The following morning I fished with Geoff
Moore, a photographer and representative for
the province’s Caribou Chilcotin Coast Tourism
Association. We launched his johnboat onto the
lake and went to work using the exact tactics Chan
taught us the day prior. With a twist. Instead of a
chironomid Moore tied on a size-10 olive leech and
quickly had a couple takes. And shortly after he had
a fish in his net. That’s when I realized that these
tactics could be used on any trout lake, whether the
fish were feeding on chironomids, scuds, leeches
or a mix of all. All you’d have to do is figure out at
which depth the trout were feeding and put a fly on
their noses.
A couple days later Moore and I were hauling
his boat out of the water and calling an end to the
trip. We’d caught lots of trout, some that spilled out
either side of Moore’s undersized net. And we’d
learned tactics we could apply on our homewaters.
During a 10-hour drive home I had plenty of
time to consider that family vacation 30 years ago.
I’m still not proud of how I acted and fear I’ll pay
for it in karma as my daughters hit their teenage
years. But there was a reason I acted that way—
the stillwater trout fishing in British Columbia’s
southern interior is as good as it gets and it’s
difficult for me, even as an adult, to pass any of
these lakes, or even the roads leading to unseen
lakes, without wondering what might be finning in
each and wanting to find out, that very moment, for
myself. w