Lois was frozen 11/27/2016

Beautiful island fish!...

Beautiful island fish!

Another Island gem

Lower-altitude lakes in the Nanaimo-Cowichan lake area are moving into warmer weather conditions, so the best fishing is morning and evening, writes Ian Stewart, an Angler's Atlas field volunteer on the Island. "Ant hatches are always exciting for fly fishermen to encounter so they should have a few ant imitations in the fly box in case they are lucky enough to run into one of these trout glutton fests! "The higher altitude lakes are fishing well now with dragonfly and damselfly nymphs working well. Some fishermen are also doing well with chironomids. The attached pictures are from a lake near Duncan (about half way between Nanaimo and Victoria). Andrew and I found out how to get into Lois Lake, a shallow (18 ft. max.) higher altitude (about 2,000 ft.) lake near Duncan, with the help of Gerry Stevens. Andrew whaled on the trout, catching 4 with the biggest being 19, 20 and 22 inches! I had to be content with breaking off one large fish and landing a 13 incher. What gorgeous fish considering these are triploids. They are much more colourful than the Interior triploids. We will certainly go back again. "Unfortunately (I guess) the lake is only accessible on the weekends (but I guess that reduces pressure on the lake along with an artificial fly only and one-fish limit). Surprisingly, Gerry, whom I consider to be one of the best lake fishermen in the club, ended up skunked for the day, but I think he was being stubborn and trying to use dry flies (which should have worked because the fish were taking an occasional damsel off the surface.) Andrew caught all his on a small sparse dragonfly nymph, which looked a lot like a damsel."

Lois Lake

Eagle stealing trout off the line.