My weekly sport fishing column & report

By now I am sure you all know I am a fly fishing instructor and sport fishing columnist.

I have had my weekly column & report published in local news papers and the other BC sport fishing forums for the last ten years. So now that I am a member here I think it fitting that I include all of you.

To help you interpret my ratings: I rate oportunities in accordance to season and the opportunity for the novice to catch fish. So a good rating in winter would mean the opoertunity is good for catching a few fish, and a good rating in spring would mean the opportunity is good to catch many fish. I also post what species offer the best options for success.

Sport fishing column for April 5 to 12, 2010

In my third year as fly fishing club coordinator I had 50 kids sign up
between two schools. This was a stretch for a guy who up to three years before had no training as a coach or teacher. Having hit my choke point, and knowing I was in big need of some mentoring. I wrote the venerable Lefty Kreh. Through a series of letters and phone calls I was directed to Phil Genova, founder of the Fly Fishers Apprentice Program, and author of "First Cast Teaching Kids to Fly Fish". Phil was a great mentor who encouraged me to get the kids involved in local fisheries restoration projects as well as teaching them to fish.

My efforts led us to become involved with the DFO (Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada) sponsored Fish Smart program (an interactive program designed for teachers to teach sport fishing and respect for the environment in the classroom). As program for kids, the designers wanted the children to write some of the content, which is where my club members came in. In May of its second year, three of the members of the Kwahyquitlam club wrote content, and were published in the DFO's Fish Smart manual. One of those three was my oldest daughter Morgan; another pleasing moment of which there are many, in a fantastic sport.


The report

Fishing on our lower mainland lakes is slow due to the unsettled weather. For wet (sinking) fly fishing try: Chironomid, Bloodworm, Big Black, Wooly bugger, Micro Leach, Baggy Shrimp, Coachman, Cased caddis, Zulu, or Doc Spratley. For dry (floating) fly fishing on sunny afternoons, try: Tom Thumb, Lady McConnel, Irresistible, Renegade, Black Gnat, Griffith Gnat, Royal Coachman, or Elk Hair Caddis. For kokanee try: Red Abbis, Red Spratley, Bloodworm, Royal Coachman, San Juan Worm, or red Micro Leach.

The Fraser River back waters and sloughs are fishing well for cutthroat, rainbow, and dolly varden. For cutthroat and rainbow try: Eggo, Rolled Muddler, Mickey Finn, Tied Down Minnow, Professor, Lioness, Kaufmann Stone Nymph, Royal Wulff Coachman, Zulu, Chez Nymph, Black Gnat, Sooboo, Irresistible, Elk Hair Caddis, or Stimulator. For dolly varden try: large (#4 to #20 Eggo, Flesh Fly, Rolled Muddler, Zonker, Clouser's Deep Minnow, black Popsicle, or Big Black.

The Stave River is good for cutthroat, rainbow, steelhead, and whitefish. For whitefish try: small (#14 to #20) Eggo, Flesh Fly, Griffith Gnat, Stone Nymph, Chironomid, or Caddis Nymph. For steelhead try: Squamish Poacher, Thor, GP, Popsicle, Big Black, Flat Black, Poplar Shrimp, Eggo, Purple Peril, Holliman, Steelhead Spratley, Steelhead Nightmare, or Kaufmann Stone.

The Harrison River is good for cutthroat, and rainbow.

The Chehalis River is fair to good for steelhead, cutthroat, dolly varden, and rainbow.

The Vedder River is fair to good for steelhead, cutthroat, and rainbow.

We are teaching our fly fishing classes at Hatch Match'r Fly & Tackle this year. Our first session will run on two consecutive Saturdays, May 8 & 15. This course covers it all; from where to find your fish and what to use, to all the seldom covered aspects that govern fish feeding behavior. We have limited seating to 12, so call 1-604-820-4099 or 604-467-7120 today.

Wild pacific salmon or part of our heritage, say no the foreign national companies and their farmed fish.

actaully jsutin me and jeff have talked about his reports and i ahve no problems with them especially when when he starts to add bass reports in them when we all start to get out this is a fishing reports section not bass reports section

sorry about the confusion

if anyone wants me to i can do a deticated bass reports and a dedicated corse lol jkjk fishing reports section let me know what you guys think lol

bcbassin wrote:Hey Jeff this is a great way for you to teach guys how to fly fish and get into the sport thats awesome stuff and more guys need to do what you do out there. I know you know your stuff and you have been doing a great job educating new anglers and avid anglers about fly fishing thats great. However this is a fishing report on Bass fishing not fly fishing or casting or even fly tying this is a bass fishing, fishing report. And its a bass club.
With that said dont get me wrong you can totally fly fish for Bass its amazing and the fight is so out of this world. Is this site not for Bass stuff only. Later

I hear what you are saying Justin. I offered my column and report as a gift to our members; since my column runs in three local news papers, is on all the other BC sport fishing forums, and Fly Anglers On Line down, across the border in Washington, I did not want our members to feel left out.

I do include Bass and Panfish in my report when the action for them heats up. After all what is a person who wants fast action in the BC lower mainland to do when the water temps have heated up to levels that leave all other species out of breath.

In my classes I teach anglers to practice fishing all species, focusing on them during their prime action times. If everyone did this, I believe no species would get over pressured.

We have an issue under the surface here in BC that not all anglers are aware of. It came about after the last change in Government, from NDP to Liberal. There was a plan the "to convert our BC, free hold licencing system to the British Model," in layman's terms, privatize it. Give thanks to Brain Chan and those who worked with him, that we have the BC Fresh Water Fisheries Society. If it were not for them the whole province of BC would be operating under Day Ticket Fisheries. When Chan won, the opportunity to take over our fishery, he and his crew were given one year to make it work. Thank God they were able to do it.

Even thou the present system is working, I believe the privatization agenda is still there, and have written about this extensively. Lets face our government knows how much revenue cold be made from leasing water lots to do operated like golf courses. I think and have been telling anglers of every stripe, that we need to stop in-fighting and stand united or we may lose our fishery as we know it.

My column is my way of trying to unite the house, because a house divided against it's self cannot stand.

If you still want my column out, I will pull the plug.

Great report, thanks for posting.

Hey Andy, maybe we do need to have a section dedicated to non bass species. Most anglers on here fish for other species as well as bass. That way reports can be put in the proper locations. I dont see any reason why we cant have trout or other reports on here. It broudens our horizons into other sportfishing trends. But I can see the confusion when poeple see new posts in the fishing reports section and expect to see bass updates. We did used to have a non bass forum on here. I used to post all my salmon catches from last year in there. I think we need that back Andy. Overall, great info Newsman

lol thats it blame everything on me lol ill make a sport for bass only reports im trying to make everyone happy lol i hope im suceedeing a tiny bit lol we need to go fishing soooooon

wow there is always the one guy. Maybe just have to label it NBR as in non bass related. Then some people might not turn on the water works.

Okay, I am glad to see I did not offend anyone. Another page would be a good idea; maybe something like "What's hot" since my focus on reporting is what is the most productive week to week.

On another note I would not put the privatization possibility to bed yet, it has been done on rivers in the Mari-times; and we all know the Bountis Feira is just bold enough to try.