On this Fish’n Canada episode, we take a journey to the breathtakingly Beautiful British Columbia. There’s just no other way to describe it. If you haven’t been here yet, then you owe it to yourself to change that, ASAP! If you have been here, then you know exactly what we’re talking about.
As we stated in the television episode, we bet we could simply run all of this trip’s scenic, B-Roll footage for the full half hour and you’d stay with us until the very end… BUT… after all we are the Fish’n Canada television show, and of course, that means we need to add in some great fishing. And man, have we got you covered with that.
Northern British Columbia is like no other place on planet earth. And when you add in some amazing fishing, it becomes one of the most unique destinations an angler can travel to.
Meet Vova, Fish’n Canada’s latest addition to our field staff. Vova is from the Ukraine… Vova likes Canadian breakfasts!
On this episode, we were back at the one-and-only Northern Rockies Lodge or “NRL”, for another adventurous fly-in fishing extravaganza. And for the first time, Ang got to sample some of BC’s unreal Northern Pike action. Pete got his first shot at these nasty beasts on his last visit here with co-host Steve Niedzwecki, and man did they ever catch em’.
Cold beer delivery to our cabin… tell us you don’t wanna’ go to Northern Rockies Lodge?
Since then, Ang has been green with envy ever since he watched that episode.
This trip’s ultimate destination was called Aeroplane Lake. It’s a typical NRL-exclusive fly-in destination. According to our good friend and owner of Northern Rockies Lodge, URS, the lake’s tiny but the Pike are gigantic. That’s music to Ang and Pete’s ears!
This is a Pike lake? You betcha!
Aeroplane Lake has Northern Pike and Lake Trout as the gamefish species but as you can probably tell, it’s the Pike we were after.
The time of year was early June, and from the lodge’s fishing reports, the Northerns probably spawned around a week or two before our visit. That meant they should have still been shallow… EXACTLY where we like to target Pike.
Every lake we flew over we asked ourselves “what kind of fish would live in that gorgeous oasis?”
“Pete told me that according to his past BC Pike experience,” says Ang, “aside from the scenery, fishing Pike in BC is no different than any other part of Canada. They’re big, they’re aggressive, and they’ll hit almost everything you throw at them!”
“Yeah baby” continues Ang “that’s my kind of fishing!”
THE FISHING
Our first spot was a long sandbar that was located between the shallows and the deep basin of the lake. It’s a great transition area for Pike that are on the move after the spawn. After firing our cast after cast, we could only come up with one “transitional” Pike.
Our only sandbar Pike was an odd one indeed… not the fish but the battle scar!
Although our hopes were high for this sandbar, aside from ol’ scar-belly, there wasn’t much happening.
Our next move was to go shallower…
NOW we were back in the stuff we like to fish.
Shallow water has two distinct advantages. #1 is you can see the cover that fish live in… like weeds, rocks, wood etc… and #2, you can literally see “some” of the fish swimming… that second one is a huge advantage!
So after catching tons of small to medium-sized Pike in the shallows (maybe a bunch of straggling males???), we established that there are lots of fish still there after spawning, however, we needed to find the bigger fish.
It seemed like all we could catch were smaller, aggressive “hammer-handles” in the junky extreme shallows so our next stage was to move slightly deeper…
“One of the absolute best Northern Pike presentations,” says Pete “especially when they’re shallow, is casting suspending, hard-plastic Jerkbaits or as they’re sometimes called, minnowbaits”.
“Not only do they look like a natural baitfish,” continues Ang “but add to that, the erratic action when twitched and jerked as well as the dead-stop suspending qualities, and a suspending jerkbait becomes one of the best casting lures that will ever hit the shallows”.
Here’s a perfect choice for Pike in the shallows, a Yo-Zuri 3DB Jerkbait 110 that suspends.
Once Ang and Pete moved out of the junk but still remained in the shallows did they find what they were looking for. A number of big, cruising Pike that pretty much took their breath away!
Check out one of Ang’s hawg Pike from Aeroplane Lake… he caught lots!
The size of some of these fish in this little lake is INSANE!
Since our trip, we’ve been in touch with Terry, one of the lodge’s guides and he says the big fish remained shallow for quite some time in /22.
Talk about a happy customer, this was one of NRL’s guests who took the trip into Aeroplane Lake. Such a great body of water!
TO CAST OR TO TROLL… HMMM
Typically when fishing shallow water for Northern Pike, there are two patterns we use. We pretty much ALWAYS start out by casting. We find an area that either looks good to us, or is recommended by our guides, and cover as much of that area as we possibly can.
Casting a suspending minnowbait helped Pete catch this scarred-up beast!
If casting is not working and we need to locate fish, then trolling becomes a better option. Trolling allows anglers to cover a vast amount of water in a limited amount of time. If and when we find a specific area which produces something different, like a doubleheader for instance, then after a couple of trolling passes, we’ll go back and cast the area trying to clean up any remaining fish.
These two styles of fishing work extremely well when fish like Pike are in the shallow to mid-depth ranges.
CONCLUSION
What an amazing trip this ended up being. One partial day on a body of water, and it turned out spectacular!
One thing we’ve learned while travelling the great country of Canada is that the province of British Columbia delivers in a huge way when it comes to the WOW factor. No matter the reason for your visit, trust us… you will be in awe, each and every day!
A delicious Surf & Turf shore lunch right at the lodge… AMAZING!
With a combination of spectacular scenery in pretty much every direction, along with a wide array of wildlife species, this is the one area of Canada that we can guarantee you’ll return home with an amazing new portfolio of images and videos, as well as a boatload of unforgettable memories.
SOME TRAVEL POINTERS
The Spirit of Muncho Lake, travelling in style!
You can get to Northern Rockies Lodge a few ways. One is driving via the Alaskan Highway to milepost 462 at Northern Rockies Lodge.
The other is flying.
The first flying option is by catching adjoining flights from Vancouver to Prince George and then Fort Nelson.
An alternate and new flight option is taking Northern Rockies Adventure’s beautiful King Air from Pitt Meadows (just outside of Vancouver) directly to Fort Nelson. This takes the hassles of unboarding and reboarding planes as well as luggage transfers.
From Ft Nelson, the remainder of the trip is a drive along the scenic Alaskan Highway to milepost 462 at Northern Rockies Lodge on the shores of Muncho Lake.
Wildlife sightings along the Alaskan Highway are the norm each and every day
