I went into the lower Quesnel River this morning, just a few miles up stream from town. There is a pretty canyon with big deep holes everywhere. My first idea was to fish with my heavy full sink line with the Branchu pattern Martin posted here or some of my Icelandic Sheep hair streamer patterns and get them deep into the holes. After trying that for about an hour without even getting a touch, I remembered how well the Brooke's stonefly nymph had worked for me in the Quesnel in the past.
I switched lines to a dry line and rigged up the stonefly under a strike indicator with about a 15 foot leader. The Brooke's Stonefly Nymph is tyed very heavy with at least 15 wraps of heavy lead wire at the start of the tying process. I hooked a couple of smaller rainbows to start with, but as I worked several back eddies I started getting some very nice fish casting up current and mending the dry line as if the strike indicator was a dry fly so that the nymph was basically dead drifting. Was a very nice morning.
