Why I Don't Like Ice Fishing

When I lived in British Columbia my enjoyment of fishing blossomed. I had always liked fishing but when I discovered a book by R. Haig-Brown and through it Fly fishing my enjoyment turned to a passion It is hard to explain how something so fundamentally simple can be so engrossing. It is just difficult enough to be a challenge yet straight forward enough to reward any effort.


The advantage to making this discovery while living in B.C. was that it seemed that every brook and puddle was full of fish. One didn't need to be an expert to connect with a trout or two, even from the first.

 Seasons were long and the weather tolerable throughout the year so fishing could be a year round avocation. I was living on Richter Street in Kelowna at the time.

One crisp, January day my fishing buddy and I set out to try our hand at ice fishing. I stood in the yard beside my car and absorbed the pure, crisp morning. The sun was rising, bathing everything in a reddish glow. There was just the hint of a fruity, grape scent from the winery barely penetrating my awareness as I tried to blow a smoke ring with the puffs of vapour my breathing created with each exhalation.

The promise of the morning, as I crunched through the the snow the last few feet to my car, washed over me like the sun finally topping the roofs of the neighbouring houses.

We were headed for Bear Lake, a beautiful alpine pothole nestled in the hills above the west side of the Okanagan Valley. I knew this lake to be loaded with small Rainbow Trout. The trout in this region are a unique strain known as Kamloops Trout. Feisty and aggressive, they can grow to tremendous size but my experience on this lake was that the trout were small but plentiful.

It was a perfect place for a fledgling fly fisherman so doubtless a great spot for some January ice fishing.
We used a hatchet to cut a hole in the ice. Take my word for it when I tell you, that is the worst way to do it. About six inches down, the water started welling up into the hole and the next few minutes were a cold, soaking, splashing, mess.

Each stroke of the axe sent ice water flying but didn't make much progress toward opening a fishable hole.
Eventually we got an unsymmetrical gouge hacked through the ice. Of course we were so wet and cold by then that we took another hour to gather some wood, build a fire and warm up enough to be interested in fishing again.

In the meantime the hole had frozen again but that was quickly dealt with and we soon had lines dangling.
One eye for the rod tips, one eye for smoking boot tips, we waited, huddled just a little too close to the fire to avoid being scorched. Man it was cold.

For bait we were using the West Coast traditional ice fishing bait -Niblets Brand canned corn. I don't know why, but it works. One kernel on a tiny hook and a small handful thrown into the hole is the standard recipe. Within a few minutes we had our first fish.

The rod tip started shaking and I snatched it up off the ice. There was a substantial weight on the other end which I just derricked straight up and out of the hole. Within seconds and with no ceremony at all there lay flopping on the ice the biggest trout I had ever caught.

I didn't even know that there were fish of this size in this lake. Just then my partner's rod started thumping and he repeated the snatch and derrick to leave another trout laying at our feet. This one was if anything a little bigger than the first. And so it went until we each had three magnificent Kamloops Rainbows and decided to call it a day. It was barely ten o'clock in the morning.

I should have been happy but the truth is I was flummoxed. Having spent hours carefully crafting flies to match the fauna of this particular lake, having spent days reading the water and sweat practising with wispy leaders to put the perfect cast in front of a cruising fish, I had never managed to land anything even close to these trout, these trout taken almost off-handed on a kernel of Niblets corn.

I guess that it didn't feel sporting or even gentlemanly. The poor buggers were probably so cold that they were willing to do anything to get a little closer to the fire we had going up on the ice.
The day was pleasant and the company superb. The fishing though, well I guess it was too good. I was faintly ashamed of myself and resolved that if I couldn't entice fish like these fair and square with a well planned and well placed fly I would leave them unmolested henceforth.

And so it is that I don't ice fish. I do however tie a great imitation of a Niblets corn kernel in a number twelve and am presently working on a little fly pattern I call the Kraft Mini-marshmallow.

Joyeux Noel and Merry Christmas!

A long time ago when I lived in Kelowna, British Columbia I got up early one Christmas morning and drove up into the foothills to take a few casts for winter trout. It was pre-children so my wife and I had only one obligation that day, Christmas dinner at the Teel’s. They were wonderful people, the parents of my fishing buddy and friend, Paul. The morning was glorious. As I drove the winding road to the higher elevations, patches of snow showed here and there along the creek becoming thicker and more persistent. My plan was to spend an hour or two and be home before my wife woke up and got started on the Christmas day bustle. It is hard to describe the beauty of a mountain creek on a still day. It is even harder to describe the pleasure of being able to enjoy it on a whim.

At one point I looked down and noticed a small black stone-fly crawling over the snow, then another. There was a hatch coming off of what my friend called ice-flies. Quickly changing flies to match the hatch I flicked a cast into a foamy pocket behind a dead-fall. The response was instantaneous as a silver missile erupted from the water. It was incredible fishing. The kind we all dream about. A glacier fed creek, a curtain of snow capped mountains as a back drop and those wonderful Kamloops Rainbows. How could a Christmas morning be better? And then I looked at my watch. Trust me when I tell you that there may be excuses for being late to Christmas dinner that will earn you forgiveness and tolerance. “But there was a hatch coming off” is not one of them. Even now, when I hear people speak of the Christmas Miracle I wonder if they are referring to the fact that I’m still married to the same girl.
Joyeux Noel and Merry Christmas!

The Santa image comes from this site.

The Doc Spratley and Kamloops Trout

Doc Spratley fly

 The other day I was thinking about a fly called the Doc Spratley. The fly is named after a dentist who happened to be in the shop when the fly was being tied for the first time by Dick Prankard, who originated the pattern around 1949 in Mt Vernon, Washington.



It is a deadly pattern I first used in Postill Lake, British Columbia for Kamloops trout.

Kamloops trout are rainbow trout. They are well adapted to the clear, rich waters of Canada's west. They eagerly take a fly, fight with lots of jumps, grow to an impressive size and are great table fare too.

If ever "Intelligent Design" advocates need an example to prove their point, the Kamloops Trout sure seems like it was custom built for the fly fisherman.

I was just beginning my fascination with fly-fishing in those days and we fished the lake by trolling a black Doc Spratley slowly around the edges. We regularly caught a bunch of fish.

My main fishing buddy in those days was Nick Palmaruk. Nick is a great guy with a wicked sense of humour. At the time, he was the chef at a downtown hotel in Kelowna. One of the traditions that evolved early in our fishing trips was that we would take fairly elaborate lunches.

I only mention this because when I was in my twenties I'd regularly fish all day on a can of Pepsi and a chocolate bar. I'd barely stop for a pee, let alone for lunch. It was a completely foreign concept to me.

 A typical day's outing would involve meeting in the pre-dawn, loading the lunch and gear then heading up into the foothills of the mountains in my old Nissan pick-up. The narrow logging road was an adventure in itself. Every blind curve, of which there were plenty, could reveal a fully loaded logging truck barreling down upon us.

As a chef, Nick when it was his turn to provide the lunch, would provide an incredible feast, foi gras stuffed cold pheasant breast with an aspic glaze sort of thing complete with a three-foot baguette and a very good bottle of wine. Of course I felt obliged, when it was my turn, to at least match his effort so I'd get extra crispy on the bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken and never diet cola, only the real thing was good enough.

Postill Lake BC

I remember one particular day as we were trolling along with mixed success. I was holding the motor control arm with one hand, eating a drumstick with the other and watching my rod tip carefully as I listened to Nick expound on the importance of good food.

Apparently this particular bucket of chicken didn't exactly represent the state of the art of culinary expertise, at least as practiced in the better restaurants of the day. I calmly finished my drumstick and carefully brought his line in hand over hand across the transom, cautious not to alert him to anything unusual going on in the back of the boat. As his fly came into my hand I hooked the well-cleaned chicken bone onto it and then, just as carefully, let the line back out. When it reached the end I gave it one good tug.

"Hello", he hollered and started an epic battle to land what he expected to be another good trout. The fact that it wasn't jumping convinced him that it was in fact a big fish, bigger than any I'd caught that day anyway.

That’s when I learned an important lesson about delaying the bragging until you have the fish in your net. Nick hadn't learned it yet so he kept up a steady stream of chatter until it slowly dawned on him that this was too strange and one-sided a battle to be a fish.

He fell silent and continued to reel in line until he was holding his leader. Dangling below his hand was the beautiful Doc Spratley fly with a well-stripped chicken bone firmly attached.

He slowly turned and gave me a cold stare. "Damn" he said. "He got my bait."



image of fly from www.thechronicflyfisher.com/HOME.HTML