First Report in a Long time

[Zubris21]

Well, it has been quite a while since I’ve posted any kind of detailed report. As some of you may already know, I moved to Dease Lake in the North Western corner of British Columbia, back in late August. I moved up hear to start my teaching career, so far everything has been great. I’ve had the opportunity to go camping a few times, tag along on a couple of hunts, and even made it up to Whitehorse for a few days. I’ve taken loads of pictures, but it is just too time consuming to upload them all, with the poor quality of internet we have.

 

So far and I’m really enjoying myself, I’ve had the opportunity to try a few new things such has Grouse, and Ptarmigan as well as Dried moose meat, and we even cooked a full Turkey over an open fire for thanksgiving. The only downside: I haven’t been fishing as much as I would have liked, but I do have 3 new species under my belt since being here: a 3-4 lb Dolly Varden, some small Whitefish (caught casting a small Mepps spinner from shore believe it, or not), and this morning I got a couple Brook trout through the ice (more on that later). so here we go...

 

Mid-way through December my house mate and I decided to take a little drive South along hwy 37 to a small mountain range called The Hotailuh Mountains to take a few pictures. We were specifically at a location called Gnat Pass. Looking out across Gnat Lake (which is supposed to have great Rainbow fishing) we saw a small heard of Caribou grazing away. It was my first Caribou sighting and I was pretty excited, I just wish they were a little closer to get some better shots, but here are the ones I managed.

 

 

 

For Christmas break I headed back home to Kingston. Dealing with the Vancouver airport and getting home was quite an adventure, but I don’t really want to get into that. I flew out of the City of Terrace, its about a 7 hour drive in good conditions and was lucky enough to have clear skies on my drive down. I saw this momma and calf about a kilometer outside of town.

 

 

Got to Gnat Pass right around sunrise and managed to take a few nice scenery shots.

 

 

 

Now finally we get on to this weekend. My house mate is big into backcountry skiing, and I finally made it out with him. It had been about 6 years since I last skied, and have never skied any powder, but was really looking forward to the trip. Our plan was to head Northto the abandoned asbestos mining down of Cassiar, then skin up to tree line in the Cassiar Mountains. We started out and got around 500m in breaking through about a meter of snow before we decided it was too much. We had about a month long cold spell where the temperature never climbed above about -27 degree Celsius and it had ruined the snow. Typically we would have been able to stay in the top 20-30cms.

 

Here’s a picture of me breaking trail. Our plan was to ski around the bowl high up the mountain above my right shoulder.

 

 

We decided to head back South along the highway.

 

 

Ended up finding a nice little tree filled hill on the side of the road. We Climbed up about 500m and had a nice little ski down.

 

 

My house mate making his descent.

 

 

It was great to get back out onto the Skis, I was a little non-committal about it, and was afraid to really let go, so I had some trouble, but I think next time I will feel much more competent.

 

Finally today, my much anticipated first Ice fishing trip. I only had a couple hours this morning because I had to coach hockey, and we were delayed getting out because we had to dig out my friends snowmobile, but it turned out to be a great day.

 

We went to Allen Lake, which is literally a 10 minute walk from my house. It’s a small lake containing only Brook Trout. I’ve heard stories of some monster fish being caught in there. When we finally made it to the lake I set myself up with a Swedish pimple tipped with some raw bacon. It only took about 10 minutes when I felt a tap on my line. I think I got a little to excited at the prospect of pulling in my first brookie and went for a really hard hook set…. Nothing there curse. I dropped the line back down towards bottom and as soon as I did... SLAM a great hit. I set the hook and had a minute or two tug of war with this healthy little 15’ Brookie.

 

 

 

We were excited that we got our first one so quickly, and thought we were in for a great day. My friend isn’t much of a fisherman, he had a couple on, but didn’t set the hook despite me yelling at him to do so and lost them on the way up. After about 2 hours we could see some friends walking down the lake. My friend decided to head over and pick them up on the sled. I was left to man the holes. I was jigging his rod in an effort to get him one, I felt a little tap, then heard this scraping sound behind me, I turned and my rod was heading, quickly, down the hole. I dropped the rod I had in my hand and ran to the other hole. Managed to catch it just in time and pulled up another nice healthy fish. This one measured in an inch and a half longer at 16.5’.

 

Heres a nice picture of Dinner followed by, what will be my first entry into the ’09 OFC tournament.

 

(The measuring tape isn't quite at his nose.)

 

 

I can’t wait to get out again to this local lake and hopefully catch an 8+ pounder, they are supposed to be in there .

[Roy]

Glad you're having a good time out there. Thanks for the report and great pics.

[Sinker]

I really like reading the reports from other areas of Canada! Thanks for taking the time to write this one up.....and congrats on those beauty specks too!!!

 

Oh ya......HOLY SNOW BATMAN!!!!

 

Sinker

[Zubris21]

I really like reading the reports from other areas of Canada! Thanks for taking the time to write this one up.....and congrats on those beauty specks too!!!

 

Oh ya......HOLY SNOW BATMAN!!!!

 

Sinker

 

 

There really is a lot of snow. We were guessing we had about a meter here in town, but up where we were skiing there was a lot more. I made a little pit about 50cm Deep, then plunged my ski pole down to see how much deeper it was. Ski pole was set at 125cm and I couldn't get to the ground. Probably a good 2 meters up there.

[Zubris21]

I actually had a question about the brookies, Since this is a new species to me I don't know a whole lot about them. Looks to me as though I may have caught 1 male and 1 female based on the side by side picture... can any one confirm or deny this and point out the distinguishing characteristics?

[Sinker]

I actually had a question about the brookies, Since this is a new species to me I don't know a whole lot about them. Looks to me as though I may have caught 1 male and 1 female based on the side by side picture... can any one confirm or deny this and point out the distinguishing characteristics?

 

Its hard to tell by looking at them. They look the same to me in your picture......I would guess both females??

 

That is a pile of snow!!! 2m

 

Sinker

[BassAsin]

I actually had a question about the brookies, Since this is a new species to me I don't know a whole lot about them. Looks to me as though I may have caught 1 male and 1 female based on the side by side picture... can any one confirm or deny this and point out the distinguishing characteristics?

hey! thanks for the report some beautiful scenery and a great story. what a nice looking dog in the one pic as well. border collie? as for your question on male female

 

the male will normally not always have a slight hook in the jaw it may be very un-noticeable, a more dominent black and white line on the fin tips and a brighter more orange belly along with a strong and predominant blue halo on its spots this is for the most part not always and the difference becomes more noticeable in the larger fish.

 

take a look at the gallery of pics on my profile and there are male and females there where u can see the difference quite well, sometimes the hook jaw will even leave a U shape in the top nose once again mainly in your 2.5+ lb fish!

 

thanks again for the story and congrats on the 3 new species!

 

Matt!