I still stay in touch with lots my old bass fishing pals from my past life. They’re forever hassling me about switching back to fly fishing but it’s all in good fun. I get regular invites to fish but I haven’t had much desire to unpack all of my tackle and re-rope 15 rods for a day of fishing.
All the bass guys have installed live scope on their boats and a few of them are starting to use it to target alternative species. When Jeremy called last week and said he thought he could get me on a giant Kamloop with my fly rod I was intrigued. He sold me pretty hard on this deal and I bit. These fish are enormous and so is the water they live in. He’s caught a few over #20 so the if we could find one and get it to bite, it would be an amazing experience .
The program is to drive around in known Kokanee waters, find them with the scope, and look for the giant predators that hang around them. We were finding lots of Kokanee in 10-20 feet but it we weren’t seeing any big fish with them. I did cast to a few schools just to see how my fly would show up on the screen and to make sure the fall rate was reasonable. My setup was good and it is 100% feasible to get hooked up on one of these giants if you can find one. It was pretty wild to watch on a monitor and a Kokanee did try to eat a fly but didn’t hook it and that wasn’t what we were there for.
This is BIG water and it became really difficult to scope as the light chop turned into rollers moving the scope up and down 2-3’. The scenery is amazing and the “needle in a haystack” concept is pretty intriguing to me. I’m definitely going to try it again, given the chance and right conditions.
After a couple of hours Jeremy says, "you wanna go see if we can find some SM?" It was what I had been thinking about for about an hour. We weren't far from the delta of a big ass river that dumps into this lake. He's never been in there before but had always wanted to see it so we decided to change gears and made a VERY bumpy run to the river. We idled through some shallow stumpy water and found a stretch of good looking water to start prospecting. It’s been a minute since a picked up a bait caster but within a couple casts and a blow up on a big walking bait, I fell right back into the routine.
We were picking up a few SM here and there and it was fun to be back on the deck of a boat doing something I had spent so much time doing with someone I really enjoy fishing with. Jeremy and I had always “fished against” each other and never together so we told old stories of lost fish and blown opportunities at victory. It’s funny that we never spoke of wins, only losses.
As we got further and further into the backs of these sloughs we could see the water transitioning from SM habitat to LM water. Jeremy pulled out a frog rod from the locker while I was messing with my camera. I was sitting down changing some settings on my camera when I heard one of my favorite sounds. The unmistakable blowup and braided line singing through guides!
The stoke level was high as we had stumbled into a little piece of heaven. The habitat bass habitat was amazing and so was the scenery. Jeremy was winging his frog at the bank as I continued to chuck my walking bait out into open water over submerged wood and stumps. I'm fishing the opposite side of the boat with my back to him when he yells dude dude dude! We're both on the front of the boat so I turn around to see an absolute slob of a LM tracking his frog from just below the surface. He's only got another 10' of line left until he's back a t the bota with his retrieve. I'm looking at the pile of rods on the deck for anything I could throw in as he runs out of line. All that I could see that might work was a senko but I knew that wouldn't fall fast enough to get a reaction once she lost her focus on the frog. DAMN! We both watched her swim off slowly into deeper water. This was a full grown one…she appeared to be in that 6-7# class.
We need a jig rod on the deck! Jeremy quickly digs one out of the locker and I start pitching it around to no avail. We had two very eager fish track that frog in less than 2 minutes. It was a bummer to not get that fish to bite but now we have a plan. Jeremy throws the frog and I pitch the jig behind him ready to throw back on any blowups that don't connect. I had pretty much lost all interest in bass fishing but I'll admit, this put me right back into that groove. Over the next couple of hours he stuck two more nice fish on that frog and I caught the three that blew up and didn't get pegged. we were a well oiled machine!
As noon rolled around we were two hours late for what we had both promised our wives we would be back for. Neither one of them were happy with us but we had ourselves a time! What a beautiful place and an experience that was a 180 from what we had set out to do that morning.
All the bass guys have installed live scope on their boats and a few of them are starting to use it to target alternative species. When Jeremy called last week and said he thought he could get me on a giant Kamloop with my fly rod I was intrigued. He sold me pretty hard on this deal and I bit. These fish are enormous and so is the water they live in. He’s caught a few over #20 so the if we could find one and get it to bite, it would be an amazing experience .
The program is to drive around in known Kokanee waters, find them with the scope, and look for the giant predators that hang around them. We were finding lots of Kokanee in 10-20 feet but it we weren’t seeing any big fish with them. I did cast to a few schools just to see how my fly would show up on the screen and to make sure the fall rate was reasonable. My setup was good and it is 100% feasible to get hooked up on one of these giants if you can find one. It was pretty wild to watch on a monitor and a Kokanee did try to eat a fly but didn’t hook it and that wasn’t what we were there for.
This is BIG water and it became really difficult to scope as the light chop turned into rollers moving the scope up and down 2-3’. The scenery is amazing and the “needle in a haystack” concept is pretty intriguing to me. I’m definitely going to try it again, given the chance and right conditions.
After a couple of hours Jeremy says, "you wanna go see if we can find some SM?" It was what I had been thinking about for about an hour. We weren't far from the delta of a big ass river that dumps into this lake. He's never been in there before but had always wanted to see it so we decided to change gears and made a VERY bumpy run to the river. We idled through some shallow stumpy water and found a stretch of good looking water to start prospecting. It’s been a minute since a picked up a bait caster but within a couple casts and a blow up on a big walking bait, I fell right back into the routine.
We were picking up a few SM here and there and it was fun to be back on the deck of a boat doing something I had spent so much time doing with someone I really enjoy fishing with. Jeremy and I had always “fished against” each other and never together so we told old stories of lost fish and blown opportunities at victory. It’s funny that we never spoke of wins, only losses.
As we got further and further into the backs of these sloughs we could see the water transitioning from SM habitat to LM water. Jeremy pulled out a frog rod from the locker while I was messing with my camera. I was sitting down changing some settings on my camera when I heard one of my favorite sounds. The unmistakable blowup and braided line singing through guides!
The stoke level was high as we had stumbled into a little piece of heaven. The habitat bass habitat was amazing and so was the scenery. Jeremy was winging his frog at the bank as I continued to chuck my walking bait out into open water over submerged wood and stumps. I'm fishing the opposite side of the boat with my back to him when he yells dude dude dude! We're both on the front of the boat so I turn around to see an absolute slob of a LM tracking his frog from just below the surface. He's only got another 10' of line left until he's back a t the bota with his retrieve. I'm looking at the pile of rods on the deck for anything I could throw in as he runs out of line. All that I could see that might work was a senko but I knew that wouldn't fall fast enough to get a reaction once she lost her focus on the frog. DAMN! We both watched her swim off slowly into deeper water. This was a full grown one…she appeared to be in that 6-7# class.
We need a jig rod on the deck! Jeremy quickly digs one out of the locker and I start pitching it around to no avail. We had two very eager fish track that frog in less than 2 minutes. It was a bummer to not get that fish to bite but now we have a plan. Jeremy throws the frog and I pitch the jig behind him ready to throw back on any blowups that don't connect. I had pretty much lost all interest in bass fishing but I'll admit, this put me right back into that groove. Over the next couple of hours he stuck two more nice fish on that frog and I caught the three that blew up and didn't get pegged. we were a well oiled machine!
As noon rolled around we were two hours late for what we had both promised our wives we would be back for. Neither one of them were happy with us but we had ourselves a time! What a beautiful place and an experience that was a 180 from what we had set out to do that morning.
