2011 Retrospective

I was a bad blogger in 2011. I posted nothing! I lost enthusiasm, I guess... Anyhow, here are a few photographs from my year of flyfishing in 2011:

December 2010

I know 2010 is not 2011. I just had to include these photos, though:

Alison of the North

Intrepid Alison braves the elements

Scott readies the net while Alison plays another fish (and I continue to go fishless...)

Quality time

Yes, she caught several!

Success!

Jordan got a dandy

Fire is a great invention!

It was this big!

2011

January

Don's new pram in the shop getting buffed up.

January fishing is coooold!

February

Yes, we are crazy...

Scott and Trevor getting ready to brave the water

Yes, it was cold!

ZZ-Top flyfisherman

A nice break from the cold

March

Don's news pram ready for delivery

Methow steelhead eat chironomids

Nice Methow steelhead

Mt. Gardner Inn, our Methow digs

Savas and Angus getting ready for action

Savas with a nice Methow steelhead

This steelhead ate the dropper

Perry's first steelhead, and on the fly!

Chironomid at the tip o' the lip

A clean Methow steelhead

Jack helping a new tyer at the Tradex, an annual event

Phil demonstrates retrieves at the Tradex show

Don't drool... ;-)

Ken takes a break from teaching new tyers

Space Invaders, Canadian-style!

Does it look cold? Good! It was!

Rainbows like alevins

Beer n' Wine (alevin)

Brrr... At least the fish were biting!

The cold was worth it. Scott's a happy angler!

April

Spey casting master Simon Gawesworth at the Michael & Young Spey Clave

Early season Sawmill Lake 'Bow

While Lake Observatory en route to Sawmill Lake

April also brought one of the highlights of the year: Barry's Grad Celebration Supper.

Barry, Marie and the Big E

May

Double-header!

Nice May Rainbow from Roche Lake

Nice Roche Rainbow

Spratley on one of his last trips to Tunkwa. He loved it there!

Don and Brad with a double-header!

Don in his new pram with a nice fish at our new favourite lake.

Another nice May Rainbow from one of my new favourite lakes

I think Don likes his new pram!

Getting to the fave lake is not easy. Don gets his truck dirty.

Some other guys have the same favourite lake...

Gotta love a pram!

June

The first highlight of the year: Barry receiving his Bachelor of Applied Science degree from UBCO

Proud family

Happy guy!

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Seven Half-Diamond Ranch

Nice saloon!

A typical Seven Half-Diamond Ranch fish

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Shuswap Lake

Jim playing a nice one. I think he's enjoying himself!

They were fat!

Who cares if it's raining!

A dandy (the fish, that is... ;-))

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Springvalley Middle School Fish Out

The Fishin' Magician

A family affair!

Waiting for a bite

C'mon fish!

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Check out the size of this Tunkwa nighttime fireside guest!

Good ol' Spratley. Rest in peace, my friend.

July

Kettle River Trout Tagging

Jimmy looking for some fish to tag

The lads after a hard day at the office

A tagged Kettle River rainbow trout

Angling-for-tagging is tough work!

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A self-portrait attempt

Limeys!

This one's missing its maxillary

A Tunkwa fish in the algae

Wendy's first fish of the year, and it's a nice one!

Hmmm... I think chironomids are hatching! :-)

Tunkwa bomber. 'See why we like to use the Kraft Dinner?

Adult bomber

Big shiny chironomid pupa

This one ate a big shiny chironomid pupa (aka bomber)

Sometimes the fish don't cooperate for the self-portrait...

Ditto!

Bloodworms were on the menu!

This one cooperated (or my timing was better...)

Mmmm... Sedges!

This one ate the pupa!

I love it when these guys hatch!

August

My first Skeena steelhead

Salmon fishing was good!

Hu belts out a nice cast

Check out the colour of that flesh!

Hu the fashionista

Nom nom nom!

I'm glad we only met this fellow when he was behind glass!

A nice Skeena steelhead

Another nice Skeena steelhead

Jack with a chromer

Red Lake Brookie. They're fatties!

Yum!

Double-yum! I'm spoiled... :-)

September

The second highlight of the year: Barry and Marie got engaged!

I didn't expect to see this guy so early

Thanks to BC Outdoors for the cool hat and hoody!

Expert Vedder fisherman

Yes, it's salmon season on the Vedder!

Yee haw, a redneck (faux) wedding! See also this YouTube video and this one

October

Shaggy and Shaggy Jr at the FlyBC Lundbom Fish-In - gotta love it!

Those Merritt grasslands make me sigh...

What a gorgeous lake!

Boatmen were working!

Another one falls to the boatman

Scott nets an egg-eater

A great way to spend a fall day

A little fatty!

Don leans into one in the morning mist

Surreal fishing

Success!

A little fish karma bites back...

Don lands a nice one

Nice bull

Jack fights his first Methow steelhead

Jim at the end of the rainbow on the Methow

What a beautiful river valley!

Average Methow wild steelhead

Springs spawning near some fish-counting traps

Traffic and snakes don't mix well. This poor little rattler met his end on a bridge over the Methow River

Nice looking run

Nice little steelhead

We like fishing!

Nice Methow cutthroat

A sweet river

Cheers!

November

Thompson steelhead on the fly. Love it!

Green-Butt Skunk does the trick

Joedy waiting for the grab

Sean belts one out

Fishin' buddies

One of my last fish of 2011. What a great year!

Hmmm. I wonder if the lake will be frozen?

Yup, it's frozen!

Gotta love urban lakes to save the day!

December

Another prize! :-) Thanks Rodney and Dragonfly!

Al, the steelhead maestro, and Zach with a late-season Thompson fish

Zach leans into one in the Graveyard Pool

Nice fish, Zach!

So long 2011. Hello 2012!

Long time no post...

Sigh... Summer is long gone. Work has been very busy, thus the lack of posts. I had planned on only keeping a summer blog, anyhow, but as time permits I'll at least pop a few images up from time-to-time.

You might have notice the new banner image. I was at a South Okanagan lake last weekend for a day of fall fishing (the days sure are short now!) and, during a break in the rain I spied those beautiful colours and snapped a quick photo. Gotta love those fall colours!

Speaking of colourful, here's a fish from that day - lots of colour for a triploid!:

Here's a fish caught near the end of summer from a 4x4 only lake near Tunkwa 

Here's a fatty from Kidd Lake, caught on our way home from one of our last weekends at Tunkwa

Adams River sockeye - the gulls like to eat the eyes first...

Red Lake football brookie caught near the end of the season

One of the last Tunkwa fish of the summer - a decent one!

Time for bed.

Cheers! KW

On top of ol' Greenstone

A couple of days ago Alison, Lucas, Jim and I went for a bit if a 4x4 adventure to the top of Greenstone Mountain, the site of several radio and microwave towers and an old forest fire lookout. We managed to get the Explorer to within ~100m of the top. The last bit is steep and rocky, but no problem in low range, and the ground is very solid (i.e. rocky!) so there was no chance of damage to the terrain.

Greenstone is the highest point in the area and the views are great in all directions. We could see Tunkwa and Leighton Lakes in one direction, Kamloops Lake looking in another direction, and the Thompson River and Kamloops in yet another direction.

The lookout is at the highest point of Greenstone, and it ominously has a lightning rod on the peak of its roof! It would be quite a thrill to be up there during a thunderstorm...

Here are some photographs from our visit:

Lucas, Alison and Jimmy at the lookout

Lucas, Alison & Jimmy with Tunkwa Lake in the distant background

Me, Alison & Lucas

It was windy up there!

Alison in the wind

Inside the forest fire lookout

Lookit that!

We added to the graffiti...

Yup, it was windy...

On our way back we drove past Dominic Lake Fishing Camp where many of the fence posts nearby have hats perched on them. Since I first saw them I've wanted to add one to the collection, so we stopped and Alison placed a hat that I had found on the road a while back:

Alison calls the hats a "wilderness meme".

Cheers! KW

Fishing here and there

Fishing has been spotty since I got back from Terrace. Some days have been pretty good, while other days have been slow. On the bright side, we finally tried out a lake we'd driven by, but never fished, ever since we've been coming to Tunkwa. What a pleasant surprise! It has wild fish that fight well, and the best bomber chironomid hatch I've seen so far this year. Here are some pics from a couple of days of fishing the new (to us) lake:

A rare calm day on our "new" lake

There are some nice fish in there

There are some bombers, too!

Spratley in an old homestead we found during a shore break

Another nice fatty

It's usually like this, which is why we never stopped to fish it!

The fish still bite, though!

Chironomids have a tough life. Fish eat the pupa, and if birds don't get the adults, damselflies get 'em.

We've also fished some other local lakes lately. Wendy had her first ever trip up to Island (Big OK) Lake the other day when we went up with Brad & Shawna. Fishing was OK, but not as good as earlier this summer. Most of the fish were skinny and/or dark - quite a contrast to the nice fish we were catching in July. We also fished Morgan Lake; it was slow with mostly small, dark fish caught. We popped down to check out the Thompson at Savona a couple of days ago, and we saw a steady stream of sockeye swimming by. Not much chance for trout when there are so many sockeye around!

Happily, fishing picked up here at Tunkwa a few days ago and we got into some nice fish.

We're getting some nice fish from Tunkwa these days 

 Alison, Lucas, Mom and Jim came for a visit a couple of days ago, and the wind commenced to howling, so we haven't fished for a couple of days.
Alison, Lucas, Jimmy and I went for a 4x4 trip up to Greenstone Mountain yesterday - stay tuned for pix from the old forest fire lookout up there!

Cheers! KW

My arms are tired...

Well, I've been back from the Skeena for a few days. I went to Terrace to fish with friends Hu and Jack from Vernon. The lads picked me up in Savona and we drove straight there - 14 hours! - fished for 9 days, then Hu and I drove straight back while Jack stayed to fish for a few more days with some other friends. A quote from "The River Why" by David James Duncan sums up our schedule: "Eat. Sleep. Fish. Repeat."

Here are a few of my photographs from the trip:

Hu on our first day

 Jack on our first day

Jack fights a fish at Ferry Island

My new Redington CPX 12664, CDL reel and Skagit 425 - perfect for Skeena sox, coho and pinks

We use bright flies!

Sadly, it was very windy at China Bar which made flyfishing tough that day

Jack catching a few Zs at China Bar

Hu prepares to fillet one of our nice sockeye

Look at that red flesh!

We ran into Fred and Inge almost every day

Fred makes his own hooks!

One of Fred's flies, tied on his handmade hook

The weather was a bit variable this year...

Fishing in the rain

One day a bear decided to join the party

Anglers on a run near Terrace

Hu off on a stroll with a fish

I caught this fish 5 minutes after it was released by Hu. It didn't fight at all and the distinctive wound told the tale - same fish!

Jack with a nice steelhead

On our last evening of fishing, Hu landed this beautiful steelhead...

...and then two casts later landed this one. It was a great way to end our trip!

Cheers! KW

Off to the Skeena!

I just spent a couple of days packing and tying like a madman, 'cuz I'm off to Terrace to cast my spey rod for salmon and steelhead! See ya' in a couple of weeks.

Cheers! KW