Fishing with Rod Discussion Forum
Fishing in British Columbia => Fishing Reports => Members' Fishing Reports => Topic started by: keithr on June 19, 2013, 07:10:32 PM
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This is my fourth or fifth trip here, and every time the fishing is a little different. Briefly, the fishing in St. Mary Lake wasn't as good as I expected, although it hasn't been all that bad. I fly fished and I caught perch, trout, and bass. There are lots of finger-long perch, but not as many larger one as I caught two years ago. None of the trout were large; I threw them all back, but I did have on larger one on that got away. I only caught two bass larger than 15 inches, and I had to fish pretty hard to catch many bass at all.
It seems St. Mary lake has a pretty much permanent algae bloom, so it's not really ideal for flies, and that may have something to do with it, but I didn't see anyone doing any better; in fact, there aren't many people fishing. St Mary Lake is the only like on the island that has significant algae in it right now, so I did quite a bit of my fishing on Stowel lake, near Fulford where the trout were bigger than I remembered them. And more cooperative. At this point there are both cut throat and red sided trout in that lake. There I fished with a damsel fly nymph and usually caught eight or ten fish in a few hours, and at least three or four of those would be 13 inches long or better. The biggest fish I caught was a 17 inch red sided trout. Very pretty spot. There was never anyone fishing there but me.
A couple of those trout are ready for supper and I'm being called to eat them in five minutes, sooo.... It's kind of sad about all the algae in St Mary Lake, but there is still good fishing on Salt Spring, and it is a very pretty spot.
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That sucks to hear about St Mary's Lake. I'm heading there for the long weekend :( What did you use for bass fishing? I've loaded up on Rapala lures and Senko worms.
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Hey Keith, good to see that you're back there fishing it again. Say hi to Mark for us. We originally wanted to come over for our annual visit but will wait until next year when the little one is a bit older.
Is the algae a nuisance in the middle of the lake too? Or does it stay relatively debris-less out there?
HKSR, for this time of the year, get yourself some tubebait as well and fish at 15 to 20ft of water. If they are not in the shallow anymore, you should be able to find aggressive ones deeper down.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3n6l-SCkxM
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I was there at the end of April and dealt with the same alage bloom. Viz was horrible, less than 6" everywhere (middle included) so I gave up after trying the first day. This gave me a chance to explore the island more than I would've.
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Rod, any particular size or color of tubebate do you suggest for this lake? Do you use a weighted jig? I'm planning to go to St. Mary lake with familiy on the long weekend as well and like give it a go. Haven't done much bass fishing in the last 10 or 15 years. Thx
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Rod, any particular size or color of tubebate do you suggest for this lake? Do you use a weighted jig? I'm planning to go to St. Mary lake with familiy on the long weekend as well and like give it a go. Haven't done much bass fishing in the last 10 or 15 years. Thx
No colour preference I think, they go for anything. :D I've used olive, brown and black ones, with red sprinkles all over them. The first few years when we fished there, we inserted a weight into the tube and fished it that way, but I found the hook-ups were poor. In 2005, we started using a carolina rig, which basically has a sliding weight down to a swivel on the main line and perhaps a 1.5ft leader to the wide gap hook which the tubebait is rigged onto. It worked pretty well. We'd just cast out, let the weight and tubebait sink down to the bottom, pick up the rig once awhile on the bottom until you can feel the bass sucking the whole tube into the mouth. A lot of times we just let it sit stationary and that worked too.
If those fish are in shallower water, I actually do really well by just casting a spinner (1/8oz with a #3 French blade). This also works well for trout at the same time.
Also, back to the tubebait, I've had big cutthroat trout chasing the tubebait as it was being retrieved back to the surface.
For fly fishing, the intermediate sink with a leech pattern works well around that island in the middle of the lake (west side, drop-off from 5 to 20ft).
The floating dock at the resort can also be surprisingly productive! This works especially well early in the morning or late in the evening when the water is not disturbed. This fish below was caught a few years ago an hour after we got to the resort. ;D It was on a floating line with the leech pattern.
(http://www.fishingwithrod.com/fishing_photos/photos/11-005.jpg)
Have fun! :) I look forward to hear the results.
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I was there at the end of April and dealt with the same alage bloom. Viz was horrible, less than 6" everywhere (middle included) so I gave up after trying the first day. This gave me a chance to explore the island more than I would've.
Same water conditions when I was there in early September. I asked the resort owner and he just shrugged and said it had been a dry hot summer. I have been going to St Mary's since the early 80s and have never seen it like this. Is there any idea why this is happening?
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Odd question, but are there lots of mosquitoes/black flies roaming around the lake? Trying to figure out how much bug repellent to bring lol
And sucks to hear about the algae bloom. Is it thick enough that crankbaits are rendered useless there?
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Also, a good article I found about fly fishing in algae bloom conditions: http://www.gofishbc.com/how-to-fish/fishing-articles/understanding-algal-blooms.aspx
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Same water conditions when I was there in early September. I asked the resort owner and he just shrugged and said it had been a dry hot summer. I have been going to St Mary's since the early 80s and have never seen it like this. Is there any idea why this is happening?
There is a reason none of the locals swim in that lake. Cottages have been dumping sewage directly or aging septic tanks are doing it indirectly for years. Good fishing, when it's not algae soup, but I wouldn't eat anything.
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I'm sorry I haven't been on line to answer questions. I only used flies, but during the free fishing weekend my wife fished with worms from the dock and caught a bunch of little perch and a bass until all the worms got used up.
I tried fishing deep around the sunken island with a black leach and didn't do any good with it. Most dependable place to fish was the beaver house. I suspect there is a small stream there, bringing in a little fresh water. Best place to fish for trout that I tried was right in front of the beach at Lakeside Gardens. None of them was very big, though.
Seems like everyone has an idea about the algae (it seemed pretty uniform throughout the lake to me): septic problems (as someone mentioned above), that it takes much longer water in St Mary lake to pass in and out than it does in the other lakes on the island, that the perch eat something that previously kept the algae in check (St Mary Lake is the only one on the island with perch and the only one with an algae problem year round). It IS sad. Mark told me he is getting fewer people coming for the fishing, and it was obvious that few people were on the lake.
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Feed issues aside sounds like it's time to aerate the place.
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There are aerators. But it seems like the amount of septic runoff is causing a bloom that the old aeration system can't keep up with. I used to go there early for 6-7 straight years in the mid 90's to early 2000s and the water quality and fishing was great. In fact I never caught a single perch. And lots of 2lb rainbows by accident while bass fishing.
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So far so good. Algae bloom not as bad as I thought it'd be. Fish count is at 7 including a nice 5lb smallmouth :) gonna head out for another 3-4 hrs after dinner.
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12 fish yesterday, but on pace for 40 - 50 fish today :) 14 in 2.5hrs this morning.
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12 fish yesterday, but on pace for 40 - 50 fish today :) 14 in 2.5hrs this morning.
Very nice. Good bass fishing weather right now. :) Can you measure the length of the bigger ones you are getting and post it here? I'd be interested to compare that to when we fished it a few years ago. Where are you staying?
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Very nice. Good bass fishing weather right now. :) Can you measure the length of the bigger ones you are getting and post it here? I'd be interested to compare that to when we fished it a few years ago. Where are you staying?
Excellent bass fishing! We didn't continue fishing for the whole day... went to go look around Ganges throughout the afternoon since it was so hot out. Ended up with 25 fish for the day anyways. The bigger guys were between 14" - 18"+. Nice and thick tho.
We stayed at St Mary's Lake Resort. Nice place, and recently renovated. Probably gonna make this an annual trip since it's so quick and easy to get there, and the fishing is great!