All of us on this USA Masters Fly Fishing Team here in Kamloops, British Columbia are ready to compete on the lakes when the World Championship competition starts next week. But its not only lakes that we compete on. We all have one three hour session on the dreaded Clearwater River (where we didn’t see a single fish other than non-counting pink salmon on our scouting mission) and another on the Similkameen River which none of us have set eyes on yet. Today we split our practices to fit our own personal needs.
Bret, Pete and Mike went back up to the Clearwater River. While we’re not allowed to fish the competition water, there is a practice stretch near. Their results weren’t great, but they managed to scratch out a few whitefish and this beautiful rainbow on nymphs. Once again, the Clearwater is overrun with spawning pink salmon and the trout and whitefish are hiding and appear to be well fed on salmon eggs. But at least the guys proved that “point fish” can be caught.
Loren and I considered scoping the Similkameen but it’s simply too far away – 2.5 hours – and neither of us wanted to be in a car for five hours. Instead, we thought it was best to practice nymphing whitefish and rainbows at a place where both species are abundant. Brian Chan advised us to fish the nearby South Thompson River.
The South Thompson was a mere 35 km away from our Airbnb out of a pretty little town called Chase. It was a slow moving deep section of river full of not only pink salmon but also Chinooks. But we’re closer to the ocean and the fish are fresher here and aren’t yet spawning dropping eggs. The rainbows and whitefish were hungry.
While Loren jumped out and started catching whities along with this nice rainbow, I could feel the need for a tune-up. Now that I live in WI I’ve been enjoying pike, musky, smallies and walleye much more than trout fishing the rivers. I have only trout fished the White in AR back in June and one trip on one of my local rivers.
Luckily, after a lifetime of trout fishing and taking it serious for the last 40 years, hooking rainbows and whitefish on nymphs came back to me rapidly. We had Scott and Sarah with us today also and let’s just say, we slayed some fish. It was excellent practice and both Loren and I are feeling very ready for the comp.
That’s about it for today. It was a gorgeous one with temps in the upper 60°s and plenty of sunshine. A highlight for me was watching Loren net his first largescale sucker on fly (pictured here), his first jack chinook (pictured below) and his first northern pike minnow. An awesome day!
Tomorrow is our final practice day. We plan to join Brian Chan on another nearby lake. We wont fish super hard but rather relax and share a few beers on the water. We feel good about the lakes. The next best thing to being well practiced is to be rested for the competition!
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