Heffley Lake July 2nd
by Shawn Proznick
(Kamloops)
Happy Birthday Canada!
With a long weekend upon us, I had the opportunity to get some family time in before camping Dick Hart Memorial Park for a ball tourney. After setting up camp on Thursday night, I made my way to Heffley Lake to set up the fishing gear before my wife and kids joined me.
It seemed to be a perfect day for fishing, not too warm, not to cold, slightly overcast with a light breeze causing minor surface ripples. I unloaded the boat and rigged up 2 fly rods for my fishing and 3 casting rods for the kids.
All the gear was ready to go and the rest of the crew was not there so I went for a bit of a tour in the small launch bay, dragging my trusty "Guarantee" with black booby eyes on a sinking line. I stayed to the right of the bay, admiring the houses tucked into the trees along the shoreline, each with their own dock and at least 1 fishing boat tied up, several of them also had ski boats. As I was on the last little bit of the tour around the bay and out of sight of the boat ramp, my wife called on the radio that they were there so I made my way to them.
I set the kids lines up with a Guarantee about 6 feet behind a small split shot to get the line down. Only having a 12 foot tin boat, there is not a whole lot of room so I took the kids out 1 at a time, starting with one of my 6 year old daughters. We took the same path that I had taken earlier, slowly dragging our lines behind us, her rod in the rod holder, mine in my hand. As we got near an area that had some thicker trees, we noticed a loon on the water and as we got closer this loon got vocal with us. My daughter thought that this was great. A little closer and we saw the reason that the loon was getting excited, she had a little one with her. Seeing that she was being a protective mom, I gave her a wide berth, making my way into the middle of the bay. When we reached the top of the bay, mission control called in giving orders that the next trip was raring to go. With that, we got the boat pointed in the right direction, and slowly made our way back. We beached the boat with not a single bite.
Daughter number 2, also 6 years old, eagerly jumped in the boat and we set off in the same direction as had been covered in the previous pass. Again, we encountered the same loon and altered our course so as to not disturb her to much. I enjoyed talking with my daughters as they pointed out the different things that they saw, getting a new prospective on the scenery. This tour too ended with us back at the launch with nary a nibble.
Trip number three was with my 3 year old son and this time I altered our course a bit, trying to stay away from the loon and baby, making our way into the middle of the bay. I was pointing a few things out to my son as we slowly puttered along when I finally felt a tug on my line. I told my son to look at the tip of my rod and tell me if it moves again, which he did with glee seconds later. Setting the hook and reeling in the fish, I could feel that it was a small one but it was a fish none the less. The rod danced a few times but no real fight to speak of, the fish was in the net a minute later. I left the netted fish in the water as I removed the hook. Then I brought the fish close to my son so that he could see and touch the fish. It was neat to watch his reaction as the fish moved to his touch.
After letting the fish go my son wanted to check his line every 2 minutes as he thought that he had a fish on the line. Coming up empty each time did not dampen the excitement that was in his voice as he told everybody else at the beach all about the fish that we caught.
All in all, although we only managed to catch one fish, it was one of the best fishing days I've ever had. Being able to spend time with the family and introduce some new fisher-people to the sport always makes for fun times and that day was great. I hope to get back out on the water soon, hopefully with better luck in the fish department.
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