Big Leeches Attract Big Fish

by Mr BFSH
(Kamloops, BC)

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A couple of weeks ago I tied some huge bunny leeches to use on Kamloops Lake. Since then, either the weather has been lousy or timing wasn't right.

Yesterday I took a late afternoon run up to Pass Lake... it's only 20k from my home so it's convenient. When I arrived, there was only one other person on the the lake, and wouldn't you know it... it was Prozzy. After tinkering around and setting up, I hit the water at about 3:45pm, put out a couple of sinking lines and headed over toward Prozzy to get an evaluation. Unfortunately, he was just pulling up anchor as he had a dinner date in place wasn't about to endure the wrath of sharp tongue and cold shoulder so it was homeward bound for him. That left me as the only fisherman on the lake. Heaven to me.

Before he left we chatted a little... it was slow for him... a few hits and a couple of small fish to the boat but nothing exciting. He also gave me a cute little fly called a "Shamsel"... looks like a big shrimp or a small damsel... in any case, it looked really quite inviting in the water. I used it for part of the evening but did not get any action.

Back to the leeches.

I tied a half-dozen egg sucking bunny leeches on #2-9672's... the biggest hook I have for trout fishing. I made a few purple and black, one straight purple and a green on with some black highlighting.

The fish seemed to be lurking at the 22-27'deep zone. I tried casting for a while using a bloodworm (I also tried the Shamsel) and only a one light strike. A breeze picked up and I thought that maybe it was time to try a leech and drift awhile. It was SE breeze so I positioned myself to drift over the outer edges of the big point directly across the lake from the boat launch. I picked up a couple of blips on my fish finder and without any teasing I got my first big strike just before 6pm.


The fly was probably sitting at about 20' deep when it hit and it felt like a nice one. It peeled line out well into my backing and it took me a good 10-12 minutes to finally land it. 23 inches long and 6lbs even. Not bad... this was my 4th time out on Pass since I caught a big one early in August. I was rather excited. Since I was not anchored, I continued to drift while I pulled in the fish and notice that I had gone over an area where more fish showed up on the fish finder... I would remember the location.

I worked the area for about another hour and had a few taps on a dragon nymph that I had on my second line, but no takers. I changed up the purple and black leech to a green one (again, a large #2 egg sucking beauty) and found my way to the Research Station end. I watched the sun disappear into the "DewDrop Range" to the west and changed my glasses so that I could see a little better in the fading light. After only 5 minutes, the green leech produced, and it was another 6lbs beauty... almost a clone of the one I had caught earlier.

I finished my counter-clockwise trip around the lake at about 8:15pm... it was getting quite dark by then. Some fishermen were showing up for the long weekend as I came ashore.

When I cleaned the one fish that I kept, I made note of the stomach contents... very little... a couple of small black leeches and a cube of burn't wood the size of a small dice... go figure.

ps... for those who keep track... the water temp was 62F at 1.0 ft below the surface.

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