The 2010 Woodbury Resort
Rainbow Trout Derby

All Rainbow, No Bull!

After years of procrastinating, the Kootenay Angler clan from Nelson BC finally entered the Woodbury Rainbow Derby. We've spent the last few months prior to the derby sorting out our techniques to land the sought after massive 10 + pound Rainbow Trout of Kootenay Lake.

Lord knows, I've spent more than a few days trolling without catching a single fish on the lake! In order to help out our situation at the derby, we hit up everyone we could for Rainbow Trout fishing tips. We talked to anyone and everyone about landing these lunkers in Kootenay Lake including former guides who have moved away, tackle shop owners, employees at Woodbury, veteran fisherman of Kootenay Lake, and we even got fishing tips from a gas station clerk, all in an attempt to catch the lunker of the derby.

To our surprise, our applied knowledge resulted in a very successful weekend. While on Saturday and Sunday gusty winds and rain made us earn our fish the hard way, Monday brought sunshine and plenty of action from the start. Each day, we trolled with the locally-made infamous polar hair flies such as the "grey ghost" in our favourite colour combinations on planers (hot tip: make sure the flies are running straight and not flopping on their site), and we ran a few "greenish" trolling lures and plugs at up to 30 feet down. In the end, we caught-and-released more than 15 Rainbow Trout varying from 4-13 pounds. And we didn't even see one Bull Trout. All rainbow, no bull. It's like a straight in poker.

We didn't win the derby, but we did win a few of the many draw prizes given out at the post derby BBQ. So needless to say, it was one heck of a weekend that we're ready to return to next year. Watch our derby video for more footage.

Derby recap written by: Brian Chard, October 12, 2010

The Winners!

Michelle with the KA lunker of the weekend.

Sarosha with a dandy Rainbow Trout!

Brian and Sarosha with a lil' scrapper.