Another amazing Fougere Family Adventure has come and gone.
We spent the past week in a lake house on Sulphurous Lake. We wanted a private place to spend time with our family and we found it. This was our first experience renting a lake house and we loved it so much that I’m sure we will be looking for one on another kokanee lake for next year and give more notice to other family members so they can join us.
Choosing a Lakehouse (VRBO) was an exciting process. We were looking for a dwelling that could house up to 8 adults and plenty of children if needed. We ended up having a great week with my father-in-law Brian and his wife Sylvie.
Our Lakehouse was a 3 bedroom house with a beautiful kitchen and open concept living room and dining room. The weather and mosquitoes proved this to be useful as there was plenty of space to play board games and watch movies while it rained and while the blood thirsty mosquitoes (upwards of 100 at a time) clung to the screen door waiting for us to come out and play.
The lake house also featured a beautiful deck, private dock and fireplace area to hang out on. We felt very lucky to be able to have campfires this year. Every campfire was appreciated knowing what happened last year. Our boys finally learned how to cook the perfect marshmallow and make a perfectly balanced chocolate smore over the campfire.
It was absolutely amazing to have our own dock to hang out on. Our docking experience level was raised each time we docked our boat. We got better as the week went on. Kingston was in heaven as he was able to go swimming more than once a day. The boys loved the water too and played with their kayaks and newly acquired float tube. Ethan even proved that he is learning to swim without a lifejacket (but knows he must still wear it most of the time).
Now dare I say this out loud (I couldn’t do this)…… but we could have left the boat at home and our week of vacation at the lake house would have still been amazing. Fishing was not on the top of our priority list this trip (but it was a close second, well…maybe third?) I must be getting older because the quality of fishing time spent on the water with loved ones far out weighs the quantity of time spent on the water. I still love fishing, but the “whole picture” seems to add to the experience. We spent each day staying up late, having campfires and telling stories. The stars were amazing and the quietness of the lake at night was only broken by the loons and mergansers, which is a soothing sound and a tell tale sign of the current time as they called at the same time each night.
We arrived Saturday afternoon and carefully unpacked the truck and launched the boat before dark. Sunday morning proved to be one of the most enjoyable times which would become a tradition each morning of the week. We all slept in! No alarms and no noise from the neighbors. We made our morning coffee and tea each morning and then headed down to dock and stood while sipping on Java and taking in our surroundings. After our dose of caffeine, we took our time eating breakfast and then a few of us would head out around 10am for a few hours of kokanee fishing. We would return for another relaxing break sometime near lunch time (which was at a different time each day) and then go back out before and after dinner. Some nights, we didn’t even go fishing because a campfire with family outweighed the slower than normal fishing (I can’t believe I’m saying this out loud). Having no set schedule was one of the best parts of the trip for me.
Monday we decided to go to Mahood and Canim Falls and then had lunch at Mahood Lake. The walk in was easy, but a reminder of the danger of the cliffs up ahead was amplified after Austin tripped and scraped his knee. Thankfully he learned this before the dangerous cliffs came and was made to walk as far away from the edge as possible. The falls were definitely everything we expected and well worth the hike in. We also treated ourselves by going over to Moosehaven Resort for ice cream after the hike and then repeated the ice cream trip two more times after.
Each day proved to be an exciting challenge that would end in a great thought process of what might have been happening. We fished a couple hours each day and each time out only got into one, maybe two kokanee.
I believe there were four major factors wreaking havoc on our fishing success:
1) I believe the weather was playing a huge role in “turning off” the kokanee bite. The weather patterns did not appear to be stable. Wind, rain and clouds were coming from all sorts of directions.
2) I also believe the weather had “turned on” the lake trout into a feeding frenzy (I can’t prove this as I have no Lake trout fishing experience). Why I say this is my fish finder was showing multiple fish of which looked to be telling the story of larger fish chasing smaller fish.
3) The water temperature did not seem to have a stable thermocline layer like most lakes get at this time of the year. The smaller shallower lakes seem to warm up quicker and push fish into “targetable zones.” Kokanee were caught at all sorts of depths. There was no rhyme or reason as to what depth they were at. We caught a nice kokanee long lining and also kokanee at 20, 30, and 38ft. I first started targeting at the usual 30 market that I start with on each lake and then was working the downriggers to find that “magic depth” which there didn’t seem to be.
4) My stubbornness got the best of me. I knew that the fish were scattered, but had convinced myself that most of the larger fish would be found deeper in the water column. Once I won the battle with my stubbornness, we caught large koknee at 20ft and another nice kokanee while long lining close to the surface. Also, after fishing the deeper sections of the lake, some kokanee were caught in shallower water than I had anticipated. I forced myself to try shallower areas away from possible predation. I do not get the opportunity to fish deep lakes often and the time I had this trip proved to be a valuable learning experience.
On a positive note, the slow kokanee fishing allowed me (more like forced me) to learn more about how to operate my fish finder. I learned how to zoom in on a target area, although my fish finder kept reading the downrigger balls of I zoomed in too far. After lots of messing around, I was able to force the finder to find bottom again if I zoomed out enough. Fishing a deeper lake and using the zoom function was a great learning experience. If only fishing the top 40ft of water, I had it set to 60ft to make sure I can see bottom. I prefer to stay 20ft above bottom whenever possiblble. I have decided to move the location of my fish finder a third time. I might move it this year or next year, but where it is now only works when I stand in the boat (which is 95 percent of the time).
I was impressed with my ability to constantly be switching gear to find “what the kokanee wanted.” Our boat looked like a war zone most of the time as it was littered with presentations that the kokanee had no interest in. There was no “magic lure/dodger” presentation. We had a few fish hit different setups on Sulphurous Lake.
Hathaway Lake proved to be easier to target the kokanee. We fished Hathway Lake on Friday. We arrived at Moosehaven to launch our boat after our morning traditions were completed and bellies full for the afternoon. The boys decided not to listen to mom and did not pack their sweaters. They would pay for it later as the cariboo weather brought a chilling breeze. Surprisingly, the boys lasted longer than expected. If we had sweaters they might have lasted longer. We caught 9 kokanee and lost at least 5 more. It was amazing to be one of only three boats on the water. Most of the time there can be upwards of 8-12 boats fishing at any given time which is a calming thing to watch as they slowly troll around each other. The breeze kept most boats off the lake (and of course maybe showing up around lunch time helped too).Our Kokabow dodgers and Mack’s Hoochies paired with either a smile blade and/or Mack’s wiggle bill were the winning ticket here. The orange hoochie worked well on July long weekend so we started with it. After about a half hour of no bites, we tried a pink hoochie on one rod and purple wiggle hoochie on the other. We tipped each hook with a new recipe of Canadian kokanee corn and aside from it turning my fingers the most pink they’ve ever been, it worked well. Purple and orange would become the two colours we used. As the orange turned off we used two purple hoochies. We also used an orange Old Goat Lure with our GoFish Cam and caught some great kokanee action on the OG1.
Friday night was looking like a bust for a campfire as the rain was coming down well into the evening. We managed to pack most of our belongings as the rain fell. Then, as if we had timed it, the rain stopped. We quickly started a campfire, had a few wobbly pops and then were lucky enough to see a few shooting stars, the milky way and Jupiter over the quiet lake as the loons and mergansers started calling. We woke the boys so they could see the stars, but they were so tired from a week of staying up late and sleeping in that they quickly put themselves back to bed.
Sadly, our stay at the lakehouse was over by 10am on Saturday morning, but the day was still young to have fun. We managed to make it for a very informative kokanee seminar put on by Danny Coyne. Thank you once again Danny for the great seminar and thank you Mark Roseboom for having him. It was great to meet a few people from the group in person also. It’s always great to put a voice to the name and picture of people we meet from the group. We also love talking in person as you can learn more than typing out a post on a forum.
After the kokanee seminar, we happily said hi to a couple group members and then had to (a requirement when so close to any fishing store and even more so when standing at the front door of Lone Butte Sporting Goods) go inside to buy some more “much needed” gear to add to my collection. While standing in line to purchase my gear, a lady approached me and gave me a gift certificate to the Iron Horse Pub because I was wearing a camo hat (which met her criteria before she entered the store). What a surprise and an exciting time. We were heading to the Iron Horse Pub for lunch, because we love the food there.
Our trip was almost complete. With full bellies and kokanee fishing on our mind, we started on our path home. we decided to stop in at the 3 resorts on Timothy Lake and see what they had to offer. In our family, each person helps in the decision of where they want to go next. As a family trip, our boys immediately chose Martin’s Resort as they saw the massive bouncy castle and huge playground upon arrival. We were very lucky to meet Dave as we were turning around to leave. Dave gave us a personal tour of his resort and some cabins. Dave is an amazing person who we learned has been running Martin’s resort for 26 years and has done a great job making a place for kids to “want to go to” each year. His resort has lots of space for the kids to play and the cabins he showed us were absolutely stunning. We plan to book here as soon as a cabin comes available. He said they are already booked for next year and I can see why.
We drove home satisfied with our next major adventure destination. The boys want to go to Martin’s resort as soon as possible and this is what we want to see. We want them to want to go fishing and of course play on large bouncy castles.
We want to go kokanee fishing again soon, but more importantly, we want to also enjoy our time while we are not fishing. I have heard the saying “they grow up fast” and am feeling the pressure to continue to cherish each day with my family as we grow and learn together. Time seems to be speeding up and our kokanee fishing trip vacations are helping to slow it down.