Well, the weather was nice at least. I arrived at Hosli Lake at 9am on Sunday, July 5th to a picture perfect lake, calm waters with a few fish rising and showing, some in the shallows on the north end, others in the centre of the lake. One other camp with 2 gents was along the east side.

Given I hadn't been to Hosli since I acquired my fish-finder this spring, I did a bit of a cruise along the shoal, the drop off and the north west bay to check the depths whilst trolling a nymph. Finally I decided to settle in on the edge of the drop off and anchor and try some chironomids and some sedges given the most action seemed in this vicinity.

I set up 2 dry lines, one with a strike indicator and the other neat c/w a long leader and threw out a silver and black chromie on one and a small black on the other. Then a copper/red and a green. Then a brown and a bloodworm. Then a ....... and so on and so on. Nothing was working and very little was happening. Meanwhile the heat was rising and the shoal was producing a few more sedge and caddis to the delight of the few fish cruising and feeding. I set up a dry fly, a California Blond, that I bought in Merritt a while back ( no, not the type you find at the mountain music fest ...). It's deer hair and with stringy rubber legs ( again, not the type from the music fest)and it has been good to me. I cast it out and retrieved it a few times and was disappointed as there were real ones being gobbled up but not my offering.

Finally I cast it out to sit there while I worked the other line. I'm now into my fishing day by more than 2 hours and nothing is working; well, good things come to those that wait. Sure enough, while working my chironimid line the other line started singing while cradled in the rod holder. I grabbed it, set the hook and started the retrieve stripping in as fast as I could as the fish was making a bee line towards my boat. It took a peek at me at showed it was a handsome catch and then turned and ran down and deep as it could. Back and forth we went for a few minutes and it was showing good strength; I thought it would be 2 lbs+. A little play on both our parts eventually came to a stop when the silver rainbow slipped into my net. I didn't weigh it but it measured 21.5 inches. Great, things were going good now!


Little did I know that was the last action I'd have all freaking day. The other 2 fellows had only one all day, 3 other boats joined us on the water and nobody was having any action at all, even though there were still some feeding happening in the shoals. In chats with those fishing I heard of numerous set ups and combinations tried during the day and every one was a little disappointed at the lack of action.

I stayed at the lake until 4:45 and could only imagine what a frenzy would ensue on the shoals in the evening. I haven't heard if that happened or not, but that's what keeps us going back these great lakes around Kamloops -KJ

Roche Lake Area Fishing

Best Float Tube Fishing Lakes

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