Fishing Tales from the Alcan Highway

Our mission for the past few days was to get some fishing in on some of the lakes, rivers and streams as we worked out way north along highway 97 from Dawson Creek. The challenge of trying to fish a new area is sometimes like learning to fish all over again. Where do you go? What do you use? And if we were to believe the girl at the Visitors Center in Chetwynd, the fish may not even be out yet! We consider ourselves pretty good fishermen when it comes to  walleyes and northerns but we were not in the familiar waters of the Pasha Lake area and we were fishing for species that we rarely fished for or in some cases had not fished at all.

Dawson Creek is known for the “Mile 0” of the Alaskan Highway so we HAD to get pictures of the two famous landmarks in town.

 

Pictures out of the way we set to accomplish our mission. First stop was the sporting goods store in Dawson Creek where we bought our licenses ($80 each CAD). We decided to go with the annual licenses rather than the 8 day as we wanted to fish on our way back through in a couple of months as well. We asked the guy behind the counter about fishing in the area, he offer some advice on Muncho Lake stating that the fish in that lake like greens and yellow spinners and spoons. Not a lot of information but helpful.

A few miles down the road is another landmark well known in the area. It is the world’s longest curved wooden bridge. The Kiskatinaw bridge was part of the Alaskan Highway from the 1940's until 1978 when this bridge was bypassed. You can still drive it today by taking a 10 km scenic route of 97.

 

As we continue north towards Fort St. John’s. we started to see the aftermath of some of the wildfires in the area. Just a few days ago these roads were partially closed due to active fires right at the road way. Now all we saw was a blacken landscape and the smoke as the fire burned a few miles east of the highway.

Nothing but black landscape as far as you could see

Arriving in Fort St. John we went directly to the sporting goods store.  Walking the aisles of the fishing section, I noticed a customer shopping for lures. I asked him if he was from around here to which he replied he was. I told him we were passing through and were looking for a couple of spots to stop along the way to fish. He mentioned the Prospect River as well as Muncho Lake. Meanwhile I look for Barb and see her over that the counter talking to a woman who has a map spread out on the counter. She gave Barb 6 spots to try. Information in hand we hit the road to find one of these lakes!

Trucking down the road Barb pulled out the Milepost book to see if any of these lakes were listed in there. According to the book there was free camping at one trout lakes the woman gave us. Does it get any better than that, fishing and free camping! Inga Lake is just off of Highway 97 about 90 miles north of Dawson Creek. There was a sign for the lake right on the highway so the lake and campsites were pretty easy to find. The campground was empty so we had our choice of sites.

Our site along Inga Lake

 

We parked, got our fishing gear ready and started fishing off the dock right there at the campground. After about 20 minutes and no fish I noticed something moving on the shore at the far end of the lake; moose, bear, sasquatch, what could it be? I went and got the binoculars and see about 6 people fishing along the shore!

We jump in the truck and drive down there and sure enough there are 3 cars down there all with B.C, plates fishing from shore. One guy was leaving so I went over to chat with him. He was from Fort St. John and had caught a few trout fly fishing using a wooly bugger fly. While we were talking he mentioned another spot we should try on our way north; The Borrow pits right along the highway. When we were done talking I turn around and look for Barb and she is nowhere in sight I finally see her talking to more fishermen about ¼ mile down the shore. She returned as I was tying a wooly bugger on my flyrod saying the couple on the end were from Fort St. John, fish here all the time and said we should fish down there by them. So off we went! They were a really nice couple in their 60’s. As Barb was chatting with them I moved down the shore and started to throw the wooly bugger, within the 2^nd or 3^rd cast, fish on! It was a nice rainbow trout, looks like we will be eating tonight after all!

The next morning at a spot we noticed a bunch of guys were catching fish the day before. We had a great day, the fish were really active we caught fish throughout the day with our flyrods.

Not huge but fun to catch!

Our fishing spot the 2nd day

Barb tossing a fly

Here's a nice one!

 We cooked a couple of trout on the grill for dinner and had enough for a few more meals in the freezer. About 7:30pm decided to hit the road and head north a couple of hours to see if we could spot any animals that would be moving just before dark. We saw a gray wolf,  a porcupine, an owl and a bear.

 

We spent the night at a spot our milepost book said was an abandoned wayside rest.

Plenty of room for rigs of all sizes!

In the morning we set out to find these infamous “Borrow pits”. The Borrow pits are a series of dugouts right along the highway just south of Fort Nelson. They were originally gravel pits used for setting the base of the road but have since been filled with water and more importantly trout! They are well marked with signs but the turns are a little dicey, you basically drive off the embankment of the highway to the road path to the borrow. If you are passing through this way and want to fish, I would stick to Inga Lake. Although we caught a few fish, most of these dugouts were not shore-fishing friendly with brush right up to the edge of the water.

Burrow #1

Next stop, Fort Nelson then more fishing fun!

Here come the bugs!