Campbell Lake Keeps Producing into Hot Spell

by Mr BFSH
(Kamloops)

It was my 3rd visit to Campbell Lake this week but it was the first really hot day that I had to contend with.

This day I was accompanied again by long time fishing buddy, Armaddeus and new fishing friend, Ron W. We met 8:30am at the Petro-Canada station in Dallas (community in Kamloops) and headed up the miserably bumpy road to Campbell Lake. The sky was clear a a light breeze was blowing as we geared up.

Out of habit we headed almost directly across the lake and started working the shoal. Armaddeus and I found a spot in front of a long weed bed and anchored. Unlike the other day, I was only into 2 fish before Army was into his first rainbow. The fishing was a bit slow and the fish were not better than about 14 inches in this spot so we decided to move down the shoreline and re-anchored.

I was into fish on my first cast and Army was not far behind. Ron was drifting around in his tube not far from us and we all started getting into fish late in the morning and it carried on through to about 2pm when the heat turned the fish off for awhile.

There were some nice fish to be had in this spot, the biggest being 23.5" and weighing in at 4lbs-5oz. We also had a 21", 20" and a few at about 18". I took the time to throat pump an earlier fish and found a variety of chironomids and bloodworms so it was obvious that the fish were still feeding. There were a number of small cinnamon sedges hatching but the fish were not really on to them. In short, a #12 -#14 black chironomid with a green tinsel ribbing that captured most of the fish-lip. Ron caught a couple on a water boatman pattern. He also tried some dry line chironomiding (for the first time) and had some success. We didn't get together before he left so I'm not sure what his final tally was.

After 2pm the fishing just died. There were a couple of flurries on distant shoals but never much where we chose to anchor. We landed 3 fish between 2pm and 6pm when we finally decided to call it a day and headed back to shore.

Armaddeus and I probably landed 25 fish during the day... not bad for mid-July. The water will surely warm up and slow the fishing down but for now, it has been a pleasant surprise on how well the lake has held up.
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