Big brookies, floating muskeg swamp, sank to waist, swimming coyote

Okanagan · July 16, 2018, 10:07:44 AM

Was asked to take a man from back east fly fishing in the southern Interior of BC. This is my debrief. Good man. He is visiting relatives here, good friends of mine. Hot weather, poor fly fishing for trout this time of year.

We rented a boat on a lake with a rustic lodge and we got a very few rainbows the first day but at least could back cast and fish in a beautiful tea water lake with timbered islands and bays of lily pads.

We saw a coyote swimming across the lake, ran the boat to within 4 feet of it and followed it till it scrambled and stumbled through shore weeds and over driftwood logs. My guest had never seen a loon and we got a mama loon and baby to talking back and forth with me, within about 30 feet. Loons respond well to calls.

We had to return the rented boat at 7:30 PM, just as the fish started rising closer to sundown. It is light till almost 10:00 PM.

On day two we risked and went to a lake with brook trout that I have not visited in 30 years. There are only a few spots on the brushy, timbered muskeg shore firm enough to stand and close enough to open water to get a line out past the floating and sunken logs and trees extending way out into the lake. Lots of moose sign. I was so intent on trying to get him into fish that I never took a picture. His nephew was along and took some pics so if I get any I'll post a pic later.

Lots of hits and short strikes, a few catches and we could see the fish follow and take the fly in the clear amber liquid. While he fished, I hiked (slogged through muskeg and bulled through brush) on to the next lake, a pond surrounded by floating muskeg. No sign of humans. 30 years ago no one knew of or fished the miserably accessible pond, but I discovered that it held only large brookies. No idea why. It still does.

25 yards from the pond I stepped on a soft spot, sank quickly to my knees and going down. I lunged for firmer ground and punched through deeper. I rolled and dove to one side to lay out on top of the mess and pulled myself out by grabbing a warped willow bush. Soaked to my waist, I got as near the edge of the pond as possible and flicked out a steelhead size streamer fly of orange and yellow with a silver body, on a #2 long shank or maybe bigger.

The fly sank well and about four feet down near a sunken log, a big brook trout eased out and casually inhaled it. I tightened as the fish turned and pulled the fly out of its mouth. Next cast nothing but the third cast either the same fish or another one took it. A strong heavy, sluggish fighter like many big fish when first hooked, it didn't resist much till I had pulled it close to shore, then merely dove to head back under its log. The third round of that it woke up and peeled out yards of fly line heading straight across the pond.

It took a good two or three minutes to work it back to shore and I had to land it through the fringe of weeds, moss and fine brush. Broke it off trying to horse it through that stuff. At least 20 inches and almost certainly an inch or two longer with a deep fat body. The kind you describe in pounds, not inches...

My new friend was into fish as the late afternoon bite picked up and we didn't have much time till we had to meet his women for supper in town. They were touring wineries while we toured mosquitoes. We didn't hike/slosh back over to the pond. My mind imagines that place in October with gaudy spawning brookies on their Fall feeding spree.

You got money for a plane ticket out here, Nasty?

nastygunz · July 16, 2018, 01:32:10 PM

I am starting walking right now!

Hawks Feather · July 16, 2018, 03:57:42 PM

Quote from: nastygunz on July 16, 2018, 01:32:10 PM
I am starting walking right now!

If you stay state side let me know when you make it to Northwest Ohio and I bring you a drink.

Jerry

nastygunz · July 16, 2018, 04:19:24 PM

Brookiesâ¤ï¸â¤ï¸â¤ï¸â¤ï¸â¤ï¸â¤ï¸â¤ï¸â¤ï¸

Okanagan · July 16, 2018, 07:23:19 PM

Bring snowshoes.

Seriously, next time I go there I will take along my synthetic snowshoes and put them on for walking on the floating muskeg. A Cree friend in northern Canada gave me the tip to use snowshoes in a swamp. I had told him I passed a bull moose because it was a couple of hundred yards out in a bad soft swamp. He told me to use snowshoes to pack out the meat.

Actually, the conversation went like this:

Me: Ramble, ramble, tell more details than needed, talk, talk.

Him: "Snowshoes."

nastygunz · July 16, 2018, 07:40:17 PM

Haha, A man who values the economy of words

pitw · July 17, 2018, 02:08:10 PM

A swimming coyote,

.
That is what I always heard.

I BELIEVE

The other stuff was pretty interesting too.

Okanagan · July 17, 2018, 04:05:53 PM

That's the second swimming coyote I've seen in my life, and I have hung out around a LOT of coyotes and a lot of water.

The first one was 30 years ago in the Columbia River between Invermere and Radium, early Fall. It was hot and dry and the elk were down in those vast swamps along the river there so my son and I went after them. At one point where the river had a ten foot high bank on my side, I looked over and a coyote was in mid river below me, heading my way till he saw me appear. Then he reversed course, looking back up at me over his shoulder once in awhile.

The river there is 60 feet wide or less, clay bank on one side and cattail swamp on the other. A dead 5x6 bull elk was half in the water on my side and the coyote was coming over to eat. Folks were sitting up on the side hills or railroad embankment, spotting elk out in the swamp and shooting (at) them at long range. This bull was gut shot, dead. We found two shot dead ones that afternoon and circling ravens indicated a third dead something.

FinsnFur · July 19, 2018, 09:40:18 PM

Quote from: nastygunz on July 16, 2018, 01:32:10 PM
I am starting walking right now!

Where ya at now?

nastygunz · July 19, 2018, 10:44:12 PM

I put my body on autopilot and started out and when I came to I was on the couch watching the last Alaskans

JohnP · July 20, 2018, 02:42:04 PM

Next time take your damn camera with ya!!! Coyotes swim across the San Pedro river down here daily and most of the time they barely get their pads wet.

nastygunz · July 20, 2018, 04:43:54 PM

I was out on a boat one day I came up on a swimmer/yote I almost was going to shoot him and then I said that poor bastards struggling pretty hard already so I gave him a pass

I don't believe in kicking anything when it's down except Democrats and liberals