West Kootenay Lake and Laugh
by KenJ
Work takes me to the Kootenays from time to time and often I route my travel through Grand Forks. I asked a contact there what lakes I should consider fishing if opportunity knocked. He listed a couple of lakes near Greenwood, Christian Valley and also included "the one with the million dollar toilet" ! Say what? I asked. 'Yeah', he goes on, 'the province put a $1,000,000.00 rest stop right beside a trophy lake, the dumb asses...." The lake in question is Wilgress Lake and it is mid way between Greenwood and Grand Forks at the summit of the mountain range that separates the two towns. Its convenience and the information that large fish can be caught there had me wanting to wet a line as soon as I could. As luck would have it,it took nearly two years for me to get in the lake as it was either too late in the day, I had to make an appointment, wicked weather or just plain frozen. Finally, last week on May 25th I arrived on site at 6:00pm with plenty of day light to go, weather was decent and eagerness to try the lake. A fellow was just loading up his gear at the launch so I asked about this luck and what worked and he said he had a "slow day, but caught a couple ... on a leach". As he's cinching down his boat another fellow arrives at the launch to set out like me. This new fellow was quick to ask 'who's coming or going?' spoken with an Atlantic accent; we gave him the info. We exchange pleasantries and he tells me he's from New Brunswick but he'd been west to Alberta for a few years. He's eager to get in the water because he's just bought a used 9' Fishcat pontoon boat and he's just learned it's not a fly only lake and he could use hardware and worms- but he also had some flies ' from the gal at the motel on the south side of town. I ask if he's here after work and his reply was " I'm now retired .... and divorced; now I can do the stuff I never had time to do before!" "Oh" I say, what do you like better, being retired or being divorced?" to which he replies, "Jeezus buddy, I've never had a question like that before ..... but ya know, I do think about work once in a while! Lets just leave'er at that." Off he went on the maiden voyage and we were both still chuckling. As for the lake, rumour is there are still a couple of lunkers left but not many; that evening I caught a few little guys on my first dry fly action of the season. Weirdly, half the strikes were common on a soaked dry fly just under the surface. Best-in-British-Columbia Fishing Vacations BlogFree Solunar TablesFly Fishing Strategies for BC Lakes FishingBC Fishing Resorts |
