Roche Lake Resort Invaded by the Irish
by Mr BFSH
(Kamloops)
Roche Lake Welcomes Kevin McGuire
The Roche Lake Area will never be the same after 21 Irish fly fishing enthusiasts honed in on the Roche Lake Resort this past week. Arriving late Saturday evening, the clan were treated to a BC fly fishing introduction with Brian Chan early Sunday, then on the lake for some fishing.
Unfortunately, their visit coincided with the harvest moon (full moon), which in my experience means either really bad or select really good fishing. This time around, it was very poor. The weather had changed for the better although the nights were quite cold reaching lows of -4C.
I heard that the biggest fish caught on Sunday was 5lbs and there were a couple of 3's and a few small fish. Apparently, the fish that were caught were full of hyalella shrimp.
I had the opportunity to get out to Roche Lake on Monday, the last day of the full moon and the fishing wasn't any better. I was honoured to have group organizer Kevin McGuire join me for most of the day. We had plenty of time to talk about fishing and fly tying, politics, current news, and so on... because we sure were not catching many fish.
From the lodge we headed down to Electric Island at the southern end of the lake. I wanted to show him the shoals and try some sight fishing. Unfortunately there was some sort of algae bloom and the water wasn't very clear. It was suggested that perhaps the lake was going through the fall turn but I doubted that theory. The water temperature was 51F in the main lake but as we drifted into shallower water the temperature began to plunge. In the far south end it was down to 44F.
Just before we anchored in the south end I managed to hook a real fat 17" rainbow with my intermediate sinking line and dragging a holo-red Kamloops Booby. I didn't pump him but he looked like he was bloated with freshwater shrimp.
After anchoring we tried a number of patterns. I kept changing lines too, switching between my dry line with hyalella shrimp patterns and the intermediate sinker with a booby.
There was a swirling breeze that made it difficult to see the fish moving in the water but every once in awhile the waters calmed. One of those calm periods saw a school of rainbows go by the boat with a few big ones with the group. Kevin cast into the school and before he could get the slack out of his line a nice fish hit his fly. I didn't think he saw it so I alerted him as the fish rolled once and started running. At the same time, Kevin was stripping to pull in the slack. The combined energy of two forces pulling in opposite directions offered too much for Kevin's tippet and the fish broke off. Too bad, it was at least 5lbs.
As the major solunar period was approaching (1:15pm) I mentioned it to Kevin. The cows had come down to drink, a mature bald eagle and ravens were flying around. Kevin was fishing a micro-blood-leach. Sure enough, at 1:16pm, Kevin felt a pull and this time he made sure that he got it to the boat. The colder water seemed to take the fight out of the fish (mine too) but it was a nice fish anyway.
Neither of us had a fish for the rest of the day while we were together in the boat. We drifted through a number other areas including Monster Bay before I dropped him off at the lodge at 4:30. Other than a hatch of microscopic daphnia, there was very little in the way of insect activity throughout the whole day.
We also ran into various boats of other Irish fishermen and there was an occasional dose of chit-chat mixed with famous Irish superlatives and middle fingers thrown in for good measure.
Near the end of the day, many of the Irish crew were anchored in front of the lodge. There were a few fish being caught but nothing big. Fish (and some real beauties) continued to rise for daphnia but were not much interested in anything. I finally hit a fish on a Rabbit Leech Booby but it wasn't any more than 12 inches long.
I didn't hear how the group did on Tuesday or Wednesday but I hope that they had an opportunity to get into a few nice fish. Kevin said that he would send us some photos and stories once they get back to Ireland.
