PPS Destinations Report

Bute Inlet, BC, Canada

Date:         April 11 to 13, 2008

Reported by Dr. Ernst 'Ernie' Schmidt

This trip went just too fast!  It started with short notice and ended before I had a chance to realize it.  About two weeks before leaving, I got the word that I was invited to fish the remote headwaters of BC's Bute Inlet, featuring the remote Homathko and Southgate Rivers.  I had to opportunity to bring 2 guests along as well, so, accompanied by seasoned PPS members, Richard R of Seattle and Barry W of Victoria, we rendezvoused at the Campbell River airport to meet with our guide, Randy, and our chopper pilot, Morris.  After 'wadering up', we hopped aboard and traveled approximately 100km towards the BC interior, via the long, narrow and utterly scenic Bute Inlet.  Weather was overcast and perfect for fishing!  As far as the scenery goes, no photo that I could post on this web page will come close to the panorama of mountains rising as much as 11 thousand feet above the immediate ocean waters.

After a quick stop at Homathko Camp, our accommodations for the next two days, we took off to immediately begin fishing the Southgate River.  This scenic river runs right from the head of Bute Inlet and is a a gentle grade flow in the midst of enormous mountains and glaciers.  At one point, we saw two Mountain Goats scurrying across a rock wall.  The river was of medium size and, higher up, one could almost cast across it while lower down, the river became a bit wider.  Waters were slightly coloured however, there was still excellent visibility.  After a full day's fishing, I managed to land and release approximately 15 bull trout as well as several healthy coastal cutthroat trout.  These fish were relatively aggressive but were not above plucking and teasing us.  Our method was to cast across stream with either a dry line or a sinking tip line and then swing or retrieve the fly across the productive waters.  As soon as the waters were fished, Morris would quickly 'hop' us down to the next hole.  Having the chopper at hand made it extremely efficient and we were able to quickly access new waters on this 'road-less' valley.  

While the 'cutties' tended to jump and swerve like a regular trout, the 'bulls' earned the reputation by digging in and being hard to turn.  At the end of the day, we were all exhausted from constant casting as well as playing fish.  Average size for these fish was 2 pounds with a good specimen being over 4 pounds.  At times, we found ourselves fishing dead-drift dry flies for aggressive cutthroat trout which were showing along some very shallow runs.  At the first afternoon, the fishing at the 'Honey Hole' was simply marvellous as the aggressive cutthroats were taking the dries in 1 foot of water just 10 feet from shore.  

After the first day's fishing, we hopped back to our accommodation for an excellent meal and a good night's rest.  Homathko Camp is a 'scaled-down' logging camp from another era.  With logging on the serious decline, the camp is only used sporadically for occasional heli-logging but is being used more and more for adventure tourists, mainly fishermen, hikers and mountain climbers.  Run by amiable hosts, Chuck and Sharon, the camp is a history lesson in itself, somewhat of a standing archive to BC's past logging culture, complete with rusted and defunct logging equipment.  Yesterday's garbage is now today's museum in a sense.  One thing to note was the incredible view of glaciers surrounding our eating area.  While having dinner, the scenery could not be escaped as it formed the entire panorama of our existence.

After a great breakfast on the Saturday, we ventured back to the Southgate in order to test the more productive lower waters.   The waters were clearer and lower than yesterday and the fishing proved to be absolutely spectacular!  By 10AM, I took 10 really nice well-conditioned bulls on my dry line, using a small green backed minnow pattern which effectively imitated the newly-hatched salmon fry.  What a sight to see the aggressive fish chasing the fry pattern across the water surface.  After a short move with the chopper, I entered the first of two great runs.  On the first of these, I managed to catch about 15 bulls without moving more than 15 feet.  Each of these fish were incredibly aggressive, taking the fly at all stages of the drift.  On the second of these runs, I managed another 10 to 12 larger bulls without moving more than 15 feet.  Simply astounding!  One of my better bulls actually took me into my backing, giving me a great run for my money.  I was not so lucky with many of the other fish as several broke me off after I impatiently tried to 'horse' these bulls in with a stout 6 wt. with 8 pound terminal tippet.  In addition to several other fish and cutthroat trout, I landed somewhere between 40 and 50 quality fish during my fishing day.  All the time I was fishing the second run, partner Barry fished a 'one-man-bucket' run and without moving appreciably, took an incredible 18 good-sized bulls.   On this day, we could have easily caught many more if the end of the day hadn't crept up on us so quickly.  Thankfully it did as we were simply wiped from the action packed day.

The next day, we arose to a semi-clear day with some blue patches. This was a great relief as the previous night had seen heavy rains.  As we ascended to high expectations to Southgate's sister river, the Homathko, we quickly realized that the river had risen and had gone out of shape.  Despite some hard fishing, we never managed more than a handful of small cutthroats and bull trout over the first three hours.  We quickly picked up and choppered back to the Southgate only to find that although it was better than the Homatkho, it was evidently going out of shape very quickly.  Still, despite some hard fishing, it was a reasonable day which came to a quick end.  After picking up our overnight kits, we quickly choppered  back through the stunning Bute Inlet scenery and back to our point of disembarkation.  What a rush!

Logistically,  Bute Inlet's Southgate and Homathko Rivers are helicopter access only and fish extremely well through the winter and spring months.  In addition to bookings through Kent  O'Neil at The Lodge at Gold River, there is one other outfitter who caters to a repeat clientele of heli-fishers.  This can have a limited impact on the fishery since hundreds of fish can be released by a group of anglers fishing several runs in a day.  Thankfully, these outfitters are in communications and tend to find 'rested' waters each day.  Each river boasts about 40km (give or take) fishable length and, in my mind seems like Kamchatka in our backyard, that is, one doesn't have to travel half-way around the world and rough it to have some amazing fishing.

Following are some thumbnails of trip photos.  Please click on them and then return to this page by hitting the ' back ' button on your browser.