I was just pulling my gear together to go fishing for the morning, laying the rods out on the picnic table overlooking the water, when Peter McVey, the owner of Corbett Lake Country Inn, pulled up in his truck.
“Saw your name on the board,” he said cheerfully. “How’s that rod working out?”
Peter is a master chef, a remarkably good fly fisherman, and in the off season, the builder of exquisite cane rods. I have one, a four weight, and when he saw it on the table with a size 14 gnat knotted on the leader, he couldn’t help but smile.
“The small flies work here,” he said rubbing his beard thoughtfully. “A lot of people never figure that out.”
Through the big trees below the cabin we could see the boats arranging and rearranging themselves on the glistening waters of Corbett Lake. The privately owned lake offers some of the most incredible fishing for Kamloops trout in the world. Big fish and big numbers of fish, feeding freely on surface flies. A dozen boats were arrayed on the water, but nobody was into fish. Only a few trout had been caught all morning. I knew because I’d watched, off and on, while I drank my coffee and fussed with my tackle, waiting patiently for the rise to start.
During an early morning walk with my dog along the lakeshore I’d seen big trout in the shallow bay, rooting in the weeds for dragon fly nymphs. Some of the fish were in water knee deep; some were back in amongst the snags that lay along the shoreline. Nobody was casting to those fish, instead anchoring there boats 100 feet offshore, and casting towards deeper water. There were fish out there, to be sure, but the fish in the shallows could be seen, cast to and taken, as I’d found the evening before, when I’d squeezed in a few hours after arriving for my first night.
“Observation is a big part of fishing. It’s surprising how many people don’t get it,” said Peter as he plunked himself down at the table.
Over the next two hours we talked about politics, the environment, fishing, rod building, the Knights Templars (a religious order established by Crusaders in the the 12th century), the Holy Grail, the Dean River (a Holy Grail in its own right) the collapse of the Thompson River steelhead run, and the future of Corbett Lake Country Inn, which is located near Merritt, in southern British Columbia. Last summer Peter put the Inn up for sale. He’s asking well over $1 million for it, and at that price it may take awhile to move.
“Who knows,” said Peter, who wants to retire so he can spend more time fishing and rod building, and less time managing and cooking. “It may never sell. But I thought I’d put it up and see.”
A lot of his fans hope the Inn doesn’t sell anytime soon, because it seems so perfect the way it is now and it would be a shame to change anything..
Over the past two decades Peter has built Corbett Lake into a truly wonderful resort. It has an old world charm to it, and thanks to his management of the fishery, offers incredible dry fly action, as I was about to be reminded that evening.
“Full house tonight,” he said, as the conversation turned to cooking. Once the chef for the Lord Mayor of London, the European-trained cook has made Corbett Lake Country Inn almost as famous for its dinners as for its fishing.
The Inn, he said, was booked up, as it is almost every weekend in the spring and fall, when the fishing is at its best.
“You can see the power of big trout,” he said, referring not to the fighting ability of the beautiful rainbows in the lake, but to the pull they have, lure people to the Inn from all over the Pacific Northwest.
Corbett Lake has been growing bigger and bigger trout over the past several years, as Peter has apparently perfected the art of trout husbandry. He grows the fish in artesian ponds down in the valley, then stocks them in the lake in the early spring.
“It’s basically fish farming,” he says.
But the fishery that has developed at Corbett Lake is not what you’d expect in a managed pond. Within a few weeks of being released, the Kamloops trout have reverted to their wild instincts. They become selective, as the fishermen working the water below the cabin were demonstrating that morning.
There were thousands of big trout in the lake, but only a handful had been taken that day. The fish were feeding deep on dragon flies, and as the day warmed, they would shift to tiny gnats with white wings and green bodies, best imitated with a size 18 hook, or smaller, fished on a dry line.
Peter said there were a lot of fish in the 5 - 8 lb. range, and some that ranged to 17 lbs. “That’s what makes it so exciting out there,” said Peter. “You cast to a rise and you never know what’s going to come up. I have seen 17 lb. trout taken here on dry flies. That’s pretty incredible.”
It was getting close to noon and Peter had to get back to the main lodge. On the lake boats were starting to head in. Only a couple of them had fish. Instead of going fishing, my wife, daughter and our dog took out a couple of boats, and rowed to the far end of the lake with a picnic lunch. Onshore, surrounded by willows and singing birds, we rested in the grass and spent time plucking burrs from our socks and the dog’s leggings.
I kept, the way fishermen will, a close watch on the lake for the whole time. By mid afternoon, only a few fish had started to rise. My daughter, Claire, and I trolled a big dragon slow and deep, until the rod jerked in her hand. She landed a 22 inch trout, then asked if she could go ashore to play with the dog. Alone in the boat, I drifted with the wind, scanning the surface. The green gnats were emerging.
All the other fishermen were back on the lake now. Most were trolling, going far too fast. Some were anchored and casting, retrieving with short pulls that left me wondering what they were fishing. I saw one angler standing to play a fish. Then awhile later another. That was it. The rise forms were coming steady now, and were spread around the lake. It was clear that nobody had the right technique or fly, because there were hundreds of trout visible feeding, and nobody was playing fish.
I laid the tiny green gnat out on the surface and hooked up on my first cast. Ten minutes later I took a second. Then a third. The fish were all 4 to 6 lbs. Then a bigger one took, and as he ran, I pulled up anchor and let the wind push me after him. The wind carried me down the lake and when I looked up after releasing an 8 lb. trout, I saw that four boats had moved into the spot where I’d been. It hardly mattered.
There were dozens of trout rising within casting distance of where I had come to rest. In the riffled surface it was hard to see the rises, but I could hear them. It was an incredible moment when I realized that the faint clicking noise was not water lapping against the shore, but thousands of trout, grazing with their noses on the surface. I could hear their jaws clicking.
The strikes came steady as night fell. Pulling in behind a reef of bulrushes, I found sheltered water where I could see big trout cruising above the reed beds. I led the first with a long cast, saw him tilt up, set the hook and the cane rod that Peter had built seemed to hum with pleasure. After several minutes I brought to the boat a 5 lb. rainbow. Three more followed, one with such a broad back that as I held him against the side of the boat, to work the hook free, I couldn’t help but laugh. It was my second 8 lb. trout of the night.
It was getting too dark to see, so I rowed slowly back to the wharf, stopping once along the way to cast to a big trout that was porpoising in a bay. It turned on the fly, ripped the surface, and threw the hook. I was laughing again. How often to you lose an 10 lb. trout on a dry fly?
That night during dinner, Claire and I got up between courses to poke through the fly selection Peter had set out near the bar. Another diner came up, a friendly young man, bursting with brio.
“This is what you want!” he said, selecting a big, black chironomid. “And use a really slow retrieve!” He’d taken three fish in two days. We thanked him for his advice and suggested he might try a dry fly sometime.
“Not here,” he replied with surprising assurance. “You’ve got to get down.”
After dinner Peter made the rounds, drink in hand as he went from table to table, asking his guests how the meal was and how the fishing had been.
“I think,” I told him happily, “it might have been the best day of dry fly fishing I’ve ever had. Used size 16’s and 18’s all day. I’m just sorry I didn’t have some size 22’s.”
Peter’s eyes glinted and he broke into a big grin.
“A big fish on a tiny dry,” he said. “Doesn’t get any better ‘n that mate.”
No, it doesn’t.
