Big Lake annual fishing derby.
We made a last minute decision to go to Big Lake and decided to enter the derby to see if we could raise the excitement level in the boat. I’d say it worked.
Our Saturday started like any other weekend. Off to the soccer fields we went and I started thinking about what lake I wanted to go to afterwards. We had been talking about Tyee lake this weekend, but I knew the Big Lake derby was today and was curious to see if I could find some kokanee in Big Lake because it has been 2 years since we went there.
When soccer was over, we had a family talk to see of the boys were up for fishing. No one was interested, so I told them i was going to go to the Big Lake derby. I was amazed at how quickly they wanted to come fishing now. The possibility of a prize for kids is definitely a motivator. Once we got home, Ethan had decided he wanted to stay home, so Austin and I headed out for Big Lake.
The drive down was relaxing. We saw a cow moose and baby calf on the way down. We also saw a nice color phase bear.
Registration was easy. We walked up to the table and registered. Launching the boat was easy too, except we had to be careful as the launch is shallower than we are used to. The next 4hrs would prove taxing as we tried various locations on the lake for kokanee.
We did manage to get one kokanee to bite and lost it just before the boat. We were hoping to catch a few kokanee and then try for rainbows as the 1st place prize was $1,000. Time was running out and we wanted to at least have one fish to weigh in, so we switched over to chasing rainbows. We ended up catching 3 rainbows (one which was foul hooked, so it went back to live another day).
Our last rainbow of the night was a memorable moment that Austin and I will have forever. When the fish hit, the fishing line on Austin’s rod was stuck in the clip. It would not come off, so I grabbed the line and pulled. Well, bad idea, because the line broke and we lost the dodger and lure (or so we thought). As we were floating there, I noticed the other broken end of fishing line was still in the downrigger clip. We managed to pull in Austin’s fish and had some hoots and hollers in excitement of not losing this fish.
We weighed our fish in and did not qualify for any prizes, however, we had great afternoon together and sat down for snack before our journey home.
As we were finishing our snack, we noticed Dave docking his boat. His boat tote gave him away and we wandered down to say hi. Dave, it was truly great to meet you today. Finally, we’ve met another person from our group “in person.” Hopefully we can pick a date for another group get-together at Tyee or another lake close to Quesnel.
As for the kokanee, they managed to elude us. We tried everything. We tried deep and shallow. The only kokanee we caught and lost was off the Downrigger at 10ft, which of course, with the release clip was more like 8ft. Big lake is definitely a challenging lake and time is needed to find the kokanee. We will be back one day, but for now we are planning our next Fougere Family Adventure