Trout Fishing Silver Lake in Hope BC

Silver Lake is a decent sized lake about 7.5 miles south of the town of Hope BC, Canada. This little gem of a lake boasts amazing mountain scenery and of the conveniences of a provincial park. I arrived at the lake around noon and quickly set up my pontoon boat and rowed out from the boat launch on the north side of the lake. The wind was up and blowing in the direction I was heading, west towards the mouth of the creek pouring into the lake. For tackle I was using a wet line with a red headed green micro leach, as I trolled along the North side of the lake, skirting the shoreline and weed beds. The water was only about ten feet deep and before I reached the creek mouth I had a strike but no fish on, and then I lost the hook in the weeds. Having only a few of the red headed micro leach patterns left I thought I would try a different fly. The wind was picking up quite a bit and in the time it took me to put the fly on I was blown onto the sandy shore by the creek mouth. The beach was crowded with lots of people camping, sunning themselves and fishing the strong current of the creek. There was a couple of people using worms and doing quite well catching lots of little trout, all in all a good time for the families. Armed with my new presentation I set out to troll the little bay just south of the creek mouth and boy oh boy, am I ever glad I settled on the black and red micro leach pattern as I started catching fish almost right away. When you match the fly pattern to whatever the current hatch is you are in for some great fishing and my afternoon was full of lots of action. I spent most of my day rowing along the south western edge of the lake, just along the weed beds and stumps. I was catching lots of small trout that were getting progressively bigger and bigger as my afternoon continued. I think my 6th fish was a large trout as it started stripping out line faster than I could remove my rod from the rod holder. Finally grabbing hold of my Dragonfly Trout Stalker rod I start reeling this bad boy in and he sure didn’t like it. The thing about the south side of the lake is that there are lots of deadheads in the water and I knew that this could be problematic. Here I am reeling in the biggest fish of my day so far and I am near several submerged trees, I know it and apparently so did this mature fish. I am reeling this fish in and it is fighting to get off and then all of a sudden the line goes taut and it won’t reel at all, the bugger fish snagged the line on a stump and was gone. It sure was fun while it lasted though. When I originally set out to go fishing this day I had planned to spend some time fly fishing on the Skagit River and as such I had more flies for that presentation than I did for fishing Silver Lake. Do to poor planning I only had a few flies for the lake and only one more of the black and red micro leach pattern. Seeing as I was catching trout almost at will at the lake I abandoned any thoughts I once had of fishing the Skagit River. Armed with my last fly I continued to troll the south western side of the lake and was rewarded with a few more smallish trout. With the wind blowing hard East to West, and I understand that this lake is windy quite often, I was getting tired from all of the rowing and knew I would be going home soon. Fisherman will often say that they have their best luck just prior to packing it in for the day and I am no exception. As my day was coming to an end I hooked into a really good sized trout. I am rowing with the wind at my back for a change and all of a sudden bang, the rod starts bouncing in the rod holder and I quickly drop the oars to grab the rod and let the wind blow me where it may. The fish feels even bigger than the one I lost earlier and as such I am thinking there is no way I am going to lose this one. I begin reeling the fish in and for the most part the fish is swimming towards me so I am gaining some good line. The fish must have spotted the boat and begins to run anew, what a great fight. I start gaining some line again and the fish turns and runs again so the dance continues until the fish does one desperate turn and jumps so high and hard that is snapped the line. I got to see that fish as it flew through the air at about 3 feet out of the water. This trout had to be at least 18 to 20 inches long and was a beauty. Now I am of mixed feelings about this fish getting off my line, on one hand I am happy that this trout will get a chance to reproduce and on the other hand, it took my last magic pattern. I was talking to one of the areas’ local fisherman who revealed a few of the lakes’ secrets which I will share with you that are lucky enough to have read this. Where the mouth of the creek runs into the lake, drop anchor on the other side of the roiling current and cast into the backwater as this is where the bigger fish are. Silver Lake is a good lake for fishing but Ross Lake, down the road a pace is even better. For myself I will give it a shot but not before I get an electric trolling motor for my little pontoon boats as this is a windy lake and I don’t think I could do too many days of rowing in that wind. Les Romhanyi