Educating myself about new species and helping others catch fish has become one of my favorite ways to explore new lakes and spend time fishing with family and friends.
This past week was one of our best family fishing trips to date (and personal best as well). I spent the weeks leading up to our adventure studying and planning out the lake thanks to Angler’s Atlas maps and Navionics which has some of the most accurate contour maps available on a mobile app. I printed a map from Angler’s Atlas and drew all over it. I marked possible places to try for lake trout and included local land mark names and resort names on it for reference. Another tool I used (although after the trip I’m not sure if it was helpful) was the Weather Network. I tracked wind direction and cloud formations during the week leading up to our trip. With this data, I was hoping I could narrow down productive fishing locations and key in on lake trout that were hiding in the depths.
I am fairly new to lake trout fishing. Over the last couple of years, I have been fishing a few lakes and am now starting to explore as many of the great lake trout lakes available to us here in British Columbia. We chose to fish Canim Lake this year, because of how close to home it is for us. We were also told by many friends that we had to explore this lake one day because of the scenery surrounding the lake and the great beaches available. This lake did not disappoint, but the stories we heard from locals have me concerned about the growing popularity of lake trout fishing and the potential harm we as anglers can cause to healthy lake trout stocks. The fish used to be bigger here, but over the years the harvest has not kept up with the size of fish available. Smaller fish are more noticeably available and the older brood stock is being depleted. What will the future of this lake look like if everyone continues to harvest the larger fish?
As some people may know, lake trout are a slow growing species. They can live more than 40 years. The larger fish hold more eggs for reproduction of the species and I have also heard that they spawn every other year (correct me if I’m wrong on this fact). Lake trout are also high in mercury, because they gather mercury over the years from eating other fish. We should limit our consumption of these fish because of they are not stocked for us to eat and because they are high in mercury. I would also add (from my experience so far), that lake trout do not freeze well and taste better fresh when caught from the lake and put onto your plate. I found the flesh went soft and the skin was hard to get off after thawing from the freezer. With all this in mind, the decision to keep a smaller lake trout for consumption makes it easier for me to harvest one of these amazing species once or twice each year when we go fishing.
Planning our trip started with booking a cabin like we always do. We decided to split our trip up between two resorts on the lake and experience each resort. Both resorts had pros and cons to them, but in the end we had a great time at both, just in different ways.
We arrived at Rainbow Resort on Saturday evening and stayed for 5 nights. The hosts were amazing and welcomed us to their family run business that had been passed down through the family. I felt at home the moment we stepped out of the truck and into the office. The knowledge and experience from decades of lake life was inspiring and I wanted to learn more, but we ran out of time to talk (next year I’ll make sure to ask more questions). Our family had booked 3 cabins beside each other and in the future I hope to booked a 4th. My favorite cabin locations are always lakeside with the option of a campfire and view of the lake as the sun sets and the bats come out to feed. After this trip, I am also adding an accessible beach where kids can fish from (and actually catch fish) to my list of favorite things I look for when renting a cabin. The experience at Rainbow Resort brought it up to our second best place to stay for a vacation because it checked off all the boxes of things we look for when staying at at resort.
I caught my first burbot ever during the first night of our stay. The boys wanted to fish off the dock to see if we could catch anything and thanks to our Big-Nasty Tackle trout and pout spoon it was fish on. I’ve never seen Ethan run so quickly and quietly in the dark (it was past quiet time) to get the net.
The next morning we headed out on the pontoon boat that the resort rents out. I can not explain in words how much it meant to me to be able to fish off this pontoon boat surrounded by family. We spent two days on the water together and I was happy just to be the captain and watch others catch fish.
My first drop of the morning had me jumping with joy like a little kid at Christmas. I hooked a decent sized laker (or so I thought) and it was fighting pretty good. Then, when the fish appeared as it was ascending to the surface I could see that it was not a lake trout, but a burbot. Wow!!! How could this be? I had never heard of anyone catching burbot on open water during the day. Then, shortly after I hooked a second burbot. What was happening? We planned this trip to chase lake trout, not burbot. While I proceeded to process what had unfolded, I continued to focus on trying to catch a lake trout. Unfortunately, the morning bite died down and we were not able to locate any more fish so we went in for breakfast and headed back out shortly after. As luck would have it, I hooked a third burbot in a completely different area of the lake later that day. Knowing that we already had enough food for a fish fry, we tried to release the third fish, but it would not revive enough to dive down on the open water. Sadly, we had to keep it and planned another fish fry for when someone caught a lake trout that we could harvest.
The lake trout fishing ended up being decent for us. By the end of the week we landed 25 fish and lost many others. Our most productive lure to catch them on was a blue holographic Buzz Bomb lure and a green holographic buzz bomb lure. Unfortunately, we lost 5 buzz bombs due to frayed line and not checking our line after each fish caught. I also lost a buzz bomb trying to grab the hook in the net. When the fish flipped around in the net it pushed my pliers closed and I cut the line. This was not a fun way to watch $8 sink away.
I enjoyed watching Ethan catch some tanks on a discontinued Gibbs Fishing Zak Attack jig that looked similar to the buzz bombs we were using. While he was busy catching fish, I was already planning on searching up where to get these Zak Attack lures when we got back to the cabin (Wi-Fi was available). I also enjoyed watching Marcus catch fish. Years ago, he was skeptical about fishing and wasn’t sure if he would like fishing or not. After a couple chum salmon and coho salmon he was hooked. I enjoyed watching him dial it in and be the first person to drop his lure when I gave the “drop” command as a fish appeared on the fish finder. The most exciting was watching Sarah hook and land a lake trout while jigging, because she always says jigging is no fun. Secretly, I think she enjoyed it more than trolling so stayed tuned to see if I can convert her. Sadly, we had already kept a lake trout for a fish fry and Sarah’s fish had swallowed the buzz bomb, so we unexpectedly had to eat more fish than anticipated and have now had enough fish to last until next year.
When the time came, we packed up and cleaned everything out of our cabin. No, we were not going home, but were heading to Reynolds Resort for 3 nights to meet with the boy’s friends and family. At first, I was not thrilled with the hillside the resort was on and was not looking forward to walking up and down to the boat and beach area below due to my lack of exercise. After a few trips it became normal and I was thankful to be getting exercise with the prize of fishing on one end or a relaxing campfire on the other. The kids loved the game room at the resort and we hardly saw them as they hung out with their friends and played games at night time before quiet time. The owners were great to deal with and they made sure we were taken care of when we needed help. The resort cooked hamburgers and hot dogs on Canada Day and we were excited to eat a great meal by the lake. I was happy to be further up the lake and explore more of the larger side of the lake. Unfortunately, I only scratched the surface on Canim Lake, so I will be back to explore some more and hopefully sooner than later.
When I compare Canim Lake to the lakes of highway 24 or those in the north, I see a lake with potential. This lake was once stocked with kokanee but they did not survive well (is what I understand). The plankton on the surface had me thinking about asking if this lake is on the radar for a stocking one day as it would be great to catch kokanee in the heat of the day and lake trout and/or burbot when they are willing to bite. The size of the fish here compared what they used to be has me concerned about the future of these fish, but I believe that talking about the key factors of decline, the concerns and the education needed to encourage conservation of the species will have us returning to this lake year after year to compare notes and see if the decline gets better or worse. Time and talking about those fish that were released will hopefully help us learn to be better anglers and stewards of the land.