Duffy Lake-Aug19.2009
by mrbfsh
(kamloops)
An Evening at Duffy Lake
Return of Hot Weather Drives Fish Down
KJ and I decided on an evening fish at Duffy Lake, near Kamloops, BC the other evening. The hot summer temperatures of 36C-40C were returning and you could just sense when we arrived at around 4pm at the lake that the fishing was going to be slow.
The air was still with the occasional wisp and even at this elevation (around 3500 ft +/-)the temperature hovered in the low 30C's. There was one fish rolling around in front of the launch (at the Forestry Service Campsite) and not much else was happening. No hatches, no insects.
We moved around for awhile, KJ went left along the east shoal so I went over to the west. We ended up meeting there. Both of us have never spent time on the lake so we had our fish finders/depth sounders on. We were quite surprised at the maximum depth (60ft) and the lovely shoals. We both observed some smaller fish moving at about 18ft and some lunkers were hugging the bottom at around 39 ft. We both ended up anchoring on the west side but despite the odd school blowing through, neither of us touched a fish.
I had to go back to shore for some flies that I left in my van and had the opportunity to talk with one of the campers. He told me that he had fished the lake for the last 30 years and that the fishing this year was the strangest that he had seen over that time. Off and on, inconsistent but there were some nice fish to be had... the spring was quite productive. I asked if the fish moved up on the shoals as the evening crept in and he said yes (good news), go to the south end of the lake... they should show up there.
We both headed down to the south end in parallel, noting the bottom structure. The lake sure has quick dropoffs. As we moved deeper into the end of the lake there were some fish rolling in the shallow weed beds. KJ and I both decided that it was "dry fly" time and changed to fishing an assortment of tom thumbs and other sedge patterns. KJ started hitting small fish right away. I was a little deeper into the bay and was not getting much attention even though I was casting to the rises.
KJ had two fish to the boat (one of which he said he would have kept if he was camping overnight) before I got my first tiddler. Because the fish were just rolling, it was hard to tell how big they were. For the most part, they were small (12" or under). I drifted out to some deeper water (12'-14') and was able to cast to more rising fish. I hit the biggest one of the night (about 14") that gave me a fight of a fish that could be 3"-4" larger. I was pleased with the fight and released the fish for good effort.
After that, both of us had a couple of rises to our flies but no real 'takes' so we retired our equipment just as it was getting dark.
Pretty lake, nice structure but I'm not convinced that I would fish it in the heat of the summer again... it just seemed slow. There was a minor feed around 6pm but the heat and the new moon status seemed to take it's toll on the feeding activity. I will give it another try, either in the fall or next spring (when I heard that the fishing was pretty good) and look forward to a scrap with some bigger fish.
The Going Green Warehouse
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