Dry fly Steelhead fishing

Spent the last week in what I consider to be one of the greatest places to fish wild steelhead on the fly. My LONG time fly fishing, bowhunting, waterfowling, friend Brad Siemens and I had previously guided on the Babine river. After almost ten years since we moved on to bigger and better things (Family and real jobs lol!) we decided it was time to go back and spend a little time fishing for ourselves. We brought along a first time Babine steelheader named Ryan, but also known as "young buck" to help show us what was lurking in the depths. Your chances of seeing a wild steelhead over 20 pounds on the fly on the Babine river, is better than anywhere in the world! My goal was to fish dry flies the entire week if the conditions permited. The chances of hooking one of those 20+ pound hawgs drops considerably when fishing dries but I have done it in the past, so why not? Upon arrival, we found the best possble dry fly conditions you could ask for! So we set up camp and got to it. I stuck to my guns and fished a dry the entire week other than one run, that didn't look to conducive to the dry on the third day. It didn't yield the big 20 pound buck i had hoped but I did land a nice little hen on an       ''Electrik Leech''. The sun was an issue with the water being soooo clear, and first and last light were the time to be waking bugs. The rest of the day was finding any run you could with shade on it. In the end my slowest day (if you can call it that? LOL) was rising 1 fish to the dry, and my best was raising 9! The highlights of the trip were spending time with Brad and especially watching him hook and land a nice buck on his favorite run while ''grease lining'' his favorite wet fly the ''Superfly"! We had some great meals cooked on an open fire, with stunning night skies. I haven't received any of Brad or Ryan's pics of our adventure yet but will share some of what I took, enjoy ;)

Our home base for the week

Ate loads of great food, like bighorn sheep steaks, chicken, mountain goat burgers, and bacon and eggs!

Oh, and farm fresh eggs from Brad's place!

A monster hen on the dry!

couple pics of Brad's favorite run named ''Callaghan's''

Brad's buck on his ''Superfly"

This kind of water screams waking flies!!

''Waked'' flies produced fish like this on average all week!

Brad lands a nice little hen for me, the only fish I took on a wet fly, an "Electrik" Leech of course!

Brad with a real nice buck landed on the last evening on his "foamback" pattern

We were sooooo lucky with the weather!

"Danish king of kings"

A client referred to me as the "Danish king of kings" this week? I don't consider myself a "king" of anything, but sure do love doing what I do!!  It took me a moment to realize that maybe he was referring to these? 

Bull Trout.......

Probably my favorite fishery in the Fraser Valley is just starting to pick up. With the colder, wet temperatures we've been having this year it has started off a lot slower than normal. The fishery I'm talking about is for Sea-Run Bull Trout. These large Char begin making the journey up several coastal rivers to their headwaters where they will spawn in the fall. They are great on the fly rod and can be caught on a bunch of different methods. My favorite (as well as most people I guide) is to swing, and retrieve very large streamers. Typically I have my guests fish different colors and see which one is producing better in that days conditions, but if I have a choice I always grab a BIG black one with lots of movement. Most fish average between 3 and 5 lbs, but I've landed them as big as 14! I would say that no matter how many we hook, or how big they are, the best part about chasing these fish is the places we have to go to catch them. The scenery is fantastic, and as many of you know I have built a boat specifically to get to these types of locations. Its not unusual to see deer, elk, bear, and over the last few seasons, even a wolf or two!