Lucky Loons at Roche Lake

by Mr BFSH
(Kamloops, BC)

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KJ and I decided to give Roche Lake a try. We got on the water at about 11am. Roche Lake appeared quiet again on the long weekend (Labour Day). I guess it helps to be out there on the Monday afternoon when everyone else is leaving to get back home.The water level in the lake appears to be a little higher than in previous years (no wonder with all the rain we have had this summer). The road into our secret launch location was choked with deep (but hard bottomed) water filled holes. Definitely 4x4 material this time.

We started in the south end shallows and had no luck at all. There were a few fish moving but the water clarity (even in 5' of water) was poor for this quality lake. There was a steady SWS wind that kept a chop on top of the water which also made it hard to see. After about 1.5 hours we decided to migrate out to the main lake... not another boat in site (you can't see the north end of the lake from where we were so I can't say that we were the only ones on the lake).

Ken was hanging around the little island and hit a scrappy 16" rainbow on a pheasant tail nymph. I was in the shallow bay to the east. Not much happening until the wind died a bit and the small fish started moving near the weed beds. They seemed to be interested in small green shrimp and small green micro-leeches.

I got into about a dozen or so fish while Ken had a little less success. The big winners were the loons. There were a pair hanging around and on at least 2 occasions the loon came from under the boat to snatch the rainbow I had just released. They were really quite aggressive.

The wind started up again around 4pm so we started heading back to the vehicles. It has not been a banner year for me at Roche but I will give it another shot later in the fall.

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