Roche Lake - Natures Vengence

by MrBFSH
(Kamloops)

This past week provided an onslaught of natural forces that, I swear, screwed up the fishing in the Kamloops Area Lakes and Roche Lake Area.

Summer returned with vengeance for the first half of the week with temperatures in North Kamloops reaching 40C on Thursday. On Thursday night, all hell broke loose in the skies of BC's southern interior as a cooler front moved in with high winds, very little rain and a terrific light show of both sheet and chain lightning.

Unfortunately, in an area that has seen less than 4 inches of precipitation this year (that's right, this year!) and has had it's pine forests killed and left standing by the mountain pine beetle, it was a perfect recipe for fire. And it didn't disappoint. On Friday morning when I headed to Roche Lake there was smoke in the air and visual evidence of at least 4 forest fires shooting up separate plumes of smoke in all directions.

So what does all this have to do with the fishing?

First of all, thunder and lightning have an adverse affect on fish. It tends to send them for cover in deeper water. It seems that they become shy for 24 to 48 hours after a storm and this day was no exception.

The change in air masses from stinking hot to windy cooler conditions made it difficult to find shelter on a north-south orientated lake when the wind was coming from the south. Oh, and did I mention that we were coming off a new moon... a period fo time that has seemed been my nemesis for fishing?

My friend Ron and I tried to fish the south end. The wind was stiff at times and there were very few fish around. Ron worked his way out of the south bay before I did but I was soon to follow. I caught 2 fish drifting out of the south end. One, a small 12"er, was caught on a shrimp that I was casting laterally while drifting through the shallows. The second was on a small holo-red booby with white boobs. It was a nice fish, 52cm and 3-1/4lbs. After that fish, neither of us had any more hits over the next 2hrs when we decided to go back to the south end.

I towed Ron in his float tube back down to the south end but the wind made it real uncomfortable for Rob as he didn't have an anchor. He ended up leaving before me, a little disappointed in his day.

I stayed for another hour. The wind continued to blow and the fish had all but disappeared. I had been keeping my eye on a heavy cloud of smoke growing to the north and west of Roche Lake. I could not tell. I was listening to music on my MP3 when my hearing was deafened by the roar of a plane engine. I looked up and watched while a fleet of water bomber decided to use Roche Lake as their dipping pond. I think that there were 4 bombers and it seemed like they rotated through about every 10 minutes. Obviously, they were fighting the fire that I could see from the water.

I decided to pack it in with only the 2 fish for the day. I left the lake about 5:30pm and the planes were still circling. After loading, they managed to just clear the tree tops at the south end of the lake.

The drive home took me beside the fire. It was on the east side of Shumway Lake with the fire cresting and trying to make it's way to the lake. Two of the bombers were actively working the edge, effectively keeping it from creeping down the hill.

It was all quite spectacular... a lot better than the fishing.