Sport fishing column for Nov 1 to 8, 2010

Last week I touched on the subject of how different water colors, along with the presence or absence of light affect angler's presentations. In this week's column we are going to take that subject a step further.

Often anglers are advised to fish the drop off in a lake or the color change where two rivers meet. In these two circumstances the angler is taking advantage of the change in a fishes vision, from light (day time) to non light (night time) vision. In the dark fish use their highly accurate rod (black and white) vision to locate their prey, making color irrelevant and a silhouette the determining factor. This irrelevance of color and importance of appearance is why fish appear to be less selective and more aggressive at night fall.

Color comes into play during lighted conditions, when fish use their cone vision to differentiate subtle differences in the color spectrum. While fish can be extremely color selective, there are other times when fish are unable to see what we are presenting due to colors being filtered out by water color. This effect works very similarly to the way we filter red eye out of our camera photos; which explains why presentations that work well in low light condition can be completely rejected during high light conditions.

What fish see; it is a fascinating study and also the title of a book, written by Colin J Kageyama O. D.

The report

The fishing on our lower mainland lakes is shifting into winter mode. Time to shift your angling activity, to mid morning through mid afternoon. For wet (sinking) fly fishing try: Big Black, Nation's Black, Baggy Shrimp, Coachman, Cased Caddis, Halfback, Dragon Nymph, Carey Special, Zulu, or Doc Spratley. For dry fly (floating) fishing; on those rare sunny afternoons, try: Tom Thumb, Renegade, Black Gnat, Foam Ant, Griffith Gnat, Royal Coachman, or Elk Hair Caddis.

Fishing on our interior lakes is fair to good. Try a slow retrieve or troll with Chironomid, Pumpkinhead, Micro Leach, Wooly Bugger, olive Matuka, Butler's Bug, Halfback, Baggy Shrimp, Sooboo, Sixpack, or Doc Spratley.

The Fraser River is fair to good for spring, cutthroat, and dolly Varden. For spring try: Kaufmann Stone, Eggo, Popsicle, Squamish Poacher, GP, Big Black or Flat Black. For cutthroat try: Rolled Muddler, Mickey Finn, Eggo, Tied down Minnow, Epoxy Minnow, black Stone, Professor, Lioness, Coachman, Zulu, Chez Nymph. For dolly Varden try: Large (#4 to #1) Eggo, Dolly Whacker, Bucktail, Epoxy Minnow, Big Black, Muddler, or Zunker.

The Vedder River is fair for spring and coho. For coho try: Christmas Tree, Rolled Muddler, Epoxy Minnow, Dolly Whacker, Tied Down Minnow, Bucktail, olive or black Wooly Bugger, Coho Blue, Blue Christmas, Bite Me, Eggo, or Egg Sucking Leach.

The Stave River is slow to fair coho, spring, and cutthroat.

The Harrison River is fair to good for spring, coho, cutthroat and rainbow. For rainbow try: Rolled Muddler, Mickey Finn, Eggo, Kaufmann Stone, Black Gnat, Zulu, Chez Nymph, Souboo, Micro Leach, Sixpack, or Renegade.

The Nicola River is fair to good for rainbow.

You can find more at "The Reel Life Press" by Jeff Weltz.