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FISHING IN BRITISH COLUMBIA AUGUST 2003 With both of us having just reached age 60 my fishing friend Ian and I booked a fishing holiday in British Columbia for the last week of August 2003. Our travel company was called “BC Fishing Ltd.” whom I had contacted after seeing an article in this newsletter. After a long flight in a big plane and a shorter flight in a much smaller plane we arrived at Campbell River on Vancouver Island in the late afternoon. Other members of our party had arrived earlier from different airports in the UK. There were eight of us in total. We were to fish two rivers: the Campbell and its tributary the Quinsum. Both rivers are gin clear, fast flowing but not especially deep when we were there. The Quinsum could be fished easily without wading but in the Campbell waders gave access to much more water as many of the banks were tree lined. Although shallow, the speed of the Campbell made wading into more than two feet of water hazardous. The rivers both had beds of large round stones from tennis ball size to small boulders. In addition to rainbow and cutthroat trout, three species of Pacific salmon were available: Pink- up to 6lb, Coho- up to 15lb, Chinook (or King) - up to 50lb. We asked the chap in the fishing shop what happens if you hook a Chinook on a fly in the river? “You lose all your tackle.” was his reply On our first morning we were taken to the Quinsum hatchery where they rear 12 million salmon each year. Here was our first chance to appreciate the quality of the fishing for in the stream leading into the hatchery were salmon in their hundreds simply waiting for the sluices to open. These upper reaches of the Quinsum seem to hold more fish than water! After about 30minutes we had all had enough of watching fish so a quick drive downstream to the fishable parts of the river and out came the rods and the first salmon about 10 minutes later! The first, and only, bear crossed 15 yards downstream about 15minutes after. A 4lb pink salmon once downstream will put a serious bend in a 9 weight rod and a fighting butt is essential. The week went on like this. If you really tried you could catch 30 salmon a day easily. We chose not to be quite such fishmongers and would take one or two from a section of river and then move on. On the fourth day Ian and I were fishing the lower reaches of the Campbell having success with Pinks when I hooked into an obviously better fish. I kept screwing down the disc drag on my System 2 but eventually I had no more drag to apply and the fish did not even slow down. Away went all the fly line and probably 80 yards of Orvis backing before it turned, his time to repeat the line stripping process upstream. A third run back downstream had the fish below Ian who was about 50yards below me. The tired fish turned once more upstream but came very close to Ian who put down his own rod and grabbed its tail. It was a fine fresh run Chinook 34.5 inches long and estimated by a local angler to be around 20lb. We photographed and returned it to the river. It turned out to be the best fish of the week by our party although another Chinook was hooked but this time the fish won. The rest of the week continued in a similar way. Ian hooked a good Coho but mostly we caught Pinks. The Coho and Chinooks run up the river later in the season. Truly a holiday of a lifetime and like someone said before “I’ll be back” Warning 1. The Campbell eats flies. You need to put the fly in front of the fish which are lying on the bottom. This requires a very fast sink tip line made from a WF9 floater with 5ft. of lead cored trolling line followed by a 2ft leader of 10-15lb nylon. It is a pig to cast but casts of more than 15yds are rarely needed. The flies are generally egg patterns tied on very heavy single barbless hooks. If you did not lose 10 flies a day then you were not fishing deep enough! Warning 2. Expensive thin-walled lightweight rods break. On the first day a Sage and a Hardy were both snapped by fish. My big fish was caught on an old 9 weight Daiwa with a Kevlar wrap- I even managed to break this on the last day when pulling a small Pink upstream on the Quinsum. Eight anglers managed to break four rods in a week on fish that generally did not exceed 5-6lb. Similarly with lines: with such short leaders it is easily possible to snag the end of the fly line under a boulder. Result: the fly line snaps. Fortunately it was a John Norris cheapo but it had served me well. Ian and I are planning to return in 2005 and if anybody else wants to sample Canadian fishing then I’ll be happy to help. I estimate the total cost was £1600 each for our seven days. Most of this was the air fair and extra days would probably cost less than £100 per day. Very good value compared with salmon fishing in Scotland or Ireland. Is there anywhere in the UK where you can catch more than 100 salmon in a week? For further info. contact John Plowman on +44 (0) 1825 762975 or email: beehives@btinternet.com
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