25 « 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Aug. 18, 1906. 
British Columbia 
As a Summer and Autumn Resort for 
American Sportsmen. 
On Great Northern Train in Montana, 
July 12 .—Editor Forest and Stream: From the 
summer of 1901 until that of 1904 I was so 
fortunate as to be retained on some important 
professional work by the Government of British 
Columbia. This engagement gave me the op¬ 
portunity to take four summer outings in that 
country, and you may be sure that I availed my¬ 
self of it. This summer I received, a call from 
the City of Vancouver on some similar work; 
and after my preliminary report was finished and 
presented, I went for ten or twelve days to a 
section of the country new to me to try some 
famous trout fishing. 
Previously I had fished the waters of Lac La 
Hache and of the stream discharging it, both 
above and below Williams Lake, the Horsefly 
River, Horsefly Creek, Horsefly Lake and the 
unnamed little lake just below it, Quesnel Lake, 
Quesnel River, the Buonaparte River and Lake 
Hihiume. I visited Lac La Hache at a bad 
time for fishing, viz., during the month of July, 
consequently was not successful there; but in the 
stream below I found plenty of small trout and 
about as many chub. The latter strike like the 
trout, but have no fighting qualities. 
In the stream below Williams Lake the fish¬ 
ing was better, the trout being larger with fewer 
chub; but the sport there was merely ordinary. 
The first year I tried the Horsefly River I 
had wonderful luck, my companion and I on 
the first day catching eighty-four rainbow trout, 
weighing fully 60 pounds, the largest tipping the 
scale at 3% pounds. On the two following days 
we fished both above and below Harper’s Camp, 
filling our baskets. Then we drove over to 
Horsefly Lake, where we took most of our 
fish by trolling, consequently the sport was not 
as good as that in the river. In Horsefly Creek, 
which discharges Horsefly Lake through a small 
lake into Horsefly River, we found fair fly¬ 
fishing, but did not go far below the little lake, 
hence I cannot vouch for the sport there; but 
the trolling in the little lake was very good. 
One morning while I was fishing there my 
companion left me and returned to the big lake, 
coming back in about an hour and a half with 
two lake trout weighing, respectively, 6 and 7 
pounds, which he had taken with a large spoon 
trolled slowly at a depth of 100 feet. I went 
back with him and tried for more, but we got 
none. The next year, however, I took one there 
weighing 8 pounds with a metal line in 200 feet 
of water. Such fishing, though, is rather tame 
sport. It is said that about the end of Septem¬ 
ber and beginning of October, when the water 
gets cold, these lake trout come to the surface 
and afford excellent sport by trolling or spoon 
casting. It is possible that they will then take 
the fly also; but I never heard that any one has 
thus tried them. They run large, some of them 
exceeding 20 pounds in weight. 
My companion had to leave me to attend to 
some work, agreeing to meet me on a certain 
date at the 150-Mile House of the Caribou 
Road. Meanwhile with an oarsman as com¬ 
panion I took a wagon to Patineaude’s Ranch, 
some ten or twelve miles up the Horsefly River 
from Harper’s Camp, and launched our canvas 
boat just above the big log-jam at his place, 
rowing up stream until the water became too 
swift, then poling. We must have traveled thus 
fully twenty miles up to the mouth of Black 
Creek, which was practically the head of navi¬ 
gation for our boa) lor some two miles further 
up were the falls, with a continuation of bad 
rapids between. During the three or four days 
that this journey occup’ed I had excellent sport, 
one day catching fifty trout that weighed an 
even 50 pounds, the largest reaching a few 
ounces over 3 pounds, but I hung and failed to 
land two or three that certainly exceeded 4 
pounds in weight. This was mainly because I 
used three flies to the cast, for soon after hook¬ 
ing a big one, other trout would take the re¬ 
maining flies. Sometimes I would land all 
three, but generally one or two got away, and 
several times I lost the whole cast. 
I well remember one occasion of this kind. 
It was when we reached the mouth of Black 
Creek and just before we started on the re¬ 
turn trip. A very large trout jumped two or 
three feet above the water in the swift current 
alongside of the still water of Black Creek. I 
immediately began to cast across the swift 
water as the boatman moved the boat slowly in 
the still water toward the place where the fish 
had leaped. As soon as my flies reached the 
spot, the big fellow took the tail one and gave 
me an exciting experience for about a minute 
by jumping several times clear of the water; 
then a little fish took one of the other flies. I 
held the pair in the swift water for possibly an¬ 
other minute, when the big one broke away, 
much to my disgust. However, I succeeded in 
landing the little one, which weighed 2V2 pounds. 
The most successful fly for this river I found 
to be the Zulu, a black-hackle with a red tail; 
but in truth the trout there were so unsophisti¬ 
cated as to take readily almost any fly. 
The next year (1903), accompanied by my 
son, Leonard, I went to Harper’s Camp and 
fished there two days, going up stream some 
six or seven miles. We had fair sport the first 
day, but poor the second, showing that we had 
fished out the pools. Then we tried Horsefly 
Lake and the little lake below, but the fishing 
was rather unsatisfactory, consequently, after 
two or three days, we returned to Harper’s, and 
from there took wagon to Patineaude’s, and 
went up stream to the mouth of Black Creek. 
We caught on this trip barely enough trout for 
the frying-pan. 
On our way down the Caribou River we 
stopped at the 19-Mile House, and met an In¬ 
dian with six horses, whom we had engaged by 
wire to take us up the mountains to Lake Hi¬ 
hiume. The ride involved a distance of 25 or 30 
miles, and a climb of fully 3,500 feet, for we 
reached an elevation of over 5,000 feet, that of 
the lake being 4,500. Here we got all the fish¬ 
ing any one could desire, taking from 60 to 80 
pounds per day on one rod, one of us fishing 
and the other handling the boat. We stayed 
at the lake only a few days, as the time limit 
set for our outing had about expired. 
The next year (1904), after attending the 
formal opening of the Fraser River Bridge at 
New Westminster, my brother-in-law, his wife 
and I, accompanied part way by a friend, set 
out for Harper’s Camp, from which place in 
response to a telegram I had received word that 
the “water was low, the weather lovely, and the 
fishing fine.” We found the conditions decidedly 
otherwise, for the water was at medium stage, 
the weather cold and rainy and the fishing prac¬ 
tically nil. Moreover, the entire place was just 
beginning to recover from the effects of a pro¬ 
longed jamboree. It seems that some of the 
miners had “struck it rich,” and had been set¬ 
ting up for the crowd. One day’s stay, conse¬ 
quently, sufficed us; then we started down the 
river for Quesnel Lake, my brother-in-law and 
his wife by trail, and the boatman and I in our 
two little canvas boats with most of the luggage. 
This part of the trip gave me the experience of 
my life, as the river for many miles was a con¬ 
tinuous succession of rapids. It had been run 
by boat only two or three times before, hence 
the information obtainable about the rapids 
was decidedly meagre. In two places we got 
out and let the boats down by ropes; but I am 
convinced that we could safely have shot every 
rapid. 
We reached Quesnel Lake before dark wet 
through, tired and hungry, for it had rained off 
and on all day. We camped in a deserted 
Chinese hut, which we cleaned out and built a 
fire in, so as to have at least a small amount of 
comfort for our friends upon their arrival, which 
took place a little after dark. When my sister-in- 
law reached camp, she stated that she had never 
before really appreciated what true comfort was; 
and the jorum of hot whiskey punch which I 
served upon their arrival put new heart into 
us all. 
We remained there three or four days, al¬ 
though the fishing was poor, enjoying the fine 
weather, which set in next day, and the mag¬ 
nificent scenery. My sister-in-law, who has 
traveled through Switzerland, stated that she 
hau seen nothing there to equal it. Surrounding 
the lake, which is beautifully clear and blue, are 
high, steep hills, and beyond these are the snow- 
covered mountains. The lake is large, and at 
times it is stormy, but we, fortunately, experi¬ 
enced no foul weather there. 
Starting early one morning we rowed to the 
foot of the lake, arriving there before night¬ 
fall. There we remained several days, catching 
but few fish, as we were two weeks too early 
for the run in the river. However, we got some 
fine ones, one rainbow trout weighing 5^2 
pounds, a Dolly Varden 4?4 pounds and several 
lake trout over 5 pounds I neglected to say 
that we caught a number of lake trout in 
Quesnel Lake by trolling not far below the sur¬ 
face, one of them weighing 11 and another 9 lbs. 
THE KAMLOOPS DISTRICT. 
