Truite de Baume de Citron du Lac Till

High above the Fraser River Valley, north on the Chilcotin Plateau, we drove about 40 minutes from Williams Lake to Lake Till, a small mountain lake, to fish for trout.

First the good news:  we got trout for dinner - Trout with Lemon Balm from Till Lake.  Oh, yes, and we added two mini-salads, one with avocado and one with veggies and feta cheese; and then the beer, Bulkley Valley Brewery's "Ullr Oat Stout" -- scrumptious!

But let's go back to the beginning.

We arrived in Williams Lake on September 12, 2019, having driven south from Prince George.  There's no doubt about it:  we're racing Autumn south.  We hope to have Never-Ending Autumn all the way from here to Riverside, California in late November.  We'll see how that plays out.

Williams Lake was founded when the railroad was built through this part of British Columbia.  Before the railroad, this was nothing but homestead farms.  When the railroad plans were announced, an entire town was laid out here near the Fraser River Canyon.

We decided to fish today, because the weather would be most amenable.  We chatted with someone at the local Visitor Center who clued us into her husband's favorite local fishing spots.  She said the one he likes the most is Till Lake.

We did some research and found that Till Lake was last stocked with Rainbow Trout on May 22, 2019 -- just a few months ago.  It was also stocked with Kokanee Salmon (salmon that are landlocked -- they return to lakes to spawn), but we did not have the lures to fish for the Kokanee, and we were told that it's the wrong season to catch them because they are ready to spawn, have turned red, and their meat is soft and not tasty.

So trout it was to be, at Till Lake.

To get to Till Lake, we drove west on Highway 20, the Bella Coola Highway, across the Fraser River:

-- and turned north on the Meldrum Creek Road, heading north 13 km.  We passed several small, pretty lakes --

-- and admired the views of the Chilcotin Plateau, with spruce, aspen, willow and prairie grass:

Oh, yes, and there were the cattle to witness our journey:

Eventually, we reached Till Lake Forest Service Road, which led into the Till Lake Recreation Area, which included the lake and maybe 16 primitive campsites:

We found the "boat ramp," which was really a spot where the road met a gentle gravel shoreline.  This was the spot to put in with our kayaks.  The view to the south was beautiful --

-- but the wind was blowing fairly stiffly from that direction, so we chose to paddle north.  Here, Kathy is starting her paddle while some other fishermen who were camped at the lake are getting their boat ready for their fishing adventure:

There is no doubt that Fall is arriving.  We could see color in the trees around the campsites on the shoreline:

Kathy didn't hesitate to speed across to the far shore of the lake, where the lakebed fell most steeply from the margin of the lake:

That far shore boasted colorful cliffs that we guessed were volcanic.  Fir trees had found footholds on the craggy rocks:

Along most of the shoreline, trees that had blown down formed bleached skeletons lying in the shallow waters.  It was here that most of the young trout sheltered, venturing out to feed on floating flies and other bugs that floated in the waves from the southerly wind:

Some of the dead trees broke off near the waterline and then became condominiums for local birds:

There was a clearing at the north end of the lake that appeared to be an informal campsite.  Someone had built a fishing dock:

All this time we were exploring the lake, we were primarily interested in catching fish, but we couldn't get any on the hook.  We each had numerous bites.

After lunch, Kathy decided to move south along the far shore of the lake, while David stuck to the north end on the near shore where had gotten several bites and hooked one that jumped off.

David was the first to score, with three small (8-9 inch) rainbow trout, such as this little feller --

-- and this energetic leaper:

However, those guys were too small to keep, and David released them to live a longer life and perhaps get bigger and fatter and tastier.

It was 4:30 pm and time to head to shore.  As we joined up, we compared notes.  Kathy said, "Oh, by the way, I caught one."

David replied, "Great!  How big?"

Kathy said, "He's huge!"

When we got back to shore, we took out the measure and found that Kathy's trout was the largest we've ever caught -- a little over 18 inches long!  She looks mighty proud to hold her prize catch in the photo below:

We always show the start of our fishing trips, but we rarely show the wrapping up.  Kathy was busy cleaning her catch, and we had our equipment strewn all over the spot where we had parked the Jeep:

Somehow, though, it never seems as hard cleaning up after a fishing trip where we've caught dinner.  Kathy hummed a little "catching fish" tune the whole time she put her stuff away.  David could imagine that Kathy was in cloud-fishy land, dreaming of how she would prepare her fat trout.

From that first photo above, you can tell she found a preparation that did that trout justice.  Bon appetit!