By the time I hit the water at "Batstone Lake" it was close to 11:30am. There were 4 other boats on the water when I arrived and fishing partner KJ, wasn't far behind.

"Batstone Lake" is located at the Seven Half Diamond Ranch along Highway 5a, between Merritt and Princeton. It is one of the newer fishing destinations in the Merritt Area Lakes. As part of a Ducks Unlimited Canada Project, the lake is a managed fishery on private land, owned and operated by hosts Heather and Jim O'Connor. Batstone Lake is know for producing fish up to 10lbs and we were anticipating a good day.

The weather was quite nice when I arrived but it did not take long for large thunderheads to develop nearby. For the most part, fishing was slow. Apparently the 2 guys in pontoon boats had caught one or 2 but the other boats were not having any success. As usual, I drifted a bit and finally found a place to anchor. After a few cast and watching a few fish move on the surface, I moved about 100 feet from my original location.

I settled on two floating lines, one naked and one with a strike indicator. Chironomids were the flies in play. There were a lot of damsels in the air, mating.

After about a half an hour I got my first strike but it released quickly. Shortly thereafter, I had another strike on my naked line as I was retrieving. Lifting my rod to set the hook, I felt a slight slip then another take and then all hell broke loose. The fish just started running straight away. It was a matter of seconds before all of my fly line disappeared and it was ripping into my backing. I kept thinking that this had to be a monster! This was the strongest rainbow trout that I had ever hooked into. As it continued to peel my backing I started to worry about running out of that too. Finally, after at least 100 feet of backing, the fish jumped (not as big as I thought) and settled into a long battle. Every time I got it close it took off again. When I finally got it close to the boat it was apparent that I had fouled hooked it between the dorsal fin and the tail. It came in at about 22" and was just under 4lbs.

Despite the fight, it was just a normal sized fish so I didn't even take a picture. I got into another fish not long after but it shook the hook after about 5 seconds. There was some fish moving across the lake where 3 of the other boats were anchored so I anchored further down the weed bed. I got into 2 other fish there but they were smaller, one about 17" and one about 14". Fat puppies though.

The skies started to darken, the wind began to swirl and the odd shower passed through. Every one left except KJ, the two pontoon boaters and I. The two guys in the pontoon boats were anchored near the dock, adjacent to the aerators and were steadily getting pulls along with the odd fish. I migrated down there too and ended up getting a couple more fat 14"ers before we called it an evening. KJ had a little rougher time than me and ended up with one fish.

I caught my fish on black/red, brown/gold chironomids. I did pump the big fish and found a variety of chironomids (black, brown, green) and bloodworms. The guys in the pontoon boats did well on a green chironomid with a weighted green head.

We were a little disappointed that the big fish didn't come on. We did see the occasional hog roll as we were pulling up and drifting in. I am convinced that a few of them were inviting me back for another round some time down the road.