Back to Birch Lake

Karen and I enjoy fly fishing Birch Lake. Today we made a return visit. The water temperature was a bit high but still within the acceptable range. The challenge of Birch Lake is getting on the water. There is a nasty hill to negotiate. We finally bought a frame with wheels that is used for moving kayaks around. It worked great getting our pram down to the water. You can buy these frames on Amazon or go to Canadian Tire ($60-$75).

We were set up quite quickly. We tried several places on the lake that had drop offs. These drop offs were quite productive for us. We used Tokaryk Specials, Ice Minnows and Flashbacks (size 14). Our typical depth was "Bernie Water." That is 12 feet of water for those of you who never fly fished with our late friend Bernie Peet. The surprise of the day was a throat sample with lots of tiny pin fry (minnows). Small ice minnows helped us connect with a lot of rainbows. Karen landed a decent brookie early in the day. We called it a day late in the afternoon. When we got to the boat launch, we knew we had to haul our gear back up that darn hill. Luckily we had our new kayak frame with wheels. It is still a grunt up the hill with our pram but it sure beat carrying it!