I headed to the upper Squamish on the weekend and was hoping the wet weather would keep the crowds away. I fished for 4 hours and didn't see another soul. After the first few casts of a new sculpin fly my rod pulsed and a nice rainbow came to the surface. As luck would have it, the barbless hook came out before the camera could click. The rain had brought the river up a bit and slightly off color but just right to give the sculpin a realistic pulse in the water. A little further down a nice bull trout pounded the fly when I used a pulsing retrieve in about 3 feet of water in a side channel. It was time to explore and I decided to try a new trail at about 15 km up the road and the walk through the rain forest provided some wonderful mossy images before stepping onto the foreshore to see what caused the roar that I had been hearing.
The waterfall was cascading from far up the hill bouncing off rocky ledges and ending in a beautiful crescendo into the Squamish River. (To see the falls, click on ) I decided to fish the runs and 3 or 4 more hits did not result in hook ups. So I decided to look for emerging salmon fry in some of the side channels which should be coming out in the millions. With the colder winter, it may still be two or three weeks as the eggs will develop slower but the Mergansers (fish eating ducks) were definitely taking up positions in runs and back washes waiting for the first salmon fry to show themselves. These ducks can eat up to a kilogram of fry in a day so where they hang out, the trout are sure to follow. The absence of freshly hatched fry made it a slow day for hits by rainbows or bulls, but that should change soon. Even the swans seemed to be looking in anticipation.
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