only one area in Arizona gets hotter. Fishing in the evening at these times has a tropical feel with thermometer reading 30 degrees Celsius well past midnight. This is the stuff written about by Hemingway, Zane Grey, Jack London and the like; wading wet in the moon light, after a fire-red sundown, when salmon flies (the largest of the stoneflies, some measuring up to three inches in length) raise trout to two-and-a-half feet in length.
Did I do well in the Thompsom? Of course, I did. It’s why I’m drawn to the town of Spences Bridge every August. Big fish and big flies; I tie my adult stonefly imitations on size four Atlantic salmon dry fly hooks. “Sacrilege,” some would claim; I pay them no mind. They aren’t the one experiencing the aggressive slash, grab, and run, of a two-foot trout, just out of sight, somewhere the blackness of the night.
The report
Our Lower Mainland lakes are fishing fair to slow. For wet (sinking) fly trout fishing try: Coachman, Zulu, Wooly Bugger, Dragonfly Nymph, Damsel Nymph, Sixpack, Doc Spratley, Pumpkinhead, or Baggy Shrimp. For evening dry (floating) fly trout fishing try: Tom Thumb, Irresistible, Royal Coachman, Renegade, Elk hair Caddis, Black Gnat, Griffith Gnat, or Lady McConnel. For kokanee try: Red Ibis, Double Trude, Blood Worm, San Juan Worm, Red Spratley, or Red Carey. For bass try: Zonker, Clouser’s Deep Minnow, Lefty’s Deceiver, Dolly Whacker, Big Black, Wooly Bugger, Foam Frog, Poppers, Chernobyl Ant, or Crayfish. For panfish try: Wooly Bugger, Micro Leach, Bucktail, Dolly Whacker, Bloodworm, Chironomid, Poppers, Turks Tarantula, Tom Thumb or Irresistible.
The Fraser is fishing slow for cutthroat, dolly varden, and spring. For cutthroat try: Rolled Muddler, Professor, Anderson Stone, Zulu, American Coachman, Renegade, Tom Thumb, Black Gnat, Chez Nymph, and Irresistible. For dolly varden try: Zonker, Eggo, Clouser’s Minnow, Big Black, or Dolly Whacker, in sizes 4 and 8. For spring try: lead-heading with size 4 to 2, Eggo, Big Black, Flat Black, Wooly Bugger, Kaufmann Stone, Squamish Poacher, or Red Spratley.
The Harrison is fair for cutthroat.
The Vedder is slow for rainbow, and cutthroat. For rainbow try: Kaufmann Stone, Big Black, Black Gnat, Souboo, Zulu, Renegade, Tom Thumb, Chernobyl Ant, Foam Hopper, or Irresistible.
The Thompson is good for rainbow.
- By Jeff Weltz