Shucking Prawns & Skating Bull: Fly Fishing Vancouver Island

Chaos Packing: What Rivers? What Fish? Heading to Vancouver.

Day 1: 4am comes quick if you have nothing packed for a five day fly fishing trip for who knows what. It's 9:30 PM and I'm scouring my drift boat, kayak, dry bags, wader pockets, wading jackets, and fly tying bench to scrap together a "catch any trout in the world" selection of trout stuff for this trip. Some experienced anglers would argue that could include just two patterns, a Chernobyl Ant and a Wooly Bugger. I'm not too proud to say that's not the plan on this trip. If you've heard of a fly pattern, we probably took it on this trip because I was very unclear about what we were getting in to, which I like.

Which rivers? Yeah, I'm not totally sure about that either. Our guide, Craig, rattled the two or three unheard of rivers off over the phone, but they didn't really register to me, so the plan was to basically bring everything that I know a trout would possibly eat. Actually no, that's sort of a lie, I remembered one of them and Googled it on my iPhone a while back, but there was just one really bad blog, and then also a PDF link to a fish census report, but the lines for different species just read "n/a" from 1956 and on.

So yeah, that's how I got to now, "I'm bringing it all." A short tying session later, followed by stuffing five single hand rods and three spey rods in to my Fishpond travel tube, cramming my Bugger Beast to the max with every streamer I could find, and packing the rest I knew I could maybe need, knowing I wouldn't use half of it. I was unsure, but pretty pumped up, and so was Dad, he loves BC's Vancouver Island.

How We Found Our Guides

To give this adventure a little context, Craig has been Dad's hunting guide on Vancouver Island the past few years and after many nights on the boat together, it dawned on both of them, as well as the owner of the outfitting business Eric, that they know lots of rivers that most other people know very little about and they more than likely have some great fishing, or at least maybe.

Plus, they have all the boats and tools to actually get to those rivers on a consistent basis and stay up there without a lodge. So, they asked Dad if he and I would be interested in coming up with them to help scout the rivers before they start offering the trip to other fly fishermen. This is something I will say yes to 100% of the time, so hit me up.

We flew from Great Falls to Seattle, then Seattle in to Canada's Vancouver, and then finally up to Vancouver Island. We were met by Lorna Mikkelson, she and her husband Eric own the outfitting business. Lorna bought us lunch, and told us about her latest adventure in Spain on the way up to Campbell River (now Dad could be going Ibex hunting in Spain).

We were met at the docks by Jim, who I knew from a previous trip, and his son, Craig.

Reaching the Boat

Craig and Jim were ready to go in their 31 foot welded aluminum cabin slash apartment slash our hotel for the trip that they customized, towing a 17 foot jet sled that hid 200HP for running the rivers that they also built out. We got going right away because we had a 45 mile boat ride to get completely off the grid to some rivers that are rarely touched by fly fishermen. On the way up, we stopped to set crab and shrimp traps for later.

Our plan was to camp on the boat for four nights so that we could keep the "mothership" (this is a place holder name until Craig names his new boat something better than what he had so far) at the mouth of the river while we explored the rivers during the day with the smaller jet sled. Night one, we met the only resident in the area, Chuck, who bought his piece of land from the logging companies after they left.

They filmed some major movies here at Chuck's, but if I talk about the movies, that would give away our new spot. The film crew was here for a month and a half to shoot the twenty minute scene required for the movie, built a monastery, had four A-list stars staying here at Chuck's place, then left and took it all down.

He let us tie up at his dock for bringing him some groceries and new strawberry plants. After over eating some top shelf ribs prepared by Craig's wife, and a few games of cribbage, we went to bed excited for the first day of exploration.

Getting Out On the Water

Day: 2 Wasn't sure how I'd sleep in the bottom of the boat cabin; turns out I sleep perfectly well. Woke up to a beautiful morning and we loaded up all of our rods and gear in to the jet sled. After omelets, sausage, and coffee, we headed towards our first target river.

About three miles up from the mouth, we stopped and excited, I grabbed my spey rod and ran up river. On my fast walk to the top of the run, a two foot bull trout ate my fly that was dragging off the end of my Skagit head, and it was at that point that I realized just how lucky I was to be on this trip.

A few casts later, I had landed a 24-25 inch bull trout... on purpose this time.

At that point, I had caught the target species, and relaxed enough to go help dad get set up. I had streamer max lines rigged on the single hand rods and tied on a hunk of articulated white and silver bull trout parfait (rabbit hide, dumbbell eyes, polar chenille, cherry, cocktail umbrella). Minutes later, Dad was on the scoreboard as well with another bully.

We landed 16-25 inch Bull trout every spot that looked like one could be there. Just before lunch, and at our best guess five-to-six miles up river, I landed one really nice fish.

We made a fire on the beach at lunch, scoped out the elk tracks, watched some sheep on the mountain side, and set up Craig's rod finally. After lunch, Craig landed his first bull trout on his new Sage Pulse we brought him from the shop.

We fished the runs back to the mouth before heading back to camp, and at our best guess, we landed 30 bull trout and a handful of cutthroat. Dad even caught his first fish on the spey rod (it was Jerrin's rod and I was so stoked for Dad, that I stepped on it and broke it while I was taking he's picture).

Back at camp, Jim evidently saved Chuck's life (the guy who owns the dock), and luckily the only other fisherman to show up happened to be a doctor and stitched Chuck up. Chuck's wife baked us a pie for after dinner for Jim's heroic efforts. We decided to scope out the other nearby river quick before dark and jetted up about three-to-four miles and landed another half a dozen fish before dark. Dinner, cards, stories, bed.

Siracha Pancakes and Spey Casts

Day -3 Siracha and pancakes start the morning. I walked up to take a shower at Chuck’s to find out he has a satellite Wi-Fi signal and gave me the password in exchange for computer help later in the day. I don't know a ton about computers, but I'd have to guess probably more than Chuck and happy to share what little I do know. We planned to fish a different river today and wanted to see how far we could get up the river in the jet boat.  Turns out... a very long ways. After two hours of heading up river, we just decided to call it good because it was getting close to lunch and we wanted to fish.

We passed an elk crossing the river, a helicopter tour, and still aren't sure just how far you can get up the river, but it's a long ways and days of floating. The first run we stopped at was unbelievable. We literally got to this spot where each of us would hook up a bull trout land it down on a section of the beach, Craig would take our photo, let the fish go, and then the next angler would rotate in and repeat... over and over. Dad landed the fish of the day in that spot, and I would guess 25 bull trout were landed in a 10 foot section of river right there. We left just to see some other parts of the river and they were just as good.

Want to see a North 40 Fly Shop video we shot in BC?

We caught a few cutthroat and rainbows throughout the day as well. At one point, an eagle landed on a pile of logs next to us, and I had a 20 inch bull trout on. The eagle flew down and took the bull trout out off the water and broke my streamer off 15 feet in front of me. It stole my Smoke N' Mirrors from Dan Soltau's a Dirty Water Fly Co. Later on, down the river, I had caught so many bull trout I decided to see if they would eat a skated mouse.

They do.

Craig and Dad watched me skate a mouse at last light, while the mouse pattern got blown up by bull trout. We got back to camp to find out that our crab and prawn traps had worked extremely well and bottomless fresh crab and giant Vancouver Island prawns were on the menu for this evening. I bet we ate over 100 prawns and 5-6 crabs late in to the night until Dad was falling asleep sitting straight up in a seafood coma. Epic day in BC.

Crab, Prawn and Skating Mice

Day: 4 We packed up the big boat and got ready to head south towards a smaller river. Even if I mentioned the name here, I promise there is nothing to find out about it on Google or YouTube. It's a small river that is rumored to get a good winter steelhead run this time of year. We said goodbye to Chuck, gave him our leftover lasagna, and headed out to explore another new river.

After arriving at the mouth of the river, the loggers that were working the area confirmed that steelhead have been in and out of the river recently. We took the jet up the mouth, but unfortunately, fallen timber and a low, clear river didn't let us up the river very far in a jet. We had to tie the boat off and walk up. The pools in this river were deep and clear, the deep parts giving off an aqua turquoise color. We walked up the river a few hundred yards to check it out. We smelt fresh elk along the river, accompanied by its tracks, which got Dad and Craig excited as they planned to hunt the area later in the fall.

We had a few fish take some larger streamer patterns. In our last attempt, Craig saw a big bull trout rising in the middle of the run. No dry flies along, Dad chucked a Smoke N' Mirrors just above the fish and it ate it. Probably a 27-28 inch bull trout. If we had more time, we would plan to hike up in to the river and spend the day, and with the right group of dedicated anglers, I would guess some really big bull trout live in that river.

We headed out of the river, and started planning next year’s trip on the boat ride back to Campbell River.

Vancouver Island Hunts ran by Eric and Lorna will be offering this adventure fly fishing trip starting next spring in 2017.

The trips will be led by head guide Craig Walls. We already grabbed the first spot to continue working with them on this brand new and adventurous fly fishing trip.

These rivers will be in good shape for an 8-12 week window in the spring before run off.

If you're interested in booking a trip, feel free to email me at sam.wike@north40.com for more information.