I always love one on one time with my boys. This weekend, we had a great experience fishing two different lakes in the Cariboo. Our first lake of the weekend was Horse Lake, located just outside of the city of One Hundred Mile House. We fished for lake trout and burbot but left empty handed. These fisheries are still new to me, especially during ice fishing season, and my interest in learning keeps me fishing for these species every year to learn just a little more.
We chose to stay the night in One Hundred Mile House so we could get an early start on the day and choose a lake in the area. While we wanted to explore Horse lake for more than one day, the ice thickness we found due to unseasonably warm weather had us planning to fish a smaller lake in hopes of finding safer, more consistent ice. We chose to stay away from the larger lakes as we were looking for six inches of ice or more.
Our new plan had us driving back towards home and detouring off the highway onto Enterprise Road. Thanks to Google Maps, we were able to navigate from the opposite direction we know into Chimney Lake. The road in was plowed all the way and for the most part a smooth ride until we turned off onto Chimney Lake Road. The snow on the road turned into a washboard type road where we found our teeth chattering and items in the truck vibrating intensely until we found a slow enough speed that would turn into the longest portion of the trip to the North Recreation Site on the lake.
When we arrived at the south end of the lake, we welcomed the well plowed paved road that took us the rest of the way. The outside temperature on the truck was reading minus sixteen and it looked like it was going to be a set up the tent quickly day. To my amazement, there were lots of people on the ice at the centre recreation site not using ice tents. When we arrived at the north recreation site, we witnessed the same thing. Everyone was sitting outside, in the open, with their backs to the rising sun over clear skies.
We quickly loaded up our ice sleds and headed out onto the ice. The well-travelled main path turned into two paths, and then another path branched into two more paths. We stopped, looked around and tried to decide which way to go. It was clear that there was heavy fishing effort at the lake. There was a snowball at the end of one path with a large open circle area that was clearly walked on many times. We decided to head to the area that looked travelled to the most and then stopped again to look around and decide where to go.
As we looked around at everyone fishing, we started talking about our options and tried to figure out where to set up our tent. We were looking for signs of people catching fish, but did not see anything happening. Then, I heard a whistle. After hearing the whistle a second time, I looked around and was waved over to a kind angler telling us to fish beside him. His friends had just left with their limit and he was more than willing to tell us to start fishing at thirty-five feet. He also said they were only biting on pink maggots. I told him that I only had mealworms and scented pink fishing corn which usually works for me. He offered to let me try some, but I insisted that my bait would work just fine.
Our new friend told us that we could fish beside him, which is something I have come to love about the kokanee fishing community. There were even holes predrilled from his friends. We accepted his offer and started fishing right away without setting up our Otter ice shelter because the fish were hanging around in large numbers. It did not take long to mark the large schools of fish coming through at thirty-five feet. Once we marked them, we were amazed at how well they were biting. They were biting so hard that we did not even have a chance to set the hook on them.
While we arrived on the ice late (09:30am), and missed the first hour of a feeding frenzy, we were not disappointed with how the next few hours would turn out. I had three fish on the ice and Austin had two fish on the ice before we started feeling the cold winter day wicking the heat from our finger tips. We decided to set up our tent to help warm our hands and start warming up some lunch before we packed up for our drive home.
There was a brief period of time when the fish disappeared from our Garmin Striker 4 fish finder screens and were swimming around in the lake somewhere else. Then, as if someone opened the flood gates of a dam, the fish started appearing in large numbers again and attacking our jigs tipped with a mealworm and one piece of pink garlic corn. I was impressed to see kokanee swimming into our jigs aggressively from the sides and was especially impressed watching them shoot up from the depths. While we were able to reel up and have a few kokanee chase us up twenty feet in the water column, we found these fish to be more curious and not willing to bite (sometimes they can be). There were a lot of fish coming up from fifty feet all the way to thirty-five feet. These fish seemed the most aggressive, so we lowered our gear to forty and forty-five feet where we ended up catching more fish.
After experiencing one of the best kokanee fishing days I have had in a long time, I started reminiscing about the days when kokanee fishing on different lakes was slow, and the fish seemed non-existent. I have spent many days staring at blank screens and many other days moving around a lake only to stare at yet another blank screen. Days like today make me wonder what I can do differently on slow days. What causes kokanee to stay in an area? How can a person determine if an area is holding food for these fish to feast on? While my fish finder showed some disturbance at fifty feet and I was thinking it might be a band of plankton, how will I ever know for sure what it was? I might never find the answers I am looking for, because kokanee are a fish that keeps most people guessing and learning how to change something to help entice a bite. The most intriguing and exciting part for me about kokanee fishing is not knowing how the fishing will be. Will I catch a limit of kokanee when I finally have a chance to go fishing, or will I have an experience where I need to learn a few more things until I can do it all over again? Either way, I look forward to my next adventure of kokanee fishing and my next adventure with one of my boys. The simple things about fishing are what keep my adventures refreshing and wanting more.
While I was not able to film this day for my YouTube channel, Fougere Family Adventures, due to my GoPro battery getting stuck in my camera, Here’s a couple videos of my past adventures fishing Chimney Lake in British Columbia. Please subscribe to my channel and stay tuned for more adventures to come.
To Learn more about kokanee fishing in British Columbia, Canada make sure you watch my Kokanee Fishing Playlist and How To Playlist. I hope this helps you.