A Week at the Lake
Quesnel Lake, BC, Canada
Written by: Bill Proteau, Technical Support Reaction Baits

Quesnel Lake is a large deep lake in central British Columbia, Canada. It is roughly 50 miles long running east to west with a North Arm of greater than 20 miles. It is over 1300 ft deep in places. The lake holds an abundant supply of Kokanee which provide feed to the record sized Rainbow Trout as well as the resident Lake Trout which run up to 30 lbs. Everything about this lake is big. It's not a lake for a small boat; so what did I take to this lake for a week? Of course a small aluminum boat (14' harbourcraft).

This is our second trip here as we went last year at this same time. The primary reason for me to fish here is the large Rainbow's. Along with the Kokanee there is the yearly migration of salmon fry that provides excellent feed as well as wonderful fishing opportunities for these incredibly large trout. The lake is connected to the Fraser River system via the Quesnel River that flows out of it, and thus yearly thousands of sockeye salmon spawn in the rivers that feed this lake, such as the Mitchell and Horsefly; legendary rivers in their own right. If your timings right you can catch the sockeye fry that have emerged in these rivers during the spring, and are now flooding back into the lake in large schools, and of course the Rainbow's are aggressively feeding on them at every opportunity.

My older brother couldn't make it this year but old family friends of ours did. We and the Wilson's stayed at Plato Island Resort, a full facility family oriented resort with lovely simple cabins that we rent. The scenery and fishing are spectacular and by and large empty of fishermen. We were primarily fly fishing, something which the locals considered eccentric as this lake is predominantly fished with downriggers and Apex's. A few years ago there was a restriction put on the lake which requires any Rainbow over 50cm or 20in to be released. This has been met with resistance here and we were asked time and again if this catch and release policy bothered us. Upon our negative answer the locals just shook their head and muttered something about the crazy big city folk from down south.

And big fish they are. The first few days were slow as the area has had a very hot and dry spring. I noticed that the lake was unseasonably warm, but after a few large thunderstorms rolled through over the next couple of days the temperature dropped and the fry started showing up. Each day got better and by the middle of the trip the fry were schooling up in large numbers not far from the resort. My fishing partner Terry Wilson loved the early morning bite and for the most part could not pry me out of my warm bed in the mornings to go with him, I really should have as he always had good fishing. The first morning I did I realized that the lake was empty of boats. It was 8 am before I saw the first and by that time a successive number of fish had come and gone. I seemed to have a devil of a time getting the fish to the boat this year. I had many large fish on but just could not get them to accept that their picture deserved to be on the internet. I decided in the end that I was using too small of hooks. We had the right fly (anything that looked like a sockeye fry) but these fish are so big that the small hooks that were tied with them just did not hook strong enough to last out the acrobatic leaps and strong runs.

Then the fry were gone. We searched as far as my little boat would let us but this is not a lake to take chances on as sudden storms are the norm here. Well now what? That was easy as the Lake Trout were always available, as well as many small lakes close by are full of rainbows to 2lbs. We took advantage of both. It was too bad my brother Larry had not come this year. He's a die hard Fly Fisherman and I would have loved to have seen his face when I pulled the downrigging gear out and proceeded to go trolling. We had never fished for Lake Trout but it was not hard to figure out. Put a green Apex on and drop it down to 140 ft in a certain spot, and voila you get one. It actually takes longer to get the gear up and down than it does to hook fish. Within a day we had discovered Lake Trout were at all depths depending on the time of day and were the feed were. We never caught any large ones but they were fun and very good eating.

Memories abound from my week at the lake; Terry and I being caught in a violent thunderstorm on a small lake where the rain and wind were so hard that visibility was down to a few feet, then moments later it was calm and sunny with distant rumbling and our soaked gear to prove it had all happened. Watching the kids swim and play all day until finally there was no more day to play in. Seeing my wife contentedly whiling the afternoon away with yet another trashy novel, then suddenly realizing that I had scooped it up to read when by chance she had put it down. Watching a Bald Eagle swim half way across Quesnel Lake because the fish it had tried to pick up was too big to lift out of the water.

But perhaps the finest was a hot sunny still afternoon that my oldest son Billy and I had, when we figured out where a school of large Rainbows were feeding. I hooked the first and instantly recognized the feel of a large fish. It rose to the surface and proceeded to shake it's head just like a large spring salmon will do. It took off and I knew that the 5/6 fly rod I had was no match. It soon spit the fly out. A few minutes later Billy and I both hooked large fish at the same time and chaos ensued. I knew I had to chase my fish but of course his went in the opposite direction. Excited chatter, hoots and laughter, position changes and finally both fish were gone. Billy got his the closest but still they were not going to allow their picture to be taken. I immediately did a war dance on the bottom of the boat to convince the fishing gods to relent. Back at it we went and sure enough another double header happened, but the gods did not smile on us and shortly the fish were off and our lines slack. We laughed and laughed and somehow knew that it was over.

I think the gods did smile on us! Cheers

Another Article