May - mid July 2012: Sunshine and Transition

 

May signalled the wind down to steelhead season. I managed a few more days on the water, mainly on the Squamish and Cheakamus, swinging flies in the fading sunlight on warm spring days. A friend from Oregon, Scott, stopped in for a day on his way south from a sojourn on the Skeena and its tribs. We spent a day on the Cheakamus, and while the steelies were unwilling to bite, the weather was gorgeous and we spent some time focusing on casting.  

 

 

 

 

 

Mid May brought some changes. The rivers started to rise with the beginning of run off and several good friends headed off to northern Manitoba to do some guiding. This was the first year since 2006 that I was unable to make the trip down to Oregon to the Sandy River Spey Clave, one of my most favourite events of the year. M&Y hosted a showing of the IF4, which I'd already seen twice and therefore was left at the shop. I did, however, make the afterparty.

 

 

While many lakes in the BC interior ice off as early as late March, May is when things really get going. I was only able to make it up for one trip this season. In late May Catherine and I headed up to meet Ben, Andrew and Tim at a trophy lake north of Williams Lake for a couple days, and while the fishing was tough I managed to find a couple amazing fish. Chironomid fishing on trophy lakes can be incredibly tough, but the fish are well worth the effort.

 

 

June was pretty quiet, fishing wise. I started heading out after work to parks and beaches to take photos. I've always loved taking pictures, but I hadn't really been putting the time in in the last few years. I also discovered how much I love editing photos, and how much you can learn about taking them by editing them. Aside from taking over 2000 pics in June I spent a day with Ben and Landon on Chilliwack Lake, fishing for bulls and soaking up the sunshine. The shop held a single hand casting event at a local park, which was a ton of fun. We set up an 18 "hole" casting course and had a ton of new rods for people to try.

 

 

 

 

Canada Day I met up with Catherine near my place to watch Sam Roberts perform a free concert and watch the fireworks. Paula came to town and we spent an evening sturgeon fishing with Dave and Sarah, and got Paula hooked up on her first. We didn't land it, but we did get to see it jump. A few days later Paula and I drove to Calgary, as I'd made plans with her and Caity to spend a week fishing the Bow. We had an amazing week, and despite consistently rising water we managed to have some good stonefly dry fishing and some incredible streamer fishing. We fished from dawn till dusk most days, and managed to do three different floats one day. I hooked and lost a couple of incredible browns on streamers, one in particular that would have been at least 27", if not more. I even managed a quick morning float with Josh before driving back home to work the next day. It was one of the funnest fishing trips I'd ever had with some great friends.