My experience at the 2019 BC Provincial River Championships, Part I

By Chris Puchniak, Smart Angling Pro Staff

It was July 5th, 2019, Friday night, and our team (Team Cormorant consisting of Todd Oishi, Mike Oishi, Rob Stroud, John Nishi, Terence Courtoreille and myself) were rolling into Princeton for the BC Provincial River Championships that were to start the next morning on the Similkameen River in Southern British Columbia.  The format was to consist of five 2-hour sessions spread over two days (each session would consist of two beats, so that each angler would fish 10 beats throughout the event) which meant we didn't have a lot of time for relaxation.  Regardless, the first evening was spent catching up and talking about 'fishy' matters - John and myself were heading off to Tasmania for the World Championships later in the year, while Terence and Rob were on the Commonwealth Teams heading to New Zealand in 2020.  So aside from the fact that some of us hadn't seen each other for close to a year, there were a few stories to swap and beers to drink before the morning came and we got into competition mode.

Prior to 7am on Saturday found all 36 of the registered competitors at the meeting spot where we would all disperse from to our various beats for the day. As many competitors had arrived only the night before, time was spent greeting each other while getting ready before the first session was to start at 8:30.  Finally though, after a brief recap of the competition rules, team mates each offered each other a few words of encouragement and set out for the first session, hopefully prepared.



We had arrived at our first beat fairly early and had some extra time to fully rig up after looking at the waters.  It was a faster flowing section with a mix of pocket water and short runs, and like most spots on the river, it wasn't crossable very easily at this time of year.  The top section had more of a widening section on the close bank which slowed the water down with a partial back eddy before the water shallowed again and turned into faster pocket water.  The two principal species in the river were whitefish and rainbow trout, with the former generally being significantly larger in size, and this run looked like it had water suitable for both - which meant that targeting both species was going to be the game plan.

I had rigged up two rods to start the day - being a region where we can only fish a single fly, one rod was rigged with an Arcay 2WF floating line and a 15' leader for a single dry, and my other rod  had my Arcay nymphing line with an 18-20' leader ending in 0.12mm tippet with a selection of nymphs on Hanak hooks that I would cycle through during the day as conditions changed.

For this competition, we would each fish in groups of three, and each beat was divided into thirds (top, middle and bottom).  Depending on the draw, you would start in one section for 20 minutes, and then rotate to another section for another 20 minutes, before fishing the third section for the last 20 minutes (at which point your group of three anglers would move to another beat to repeat this process and complete one two-hour session). 

In accordance to my draw, I started at the top of the beat. I began with my nymphing rig, feeling that this section of water had a decent chance of holding an equal amount of trout and whitefish, and the latter were much more prone to take a nymph than a dry.  The rainbows might be more receptive to dries overall, but most of the time they still wouldn't pass up a good nymph drifted by them - especially in the early hours of the day - starting with a nymph would help me target the two species simultaneously and assess whether one species was more active than the other.  

As the session went on, even though I was prepared to switch to my dries for a little better coverage, I never left the nymphs as they were pulling in fish as fast as I could have hoped (making switching techniques not an improvement in efficiency).  The only need was to cycle between weights to match the water depth.  As the first hour of the session ended, I scored 22 fish consisting of 9 whitefish and 13 rainbow trout, suggesting that both species were pretty active, and that nymphs had been an effective choice. 

Rotating to the next beat for the second half of Session 1, I was at a beat that started with a very fast narrow chute at the top and ended in a shallow tailout at the bottom.  My draw started me at the bottom section.  I expected smaller trout as the water was quite non-descript, with an even flow from bank to bank, and not the type of water to find many whitefish.  On average it was shallower than most areas, but that meant too that it was fully wadeable as opposed to many other areas. 

I gridded the area off (as I normally do when fishing an area that shows minimal structure), feeling that the fish could be anywhere, and I wanted to cover the water efficiently lest I spook a fish, or miss a pocket where a pod could be sitting.  Unfortunately, I found no pockets of fish, but through steady coverage I got a rainbow here and there until I picked up 7 in the bottom section on nymphs. 

At the designated time I moved to the top part of the beat (swapping with my partners).  This section was the head of the run with a serious chute of fast water carving out a steep dropoff and then a wider, deeper section before shallowing to a tail out (which I had just come from fishing).  I put on a heavier fly to get down fast at the dropoff, which resulted in 6 trout and 2 whitefish fairly soon.  Then moving down to the middle section of deep water I got several more trout and whitefish nymphing, scoring eventually 23 fish here.

That brought my total to 45 fish in the first session, which I knew was a good number - but as we wouldn't know the scoring till the evening, I didn't have a clear idea how the other anglers were doing.

By Session 2 it was mid-morning and we had moved to a beat that was the second beat from the top of the sector.  I was to fish the middle section to start.  This was a good piece of water, but in higher water like we had during the competition it was also very difficult to cover well.  A long beat, it formed a sweeping corner where the inside was shallow gravel, and the far side was a deep cut along a riprap retaining wall.  The high water prevented me from reaching the far side much of the beat, though I figured I could cast reasonably close to it if I tried.  I started at the head of my area as it looked good and was more wadeable, but I didn't get a thing there after a brief period of casting/moving.  I moved downstream more aggressively casting as I went in the heavy current.  This method proved good with the nymph because as I walked down, it let my fly sink a little more during the drift, and I think that helped me get a few whitefish on long casts.  In the first 20 minutes, 7 whitefish and 1 rainbow gave me 8 fish before moving to the bottom section where I continued to nymph and score a couple of big whitefish (which were welcomed, but a pain to land in the fast water).  Then I got a couple of trout to add to the score before moving upstream to the top section.  At the top, the water was more skinny with a few spread out pockets, but surprisingly I got 2 whitefish in the shallow water and then a couple trout behind a submerged boulder as I was walking and searching.  This gave me a total of  14 fish for the first part of session 2.

For the next half of the session we moved to a beat further upriver (the highest beat in the comp) where I was to start at the top section (and likely the weakest spot).  This part of the river was upstream of a major tributary of the main river which meant that water flows were significantly lower and would likely make the fish more skittish (especially as it was getting later in the afternoon now, and the beat had been fished by several people already). 

Fairly quickly I got one trout behind a boulder in some pocket water but found more fish were sitting in the shallow riffles above where it dropped into deeper water.  It almost seemed too shallow to hold many fish, but I suspected the fish were moving up into the riffle to feed, so I switched over to a dry fly and quickly got 7 rainbow trout before my 20 minutes ended.  Moving to the middle section I got 2 trout on the dry in another riffle, and when that seemed to dry up, I went with a nymph and picked up another nice whitefish before having to rotate.  When I moved to the bottom section, I took up a position where I had seen one of my beat partners (Claude Cipelletti) doing well, covering a bit of where he had fished before moving to fresh waters.  I netted a mix of trout and whitefish here, with a couple on the dry, giving me a total of 17, and 31 collectively for Session 2.

Session 3 was the last one for the day and would take us from 2:30 to 5:00pm.  It was a very long but straight beat with a steep bank throughout.  Faster water at the top end, a very deep middle, and then a slow boulder-strewn lower portion.  I started at the bottom. I thought dries and small trout might be the order here, with the slower water moving among numerous boulders - but it proved fruitless, so I went nymphing (getting wet in the process due to an errant footstep) and got 2 whitefish quickly before having to rotate.  At the top section I did ok with dries fishing closer to the bank, just at the transition point where you could still discern the details on the bottom in the slow water.  I got 4 trout on dries, and then 3 whitefish on nymphs.   Moving to the middle section I only found 4 whitefish on nymphs fishing mid-river, despite trying a dry for a time.  That left me with 13 fish thus far.

Last stop was a beat where a fast shallow riffle ran into a deep corner pool and then shallowed up into a narrower swift water section.  Unfortunately, the wind was picking up fierce, and the low sun was making it tougher to see your sighter, which wasn't helpful when fishing waters that were already beaten down heavily by a score of anglers before you. 

I started in the middle which had the deepest of the waters.  A recreational angler was there and had just wrapped up when we arrived, but had indicated that he had done well over the past few days of fishing the spot (obviously this beat was heavily fished by now!).  Struggling in the wind to get the flies down and keep in contact, I got a rainbow and whitefish while nymphing the middle section, then in the bottom section I got 3 trout and 1 whitefish in a slack pocket where it was a little calmer and you could see some submerged boulders providing structure. Finally, at the top, while fighting the wind gusts, I managed 3 whitefish and 2 trout nymphing waters that I would have thought would have produced much higher numbers.  But given it was the end of the day and rather windy, I was happy to find those five fish and add them to my score.  In total I got 11 fish and that brought my score for Session 3 to 24 fish, which despite being a diminishing amount from what we were seeing in the morning, I hoped would stand up well for the last session of the day!

After the scores were tallied in the evening, results showed that our team was holding first place, which was the best news one could hear!  But I had taken three firsts on Day 1 which was also great to hear, and the even 100 fish over the three sessions I had managed to catch held me above Hunter Wright of Team Bend (who had also finished the day with three firsts!) for the Individual First place.  Technically that doesn't mean much only halfway through the comp, as things can change abruptly, but it did mean that we were on the right path collectively as a team. 

We just had to continue that momentum on Day 2.

To be continued...