REGULAR STORE HOURS: Mon - Fri: 9am - 5.30pm 
Sheena and I took the opportunity to head down to Kidd Lake on May 9th for a chance at some of those huge fish that it holds. This is a lake that I had some success at last May and I am looking to repeat this year. I landed 9 fish last year and the smallest was 4.5lbs. Kidd lake is a true trophy lake. The rules are, artificial fly only, single barbless hook, electric motors and absolutely no retention of fish at all! This lake grows monsters and is well worth the drive. Kidd Lake is located just south of Aspen Grove along the side of the Princeton highway. As you may have guessed by the title of this report, we got beat by the lake but it gave us enough to entice me to go back this week.
We launched the boat around 9am and headed right out to my favourite spot, the spot that had produced so well for me last year, and promptly dropped anchor. We spent the first hour there working Chironomids and waiting in hope of a hook up. I was seeing several fish rise just up the lake from us so I made the call and pulled anchors to move. Everything was going according to plan until Sheena looked back at me with a puzzled expression and a muttered "Oh Sh&t" and that is when I was reminded that our front anchor line was frayed and needed to be fixed. She was sitting in the bow holding a tattered end of the rope and it was too late, we were down to one anchor. If you fish top lines and indicators, you will know what a challenge it can be to run two lines while pivoting around one anchor, and this is what we were looking forward to for the rest of the day. We moved over to where we had been seeing all of the activity and started fishing. I was studying the water and the insects that were in it to get an idea of what I should be using for a fly when I realized that these fish have a full smorgasbord to choose from and I was going to offer them imitation bugs full of hooks.....the odds were stacked against us for sure. We were sitting in 12' of water just off the edge of a shoal and I could watch Scuds swimming underneath of us, two different sizes of Chironomids hatching, Water Boatmen scuttling past and light olive Damsel Flys wriggling through the water and to top it off, Blood Worms on the surface! I started off with an Anti-Static Chironomid in size 12 with no success so then I decided to try and give them the smaller version in size 16. This time I put a little brown Anti-Static on with a white bead head and tossed it over board. I had made a couple of cast and was sitting there in my comfy boat seat day dreaming about what could happen' when it did, and took me by surprise. My indicator was about 10' from the boat when I saw it swing to my right and dive down deep. I set the hook and managed a few quick line strips on the fish before it really knew what was going on. The fish dogged me at first but I could feel its weight as it loaded my 6wt Sage ONE rod. It came to the surface rolled over to give us that teaser look and with a few swift swipes of its tail, churned the lake like a whirlpool and disappeared. Straight away from the boat it went, taking all of the line that I had laying on the floor from my cast, hitting the reel and peeling line off right into the backing. The fish stopped and I knew with the size of my opponent and the little hook that I had in his mouth, I had to be careful in how I fought this mammoth. Before I could regroup from the initial run, it gave me some of those massive head shakes and the line went slack, it was over. I said to Sheena with disappointment in my voice, " he's gone", and she couldn't believe it. I spun the line back up onto the reel and inspected my Chironomid to find that he had taken my hook and made it a straight. That rainbow was a solid 10+ pounds. Sheena describes it as being the size of one of those large carp that we have here at the wharf in Salmon Arm. I went back to a size 12 instead of the 16 because if I did hook another fish, the outcome was most likely going to be the same. We fished hard for the rest of the day in some tough conditions and didn't see another bite. The sun was beating down on us all day, the lake was warming up and there was no breeze to help give our flies any action. There are no exciting pictures to show you this week, only the tale of the fish that got away. I am however returning to Kidd tomorrow and I expect to get into some more of these great quality fish. One fish from Kidd lake and it will have you making the trek as I do just to have the chance at another one.
If you are looking for a new adventure and wanting to test your skills on big fish that are well fed, give Kidd Lake a try and let us know how you make out. I can guarantee that if you hook a fish there, the pictures will be of you holding it and smiling from ear to ear!
Enjoy Your Outdoors!