The Fish That Weren't in Hicks Lake

We're nearing the U.S. border!  On Tuesday, September 23, 2019, we moved from Lillooet, B.C. to Harrison Hot Springs, east of Vancouver, B.C.  We had periodic rain that afternoon and Wednesday, so we confined our activities to a long walk into Harrison Hot Springs and soak in our campground hot tub.  We also did some research on local fishing.

Today, the weather was supposed to be nicer, so we planned a fishing trip to Hicks Lake, which is in Sasquatch Provincial Park.  The park includes several lakes and ponds.  One end of it borders Harrison Lake, on which Harrison Hot Springs is located.  Harrison Lake is the largest lake in Southern British Columbia, at 37 miles long and up to 5.6 miles wide.  It is fed by the Lillooet River, which arises west of Lillooet near Pemberton, B.C.

We did some research and found that Hicks Lake, a little over 1 mile long and about half a mile wide, has been stocked regularly with rainbow trout.  Fishing reports said that cutthroat trout and whitefish are also present.  It was nearby and about the right size for us to fish from kayaks, so we planned that outing for today.

We were just getting ready to head out when we met a fellow resident of our campground, a fisherman, who reported to us that Hicks Lake has very few fish because its waters had reached over 72F this summer due to the exceptionally warm and dry summer in this part of British Colubmia.  Some things he said made us doubt the precise accuracy of his statements, so we decided to try our luck anyway.

It had been a sunny morning, about 64F, when we left our campground, but by the time we reached Hicks Lake, it had clouded over, the wind had picked up, and the air temperature had fallen to 57F.  The winds had also kicked up sizeable waves on the lake, which made the fishing conditions less amenable than we would have liked.  Here is how the lake greeted us as we arrived:

We decided to give it a try anyway, because we've become confident in our ability to fish small lakes and read where trout might hang out.  We rigged our kayaks and set out on the water:

Hicks Lake is a beautiful mountain lake, set among green mountains on all sides, with towering spruce down to its lakeshore:

Kathy headed to the east shore and the northernmost of two islands, while David set out for the southern island:

Here was the south island.  We hoped that we might find trout on one of the shores of either island, or between the two.

As we started to fish, we stirred up some migrating Canadian geese, who were not overly pleased with our arrival.  One flock flew off in honking disgust, but this pair chose patience, consulting with each other as to whether they should fly off, or simply paddle a little further away from the human intruders.  They decided to take the less extreme measures, and the humans floated by without harrassing them.

As we fished, the fog on the water slowly lifted, but the wind perservered.  While we did not feel the wind as we drifted north with it, we felt its chill and the slop of waves against the prows of our kayaks when we tried to paddle against it.

The lake boasted a few rocky points that were interesting.  Much of the shallow shoreline was littered with large deadfall lying just under the surface, which made fishing just off the banks more challenging than usual.

On the far rocky point in this photo, David encountered a fisherman and his wife who were set up in camp chairs on the north shore.  She read while he cast his line for trout.  As David passed, the fisherman announced that he had caught a 12 inch cutthroat trout.  This made us all the more jealous given that we had seen absolutely no results -- not even a nibble.

Kathy worked her way over to a stream inlet and David, after drifting down the eastern shore of the lake, paddle over to join her on the northern end of the west shore, in a corner near where the lake was emptied by a large stream.

We compared notes.  No nibbles.  No fish rises.  A cold wind.  Waves.  Clouds threatening rain.  It was lunchtime.  We decided to beach the kayaks, have our lunch, and call it a day.

We guess the trout won the battle today.  Well, we did console ourselves with a lunch of trout salad wraps, made from trout we caught the other day.  And we assured ourselves that there would eventually be another opportunity, somewhere else, to find a trout dinner.