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Duffy Lake Chironomid Fishing
by Brad
(Kamloops, BC)
Duffy Lake - Tying on Chironomids
Dave O said Duffy wasn't doing too bad lately. Some of his fishing buds who work chironomids did well earlier in the week.
So a day off work for me and University for my son and we headed out Friday May 14th. It was clear and calm when we arrived at Duffy Lake around 8am just as Dave O was setting up at the launch. My son Jim and I loaded up, backed the boat in and headed for the drop off straight out from the day use launch.
The lake like most of the southern Interior is showing signs of a poor run-off this spring. Duffy is probably 3 feet below its normal spring level, but the water was very clear. With no activity for the first hour we thought we'd see what all the splashing was about near Dave on the south end of the lake. Ken J joined us by that time, guess his wife wouldn't let him out of bed early. At the south end Dave was into a few. Jim and I set up black and red micro leeches and trolled the bottom, 20-27 feet of water just off the shoals. Lots of hits but they weren't taking it. Jim landed a few little guys, but was a morning of frustration for me, getting hit after hit never to set the hook.
Just after lunch, Ken waved us over to the south east shoal area. They had been hoisting them in one after another and he wanted to share the fun.
Black Chironomids were the food of choice, so Jim and I tied on what we had was closest and waited. They were catching them on both sides of us and the fish finder was going off constantly. Ken J and Dave O were fishing 20ft leaders with the indicator right where it meets the fly line to get the Chironie to the 20 foot level where the fish were cruising in big numbers. Jim and I only had 12 foot leaders so we tied on some split shot cast it out and let it sink to the bottom and did a slow retrieve. Once we did that the action was constant, highlighting in a double header. The fish were all between 15 and 18 inches,clean, silver and good for 4 or 5 - 3 foot high leaps and deep runs before you could net them.
We could have limited a few times over but only kept two to eat fresh that night, and a few for the smoker. A good day on a lake I never gave much attention as I thought it was overun by the dirt biking motor heads. NOTE...
Duffy Lake is located on the Dairy Lake Road accessed from the Trans Canada Highway (Hwy 1) at Cherry Creek, just west of Kamloops. It's about 13.5 km in from the highway on a busy dirt road... Caution - particularly in the spring, there a lot of dirt bikers and quad riders that frequent the area... although most abide by good safety behavior, there are some crazies or inexperienced riders that can come out of no where and put themselves in precarious positions with other vehicle traffic.
Also, Duffy Lake is easily accessed from the fabulous Tobiano Golf Resort...via the same road... only from Tobiano, you have to drive back east on the TCH to Cherry Creek and the Dairy Lake Road.
It was brought to my attention that the guys in the video were only using about 12ft leaders... and were having a hard time getting down to the fish.
A little quick thinking (without tying on more leader or using a strike indicator) and a simple procedure led to a pretty good afternoon of chironomid. What they did was add a small split shot to the leader which took the fly down to the bottom (20' to 24') and then slowly retrieve up. They were able to cover the entire water column and take advantage of the the fish whatever depth that they were lurking.
Most of the fish Brad and Jim caught were on the retrieve.
