Fishing Country

     Well, the waitress was a fisher, a fan of small lakes. She naturally had a terrible memory for lake names  - yeah, me too - but I found this interesting. And then I needed mosquito repellent (it was June, remember) and the sport shop attendant was persuasive. Hey, we've got the best trout fishing in B.C. around here, everything from big lake trolling to pond fishing. River action, too. Just what are you after?"

     My, my.

     "Well, I'd like a smallish lake where I could rent a cabin, maybe catch some trout on the fly."

     "Big trout or little ones?" he asked.

     "Well, I'm open on that," I said, and he then got out a map and gave me some choices.

     Which is why I changed my plans, missed stopping at a favorite Burns Lake area lake, and just barely  made my ferry home to the Charlottes. Vanderhoof is very definitely a fishing destination and I am still  mourning the years I've ignored it.

     I cannot speak about the fishing north, east or west of town but the action south, where I went, is pretty special. And, please realize, I had no time for serious exploration. I simply blundered along.

     Blundering, I did not pause to fish either Nulki or Tachick lakes, They're not far out of town, largish and just didn't appeal. Mistake number one - though not so much missing Nulki, which has some problems. Though enhancement action there is in the works, rainbow trout seem to be declining. Tachick, however, is another story. Like Nulki, it has always had trout (big ones, too) but a massive coarse fish populations low. Annual stockings of yearling rainbows (large enough to evade the worst of the squawfish predation and compete with other coarse fish) have changed that. Serious fishers can fare remarkably well here now; and even beginners have a chance. Adult trout range between five and ten pounds, with several 14 pounders noted on last year's spawning beds.

     But I knew none of this until later.

     No matter, I'd not want to have to missed the places I visited instead.

     I headed straight to Nechako Lodge near Kenney Dam, about a two-hour drive (at cautious speed) over good ravel road. The lodge is right on Knewstubb Lake (a euphemism for Kenney Dam's reservoir). The reservoir is surprisingly attractive and holds enormous trout (the lodge walls displayed many recent photos of coho-sized fish) but you troll quite a while between strikes, and the flooded forest under the water surface is a real grabber of lures and downrigger balls. Sonar is most helpful here, as is patience - though smaller trout and kokanee can be caught right in front of the lodge. Tout rose splendidly the night I watched them.

     Good trout are taken from the river just below the dam too, but none of this much interested me. No, I was here to fish nearby Houston and Cicuta (a.k.a. Rum Cache) lakes. My Vanderhoof mentor told me to expect outrageously large trout in these lakes so I rented a pleasant log cabin at Nechako Lodge, got directional advice and headed out to Cicuta Lake (the road to Hobos was reported too rough for my aged station wagon). A flat tire and wrong road turn made the trip a rout, and a bonanza for the local mosquito population, but I was on on Cicuta the next morning., dreams of twelve-pounders dancing in my head.

     Cicuta Lake was naturally barren but was stocked in 1986 with Kamloops-strain rainbows (Badger-Tunkwa stock), creating a fishery reminiscent of the old days around Kamloops. . The trout grew explosively (reaching four pounds in their second year and over 10 pounds at maturity). They were able to spawn in the creek's inlet too, but heavy fishing pressure soon threatened establishment or a permanent fishery. Word of ten-pounders does spread. Oh my, yeas. Even with regulations that now require release of all trout over 50cm and a two-fish limit for smaller trout. Cicuta Lake (considering its diminutive size) was the heaviest fish lake I've seen in years. The Sunday I fished it, all camp and parking areas were filled - and I'm including improvised spaces. I was able to park only because a kindly camper invited me to hem him in, he wasn't planning to leave for several days.

     "I love these secret lakes," I told him.

     Sadly, the bad press is often deserved, and some lakes seem not to recover even after years of light pressure. Others, however, do bounce back. I think more of that is happening these days. Reduced limits and a growing belief in voluntary restraint clearly aid lake recovery and may prevent the worst original decline. For what it's worth, I can sure you that at least two small lakes in the area, both reportedly "fished out", hold fair numbers of trout the same size as most of those I took in Cicuta.  I know this because I took a good trout from each of them despite my one-person boat developing a valve leak that required regular return to shore for serious huffing and puffing. It was hard to fish at all cannily and being soaked as well ( my leg didn't fit in the boat), I didn't last long. God, but I longed for a canoe, a float tube, or, most of all, a decent row boat.

     I left the next morning, greatly regretting that I'd barely scratched the surface of fishing in the area. A week or two fishing the lakes I'd visited would have been grand and I completely missed out on the less accessible lakes.   That was my greatest regret. Glance at a map of the area and you'll see many lakes and ponds without road access. Now, sure, some are barren and some are over-populated. Others, though, are the stuff of dreams. A few even produce wild trout - evolved here - that run to 10-pound plus size. I heard tales of these implausibly huge fish ( in lakes little large than ponds) from just about everyone I met about remained skeptical - even when offered an ATV trek with a "no ten-pounder, no pay" guarantee. It seemed that the high fertility combined with intermittent spawning success on a few lakes has given an evolutionary shove toward development of long-lived fish without he size to produce large egg volume during those years spawning succeeds. I'm intrigued.

     Next year....

Ron Nelson
BC Outdoors