Canyon Reservoir and Duck Lake. But I’d done that
while fishing from shore, or in a boat, in shallow
water, just 10 yards or so from the bank. When I
met up with Chan he motored us to a shoal on a
50-acre lake he likes and told me to tie 20 feet
of tippet to my existing leader. He added, “put a
lead weight on your fly and drop it to the bottom.” I
didn’t know what to say in response, let alone how
I might cast the entire contraption. Chan, sensing
my hesitation said, “It’s not pretty.”
The weight, of course, was not to be cast.
Instead, I clipped the lead weight to my fly and
dropped it over-board. When it hit bottom and my
leader went slack, I raised the weight six inches off
bottom, pegged a cork to the leader at the water
line, and then hand-lined the fly in and removed
the lead. This way, Chan explained, I could cast
(huck, chuck, whip and duck might be a more
accurate description) the fly to a likely spot and
let it sit, know-ing it would be about six inches off
bottom, right where he marked fish on the sonar.
A bead head on the chirono-mid, plus a barrel
swivel placed eight inches above the fly, was all
the weight needed to reach that depth. Once I’d
cast the fly out 10 feet it became a waiting game.
Two nights prior, while fishing out of Corbett
Lake Lodge southeast of Merritt, I was overheard
telling a couple anglers that I wouldn’t participate
in the deep water chironomid game. “Too slow,” I’d
said adding, “I’d probably fall asleep in my pram.”
A guy who said he’d fished the lake for something
like 46 straight years pulled me aside and said, with
authority, “Don’t overlook it. Fishing chironomids is
not boring.”
Fair enough. But I didn’t fish chironomids
the following day at Corbett. Why would I? There
was an excel-lent late morning Callibaetis mayfly
emergence that had the fish slurping below the
surface and on top, and with calm conditions
I could sight fish for ‘bows that ranged between
17 and 21 inches. For a while the fishing was hit
and miss, but around noon the number of rises
seemed to quadruple within five minutes. I moved
the pram to where I’d just seen five rises and
dropped an anchor in six feet of water. Then I tied
on a Callibaetis emerger and threw at the first fish
passing by. He ate without hesitation. Two hours
later I’d landed, perhaps, 20 trout, nothing greater
than three pounds, nothing smaller than 16 inches.
Those are typical fish at Corbett, although
bigger trout do swim here. These are also standard
sizes (alt-hough fish to 10 pounds are possible) for
the adjacent Douglas Lake Ranch, which offers 12
private lakes ranging between 10 and 65 acres,
including the legendary Stoney and Minnie lakes.
Corbett and all of the lakes on Douglas are managed
as fly-fishing only and offer enough hatches to
keep anglers busy for a full week through the entire
season, the season basically running from ice-out
in March to ice-on sometime in November. You
can find these types of lodge offerings throughout
south-central British Columbia, making it a dream
landscape for DIY and lodge-based anglers alike.
BRIAN CHAN IS . . . THE CHIRONOMID KING
When fishing with Brian Chan you really don’t
have an option not to fish chironomids. He is the
chirono-mid king and when I asked him which
is his favorite way to fish he answered with this:
“Chironomids, underneath, especially later in the
season when the ‘bombers’ come off.” Bombers
are inch-long or longer chironomids that emerge
later in summer, often in August, that trout really
seem to key in on.
Not that these fish shied away from our size
14 and 16 imitations. In fact it didn’t take long for
Chan to reel in a nice fish, about 17 inches long,
very well fed, and looking as if its belly were about
to explode. But he’d expected better. More action.
Back-to-back hookups. Multiple doubles. High-
fives all around. And that wasn’t happening. So,
before releasing this fish Chan stuck a tube in its
throat and withdrew the contents of its stomach.
Chan pumped the contents into a small, clear vial,
raised it to the sun and said, “That’s not good.”
Inside the vial were tiny creatures called
daphnia, a.k.a. water flas. They were way too small
to match with our flies and if all the trout were keyed