Killer Flies Trump Print

by DaveO
(Kamloops)

Ron Wittenbecher Wins 2009 BC Fishing Journal Prize

It wasn't hard to find this past year's winner of the 2009 BC Fishing Journal Contest. Ron Wittenbecher of Kamloops contributed a least a dozen entries to the Journal, many with pictures, to capture the top prize... and to our surprise... he didn't really want the Ducks Unlimited print as originally offered.

Instead, after about 5 seconds of tough negotiation, Ron chose to substitute the print with a fly box full of hand tied killer fly patterns for next season. Included in the box were a selection of caddis pupa.

Ron fishes out of a belly boat (U-Tube) and isn't afraid to venture significant distances to find the good spots on a lake. We met a couple of times at Roche Lake where he kicked his way all the way down to the south end from the West Roche launch, which must be close to a full kilometer...one way. He did the same type of wandering around Campbell Lake, exploring and catching fish like he usually did.

Ron's claim to fame this year was his proficiency with the leech leading to some serious successes at local lakes like Jacko, McConnell, Red and Duffy.

"This year I probably caught 50% of my fish on leeches, 40% on chironomids and 10% on waterboatman and shrimp.

That’s a change from the prior year when I caught at least 75% of my fish on leeches. I definitely learned a few things from you and your site about fishing with an indicator and different techniques for chironomids and shrimp. My one regret is that I didn’t manage to catch a fish on your booby flies.

His biggest fish of the year was a 30" hog on a leech in the fall at Jacko Lake. Although he didn't have a picture to show us we will let him "off-the-hook" as his previous claims were pretty accurate and supported by pictures while Jacko Lake certainly can boast that size of fish.

Congratulations Ron and big hearty thank you for all your contributions to the site making Bigfishsmallhook.com the most popular fishing journal page on Google (go ahead... Google it!... "bc fishing journal")

Thank you to all the participants and readers who have come to our site over the past year. We hope that you found what you were looking for and enjoyed what we had to offer. We will continue the Journal for 2010 and can't wait for the first ice off in late March or early April.

Happy New Year!

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