For most of my fishing life, I thought of fish exclusively as residents of their corresponding bodies of water, moving within those waters with seasonal and temperamental variety. As a young angler, I didn’t consciously account for much information at all. I would just visit the fishing holes I knew with methods that were reliable in almost any season, weather, or water conditions.
These methods, for me, were mostly divided between saltwater fishing, where I fished a “free-shrimping” rig (a size 14 treble hook and a live gulf shrimp on a bare or barely weighted line) and freshwater where I fished live minnows for bass and crappie, liver or cut bait for catfish, and small lures and flies for trout and panfish. There was a secret freshwater shrimp method I would sometimes use that I may share here someday, too.
I would later discover plastic worms and jigs and, later still, the northern fishing techniques for pike and walleye. Of course, nothing is more reliable for fish on almost any water than a tiny hook and a small chunk of worm on a sensitive bobber with a bit of split shot lead to add weight for casting, detangling, and getting it down, with the option to remove the bobber and let it rest (or bounce, in moving water) on the bottom.
All of these methods assume that you are feeding resident fish, fish that can be found in roughly the same places year-round. Resident fish live in one place permanently.
Here in British Columbia, things are different. There are resident fish here, but there are a lot of non-resident, passenger fish, too. These non-residents fall into two different categories: pilgrims and pirates. For these fish, rivers are roads, not permanent destinations in themselves. As a result, many of our glacial rivers host passengers more than they can support a resident fish population. I will start with the pirates first.
While bull-trout and cutthroat trout do have a period in their life when they go on a spawning pilgrimage, they spend much of their lives as pirates, raiding food sources from sea to river. Sea-run cutthroat will appear and vanish; they occupy many different kinds of water environments so long as their prey are there. As pirates, they follow and take advantage of the salmon pilgrims, following them to eat their eggs as they spawn—and decaying flesh thereafter—and ambushing their fry as they spring from their redds and travel to the sea.
Most BC fish pilgrims are the five species of Pacific salmon who migrate at different stages, intervals, and times, with a common purpose: death and rebirth. They are born in rivers, travel to the sea where they mature, and return en masse to spawn and complete the cycle of life—and commence the next cycle of life-everlasting. There’s is an almost spiritual journey, a pilgrimage.
Then there are the steelhead, sea-run rainbow trout who are not as pirate-like as their cutthroat cousins, but who spawn several times in their life, unlike salmon. They travel to and from the oceans and rivers as pilgrims, too, but without the finality of salmon and with some of the pirate-like behaviour of trout. I would still class them as more pilgrim than pirate.
There is a lot made of the differences between stocked, invasive, and wild fish. These are important differences to consider, but they don’t impact fishing for me in British Columbia quite as much as these differences between residents, pirates, and pilgrims do. The reason is that the residents and pirates are feeding fish and the pilgrims are mostly not feeding—they are fasting.
Targeting resident fish is fairly simple. You find where they generally are located and then try to offer them real food or a food-like lure. You can also get them to strike out of territorial behaviour, depending on the species and their spawning cycle, but the basic principle is to feed them in roughly the same, reliable places they reside.
Pirate fish are aggressive feeders, even more food-motivated than many residents, especially when they are targeting a specific food source. Fishing cured roe, plastic beads, or wool egg patterns for cutthroat chasing salmon eggs is a reliable method, but location becomes key. You need to be able to chase them down and, to do that, you need to be able to identify their presence. Even when resident fish are not surfacing or making themselves known, you can usually predict where they will be. For pirate fish, you need them to account for themselves by rising or test for their presence in places where their prey will be. Above all, you have to move.
Pilgrims break from food-motivated fishing techniques. Once salmon and steelhead enter a river system, they are not there to hunt and will eventually stop eating entirely. You can entice fresh-arriving fish to feed on shrimp or minnow patterns because they are still in a hunting sea-mode of life, where they feed abundantly. But these fish are generally best caught by presenting fish eggs that they attack for natural selection purposes or intruding and irritating patterns that simply make them mad. Pilgrims may fast, but they are prone to anger, often producing aggressive strikes. They can also be tight-lipped, though, to the point of total passivity.
In future posts, I want to try and break down some of the basics principles and mechanics of fishing. I hope you will subscribe and share this fishing journal. Be in touch if you have any questions or concerns or if there is something you are eager to see me cover.