Fishing Rolley Lake Provincial Park: Winter Hours

Last weekend a friend and I decided to take the pontoon boats out for a little winter lake fishing but couldn’t decide on where to go. Our choices were Silver Lake up in Hope BC, Buntzen Lake, which is considered a local lake, Mike Lake, another local lake or Rolley Lake, about an hour’s drive out of the city.

The problem with Silver Lake was the distance, it is about an hour and forty five minute drive and given our late start combined with the winter hours, we decided to give that one a pass for now.

Buntzen Lake, while close, has a tendency to get over fished leaving you with the best to hope for; Pike Minnows. Who really wants to spend hours exposed to the winter elements on the off chance of only catching a fish you aren’t going to want to eat? Yet another passed location.

Mike Lake, less than half an hour away, was my choice of last resort. My son and I had visited the lake back in October when we discovered that Rolley Lake had closed for the winter. While the fishing was good for us that day, I wanted to go someplace else seeing as Mike Lake was the location of my last fishing trip of 2009.

Originally my son and I tried to go to Rolley Lake because I had read online a few days earlier that the lake had been stocked with a few hundred 2 pound trout. Not realizing that the Provincial Park had been closed for the winter we set out for a day of fishing. Upon arrival we discovered that in order to fish there that day we would have had to hike in all of our gear, something we were not prepared to do so we went to Mike Lake instead.

Knowing that the lake had been stocked just after closing for the season and being robbed of a trip to that lake, my friend and I decided to go to Rolley. Armed with the knowledge that we were going to have to schlep in our gear we took along a furniture dollie. Even using the dollie it took a considerable amount of time and effort to get the pontoon boats down to the lake.

I understand that the Provincial Parks have been privatized in order to cut costs but do they really need to close the gates to the parking areas? To me this doesn’t seem much like a public asset when the public is hindered in its use. But that is a topic for a different post on a different kind of site.

All toll it took us about 45 minutes to finally get the pontoon boats on to the water and start fishing. Rolley Lake isn’t that big and it does not allow for the use of propellers but we had planed on oaring anyways so that didn’t matter.

I started fishing with a green micro leach on a sinking line and was rewarded with a small trout after about 20 minutes of trolling. My second fish struck a few minutes later and felt like a couple of pounder but I didn’t land that one. I continued with the green micro leach and caught another small one. I rowed around for a little while exploring the shoreline and landed yet another small trout for my efforts.

Things were certainly slowing down so I thought I would try changing to a black micro leach but only realized similar success. I met up with my buddy on the other pontoon and he told me that he hadn’t had any luck at all and was heading into shore.

I told him that I was going to do one more pass through the spot where I was catching all of my fish and that I would be in shortly. I was successful and caught another small trout and headed in.

It was a lot of work getting the gear onto the water that day but I enjoyed myself and now know where to drop my line on that lake. I am pretty sure I will be packing the pontoons back to Rolley Lake again one of these days but not before it gets re-stocked just prior to the park re-opening in April. Sure it will be extra work but there won’t be many people on the water, just the float tubers and whoever decides to lug the gear down to the lake with me.

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-01-10

• If you were thinking about step'n up to a custom fly rod now is the perfect time as Fetha Styx has some great deals now http://bit.ly/7XYU5E #
• Southern British Columbia River Fishing Report: High Water on the Local Rivers http://bit.ly/5wyh6m #
• BC Interior Lakes Ice Fishing report for Jan 2010 http://bit.ly/7UjKOa #
• Steelhead fishing report for southern British Columbia January 2010
  http://bit.ly/5K8pFt #
• Trout fishing report for Trout Fishing in and around Vancouver BC Jan 2010 http://bit.ly/4MQ7ry #

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Twitter Updates for 2010-01-07

• If you were thinking about step'n up to a custom fly rod now is the perfect time as Fetha Styx has some great deals now http://bit.ly/7XYU5E #
• Southern British Columbia River Fishing Report: High Water on the Local Rivers http://bit.ly/5wyh6m #
• BC Interior Lakes Ice Fishing report for Jan 2010 http://bit.ly/7UjKOa #
• Steelhead fishing report for southern British Columbia January 2010
  http://bit.ly/5K8pFt #
• Trout fishing report for Trout Fishing in and around Vancouver BC Jan 2010 http://bit.ly/4MQ7ry #

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If you were thinking about ste…

If you were thinking about step’n up to a custom fly rod now is the perfect time as Fetha Styx has some great deals now http://bit.ly/7XYU5E

Southern British Columbia Rive…

Southern British Columbia River Fishing Report: High Water on the Local Rivers http://bit.ly/5wyh6m

BC Interior Lakes Ice Fishing …

BC Interior Lakes Ice Fishing report for Jan 2010 http://bit.ly/7UjKOa

Steelhead fishing report for s…

Steelhead fishing report for southern British Columbia January 2010
http://bit.ly/5K8pFt

Trout fishing report for Trout…

Trout fishing report for Trout Fishing in and around Vancouver BC Jan 2010 http://bit.ly/4MQ7ry

Fantastic Deal on Custom Rods

We’ve just received word from our custom rod builder Fetha Styx that they are going to clear out some old stock and we can get some really good deals on some nice rods.  There are some Switch Pro Series rods available, they are all 10′8″ in length, 4 piece rods and there is 5,6,7 and 8 weight rods. These are great rods for trout fishing or Steelheading the Thompson River or other such big waters.  The can also double as a great centerpin rod.  These are super sensitive Rainshadow Blanks, built with some high end components.  Regular price is $350.00 US and we will having them on sale for $279.99 CDN.  To order yours early give us a call @ 604-944-2479.  For those who purchase a rod and reel together we will include a free spey casting lesson to get you started off right!

Interior Lakes Ice Fishing Jan 2010

The Ice fishing season is well upon us and there are some new lakes open to ice fishing.  Tunkwa Lake is proving to be a great destination this year.  This is the first year that Tunkwa has been open to ice fishing and the fishing is good.  A good proven technique at any lake is using white or yellow marabou jigs, or you can use some curly tail grubs in chartreuse, white, pearl, chartreuse glitter.  Later in the season when oxygen levels drop in the lake and the fish become more lethargic using extra attractants can aid in your catching.  Some things you can use are ruby eyed wiggler spoons or other silver spoons that you use as a flasher above your jig or bait set up to attract the fish.   You can also use baits where allowed.  There are a lot of different baits I use but the two most popular seem to be cooked shrimp and bacon.  Small pieces of either of these on your jig will help produce numbers.  Try fishing for Brook Trout for a change they are very tasty table fair.  Check your regulations for openings as a lot of new areas have opened this season.

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