It all started with a call from Dave McNall. He was organizing a trip to the Kamloops area of British Columbia. I had mentioned to Dave last year that I was interested in going on this trip. This was to be the third year of what seems to be turning into a COF tradition. Two years ago Dave and Don Johnston went, last year it was Dave, Don, Bob Griffin, Doyle Goolsby, and Dave's friend Glenn. This year the group was to be Dave, Don, Bob, Doyl, Clyde Keller, Ken Stringer, Mark Riesinger, Mark Hellekson, Raven Wing, John Burns, Dick Meyer, and I (Gordon Chandler). In addition the sister and brother-in-law of John Burns would be staying at a lodge in the area while we were camped.

There was quite a bit of pre trip planning. There were meetings and memos (Dave McNall was very organized and very well prepared). Dave was doing a lot of pre trip research via the Internet. He had gleaned a large binder full of information from various websites (primarily bcadventure.com). He was also in email contact with Brian Chan (the fisheries biologist of the area and a recognized fly fishing expert) and Gordon Honey (a highly respected Kamloops fishing guide). From these sources Dave had determined that we would do well to set up our base camp on a small lake not far from the town of Logan Lake. Bob Griffin was doing pretrip research the more conventional way – he was writing letters and making phone calls. Bob was in correspondence with the owners of a fly shop in Logan Lake. They had sent him a list of flies that worked on the lakes of the area with tying instructions and sample flies. Bob is also a member of the Kamloops Flyfishers (a club like ours located in Kamloops) and receives their newsletter.

I was told to expect BIG chironomids BIG caddis, BIG fish, and also BIG mosquitoes, lots of BIG mosquitoes. I tied what I thought would be all the appropriate flies and I stocked my camp supply box with 20 mosquito coils, 2 citronella candles, spray mosquito repellant, a bottle of repellant lotion, a head net, and a bottle of MSG (Bob had told me that if you rub MSG into mosquito bites it lessens the itching)

Bob left for BC well before any of the rest of our group so that he could attend a meeting of the Kamloops club, check out our campsite, and do some fishing. When he got to Logan Lake he stopped in at the fly shop, met Neil and Gorgie Abbot, the owners, and one other local, Wayne. These folks turned out to be very friendly and ended up taking Bob fishing a couple of times. Bob picked out a campsite for the group and phoned back to Bend to update Dave with the latest information.

The majority of our group left for BC on the Thursday after our June club meeting, I left a day later than the rest of the group. The drive north was relatively uneventful until I got to within half an hour of our camp. I got lost in the town of Logan Lake. Well not really, you can't get lost in Logan Lake, it's a nice small town with two gas stations, one small mall, a recreation center and no stop lights. It's just that I couldn't find the turnoff to the camp. I had misunderstood the directions on what to do once arriving at Logan Lake. After wandering around for enough time I finally decided to just stop and ask directions. What better place than the Logan Lake Fly Shop, the shop that had been so helpful to Bob Griffin and others. I wandered around the Logan Lake Mall for a while before spotting the "Logan Lake Fly Shop and Vintners" sign tucked away in a corner. The couple sitting on the bench in front of the shop asked, "Have you been looking for the fly shop all this time?". I answered, "Yes" and asked if they were the proprietors - they were. We went into the shop and I introduced myself as a friend of Bob's and got directions to the lake. I also spent some time talking about flies that I would be needing and purchased a few to add to my collection. Just before I was going to leave I asked about buying a bottle of wine. They said that what they sold were wine making supplies and their wine business was a "craft" business. They said that I needn’t worry about locating wine for that evening though, there was plenty at the camp. It turned out that some of our members had been very good customers upon arriving in Logan Lake and in appreciation the Abbots had left some of their personal stock at our camp when they had visited earlier. Nice folks, eh? It turned out that the quantity and quality of their donation to our BC outing was quite generous and very greatly appreciated.

When I arrived in camp Dave was fixing dinner - an enormous pot of chili. He was patiently stirring while the rest of the group were having a before dinner drink or three or four. I noticed that Dave was in waders. This became a ritual. Dave doesn't bother to get out of his waders for trivial tasks like cooking or eating. Dick Meyer, however, outdid Dave a couple nights later and didn't even bother to remove his fins. Seeing Dick navigate around the camp in fins I was afraid that he might "turtle" on dry land, but he didn't - he didn't even turtle out on the water. He managed to stay fin side down the whole time.

Dinner was great, possibly the best bowl of chili that I have ever had. Dave said that he had made up the batch of chili ahead of time using the winning recipe of one of those chili cook-off contests. This was only the first of many great meals. We had a great variety of very well prepared meals. Breakfasts and dinners were the prearranged responsibilities of various members. The food was far better than one would expect on a camping trip. My heartfelt thanks to all who cooked. The Abbots joined us at camp Friday night and offered to fish with anyone who was interested in going out. I wished that I wasn't so tired after the long drive, what better way to learn about the lake that to fish with the owners of the local fly shop.

Having arrived a day late I spent some time talking to the group about how the fishing had been. Everyone mentioned the "Chironomid Fisherman". Apparently there had been a guy in a well-equipped raft who was catching fish with enough regularity that everyone in our group had taken notice. They watched all day as this guy hauled in a fish about every 10 to 15 minutes. Everyone was wondering what exactly he was doing because he was doing very well and we weren’t, but our group resisted the temptation to crowd in on his water. At the end of the day he must have been appreciative because when he pulled his raft out of the water he came over to our camp and asked if we were a fishing club and if we were interested in knowing about his technique. YES everyone was DEFINATELY interested in knowing what this guy was doing. Here's the scoop: He used a stomach pump to show us exactly what the last fish he caught was eating - minute size 30 blood worms through size 8 chironomids, but mostly size 14 chirnomids in gray, brown, and olive. He had used his anchor rope to determine the exact depth of the water that he was fishing. He used two anchor lines so that his boat wouldn't swing around. He put on a strike indicator at exactly one foot less that the depth of the water (if the water was 20 feet deep the strike indicator was 19 feet from the fly. He used a fly that was as close to the naturals as possible. He used a very long 4lb-test tippet. Once he made a cast he did not move the line (he maintained that the gentle waves on the lake imparted enough action to the fly) and watched for any movement of the strike indicator. I didn't hear if any of our group was able to make the technique work for them but everyone was impressed with his generosity and was interested in at least trying the technique.

One day soon after arriving in BC Doyle and John Burns traveled to the lake that John's sister and brother in law were staying at to do a little fishing. Doyle caught a fish pretty early on using a Roxie's Rainbow (a fly pattern that Doyle had discovered at a fly shop in Sunriver). John yelled over to Doyle, "What did you get him on?"

Doyle yelled back, "Roxies Rainbow!"

Now, of course, John put on a Roxies rainbow and started catching fish. And like any good brother he paddled over to his sister and brother-in-law and gave them both Roxies Rainbows. It wasn't long before all four of them were catching fish and pausing only long enough only to yell back and fourth to each other "What are you catching 'em on?" Answer, "Roxies Rainbow!" or "Still using the Roxies Rainbow?" - answer "yes". In any event soon everyone fishing the lake that was in earshot of our group of four (and with Doyle's booming voice, being within earshot covers a large area) knew that the Roxies Rainbow was as they say, "slaying them". We can only surmise that a lot of frustrated fish-deprived fishermen attempted to buy some of the magical Roxies Rainbows at the resort because of what happened next.

After a very successful day of fishing (Doyle and John caught about 40 fish each) our group of four went into the resort and in the process of talking to the proprietor mention that they had done very well on Roxies Rainbows. "So YOU"RE the guys!" he responded. "What the he*& is a Roxies Rainbow?" "Everyone on the lake has been coming in asking for Roxies Rainbows!" John gave a sample of the fly to the guy at the resort, not hard to tie; just hard to find the rainbow colored tinsel that is the key to the fly. The next day there was a packet of the rainbow tinsel tacked to the door of the cabin of the in-laws. The guys from the resort had found some in Kamloops and were in the process of tying up some flies to sell at the shop.

The whole time we were in BC Dave and Bob were in communication with the Abbots and Wayne, a local, looking for out of the way places that had either big fish, lots of fish, but preferably lots of big fish. As a result we went into a number of lakes that were off the beaten path. In fact at one lake our group was asked, "How did you guys hear about this place?" Dave fudged the truth a little when he said, "It's on the Internet". No point in getting our benefactors in trouble with their neighbors. One of the tips that we got of a place to fish was a small lake tucked in behind one of the ponds associated with the copper mine. Four of our group were going to fish this lake the next day. I told Bob that I was interested in joining them but that there were some things that I wanted to do in town the next morning but I could try to catch up with them by about noon. Bob kindly wrote out the directions for me, and the next day at about 11:00 AM I was on the road toward the lake. "Turn right after the overpass" - got it. "First dirt road to the left" - got it. "Go around the pond behind the copper mine" - confusion began to set in. This road had dozens of forks so I stuck to what I thought was the most likely route. The road was getting worse and there were lots of piles of bear sh*t along the road. I finally got to a place where the road crossed a washout. The spring runoff had cut a large trench across the road. It had been "fixed" by filling it with small downed trees. I stopped the truck. My gas gauge read about a quarter of a tank. I calculated my odds of getting stuck (low to moderate) the odds that I was on the wrong road (high) and factor in the bear sh*t and low fuel and decided to head back to the "camp water". This turned out to be a good decision. Unbeknownst to me the group that was supposed to be ahead of me had gotten lost also and had gone off to fish elsewhere. Besides, the fishing that afternoon on the camp water was very good.

There was an ongoing bet on who would have caught the biggest fish by Wednesday night (we had some members that had to leave Thursday morning). Early on in the contest Clyde "the Guide" Keller took the lead and held it for several days. It was only when some of the guys ventured out to lakes known to hold bigger fish did Clyde’s record fall. Doyle landed the biggest fish of the week, a 25" Kamloops rainbow on a leach. There were also a couple of 23" fish caught, and Raven caught a 22 incher and one bigger that wasn’t measured. Raven caught these fish while sight fishing over a number of large fish that were podded up at one end of a remote lake.

In actuality, I really don’t think that size is the main attraction here. Sure there were some big fish but what was so special was how they reacted when hooked. These fish fight and jump to an extent that Clyde was compelled to comment "compared to these fish our Crane Prairie fish are pussy cats". Ken Stringer said that when he hooked his first Kamloops rainbow he thought he was into a 20" fish. He was surprised to find out when he landed it that it was "only" 14 inches. I had several fish on that I swear came out of the water eight feet. I don’t think I have ever seen fish jump so high.

We had perhaps the best possible location for our fishing outing. We were camped on a small lake (slightly bigger than South Twin but shallower) that had very good fishing. We were less than half an hour away from the perfect town. In order of importance, Logan Lake has: a very good fly shop run by true flyfishers with their heart in the right place, a liquor store, a bar, a bank with an ATM, a very good grocery store, there is a place to buy a shower, and there is a Laundromat. In addition there is a very good lake right in town.

We had great food prepared every evening and every morning. The fact that breakfasts and dinners were communal events planned ahead of time made camp life very pleasant. At some point we were talking about the fact that this is the third year of annual pilgrimage. Three years ago two COFers (Dave and Don) made the trip to Kamloops. Last year it was 5. This year it was 12 plus. I made the comment that the number of attendees more than doubles every year and that next year there would be 25 or more. I think I remember that whoever was cooking dinner that night said "NOOOO!!!" There was some discussion that if the group got too large it might create certain logistical problems but nobody wanted to discourage any club member from going next year. This trip is exactly the kind of thing our club should be doing.

There really weren’t many negatives to the trip. The weather could have been better. It began raining off and on by the second day that I was there. We had some wind off and on (mostly on), but we were having such a good time that nobody seemed to mind a little rain and wind.

The locals certainly didn’t seem to mind. The Friday before we left there was a light rainstorm going on, but the weekend campers just showed up anyway. They pitched large tarps over their campsites, slanting them upwards like lean-tos, stringing them from the trees, then they pitched their tents and set up their tables and lawn chairs under the tarps. Everyone was set up this way and it seemed like a good idea.

The one positive thing I can say about the weather is that in the whole time I was there I think I only saw about 4 mosquitoes. So my 20 mosquito coils, two citronella candles, one can of spray repellant, one bottle of insect cream, one head net, and one jar of MSG (for rubbing into stings) remain unused and in my camp supplies box. I am totally ready for next year.