Had a chance to fish Kamloops Lake on Aug 26 with nephew Mike and great-niece Kylee.
Salmon fishing has just opened up on the lake and oddly enough, we were the only ones on the lake (within our vision anyway). We were looking for rainbows, dolly varden, chinook salmon or sockeye salmon.

To make the day fun, we agreed that the first one to catch a fish had to kiss it (an infectious habit started by the Newfies).

We started at the Savona end where the salmon were supposed to be coming into the lake. We saw the odd roll but not much was happening (must be the commercial nets down by the Fraser River slowing things up). I started casting a 5 of Diamonds spoon, as did Mike and Kylee tried her own Panther Martin.

After an hour or so of drifting, jigging and casting and no success, we decided to start making our way to the Kamloops end of the lake. As we passed by Tobiano we noticed that the gas gauge was quickly falling and decided to stop for gas at the marina... drats... not open until 10:30am.

So, low on gas we decided to drift the points below the front nine of the Tobiano Golf Course, east of the marina. We all changed up our gear... Mike put on a large rubber minnow. I changed rods and started using my deep sinking fly line with a large green egg sucking leech. And Kylee picked out a pretty hot pink jig/fly to drag in the drift (that we bought for her at Surplus Herbys in Kamloops.


It didn't take long for Kylee to hook one on the jig. With a little scream in moment of surprise, Kylee gathered herself and reeled the fish in with little difficulty. It wasn't a trout or a salmon or a burbot. In fact... I don't know what the heck it was but it was about 17 inches long and had no teeth... looked a bit like a walleye (without the teeth or spines).

She was so proud... and with a little prompting with the video camera and her nasty uncles... Kylee lived-up to the bargain and happily kissed-the-fish. It took a few minutes for us to convince her to let the fish go. After she realized that no one was going to eat it, she generously let it go... unharmed.



We finally got some gas but the wind came up. We started for Cooney Bay but decided that the lake was too rough and we headed back to the marina.

Thanks to Mike for taking us out (that's the first time in 28 years of living in Kamloops that I actually fished from a boat in Kamloops Lake) and congratulations to Kylee for kicking butt.

ps... can anyone identify this fish species? please use the comment box to give us your answer or guess... thanx... mrBFSH