Transcript

Travis Bader: [00:00:00] I’m Travis Bader and this is The Silvercore Podcast. Join me as I discuss matters related to hunting, fishing, and outdoor pursuits with the people in businesses  of the comprise the community. If you’re a new to Silvercore, be sure to check out our website, www.Silvercore.ca where you can learn more about courses, services, and products we offer.

As well as how you can join The Silvercore Club, which includes 10 million in North American wide liability insurance, to ensure you are properly covered during your outdoor adventures.

Silvercore Podcast listener Brock Fisher writes in and asks, “Any thoughts on the podcast, outlining the local fishing scene, river crabbing, Lake fishing, that kind of thing? There’s such a large amount of people who are interested in fishing, who live in the South coast, razor Valley, and just don’t know where to start. So that’s what I want to delve into today. 

Tonight, I’m joined by Catherine Laflamme who’s dabbled in guiding, works in Michael & Young flyshop in Vancouver. And we met through a mutual friend, April Vokey of Anchored Outdoors. Welcome Cat. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:01:13] Hi.

Travis Bader: [00:01:14] Gillian Steele, who guides part-time, works at Highwater Tackle in North Vancouver and along with Cat, is a founder of the BC Women’s Fly Fishing group. Gillian, I met you through my wife, Tiffany Bader, who can’t stop raving about the good work both you and Cat are doing with the group. Welcome Gill. 

Gillian Steele: [00:01:29] Thank you.

Travis Bader: [00:01:31] Finally, to provide the new angler’s perspective. I have pro chef and resident Silvercore staffer, my wife, Tiffany Bader. Welcome Tiff. 

Tiffany Bader: [00:01:38] Hey.

Travis Bader: [00:01:39] So Cat and Gill, when we were talking before looking at different ideas of what we can bring to the listeners. There’s a number of ideas that were floating around and I think the top three that came out was a fishing calendar. Basically talking about what to fish, where to fish, when to fish, advice for new anglers and of course talk about the BC Women’s Fly Fishing group. But before we get too deep into that, I kind of want to learn a little bit more about you two. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:02:11] Okay. So I grew up in a family, my parents both really love going camping. So every weekend growing up, we would go camping and fishing. My dad’s a fly fisher, he loves fishing lakes. So anyway, we were brought up fishing. My siblings hated it, I loved it, at 12 years old I begged him to teach me how to fly fish because I hated worms.

Travis Bader: [00:02:34] Right.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:02:34] Absolutely hated worms. And there was something very poetic about watching my dad fly cast. And one thing that really got me was that he would cast to these rising trout and basically count down. So he’d cast out to a dimple in the water where a fish just rose and he counted down and be like, ready? Three, two, one and then.

Travis Bader: [00:03:01] No.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:03:01] Somehow.

Travis Bader: [00:03:02] No.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:03:02] He just got it so many times and I was like, want to do that. That sound’s amazing, looks amazing. 

Travis Bader: [00:03:07] That’s magical. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:03:09] It’s magical. So anyway, begged and begged and begged him and he finally, we went to Walmart, he bought me at $50 fly set up and that was it. You know, there was a lot of skipping school in grade 12 and just drive straight to the Vedder and fish. 

And then I met April Vokey out of, I went to Capilano University for a couple of years and did a outdoor recreation management program. And out of that, I ended up getting a job with April. So I worked for her for Flygal Ventures for a couple of years, actually three years. 

Travis Bader: [00:03:43] Very cool. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:03:44] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:03:44] Well, April, she wasn’t at Cap was she?

Catherine Laflamme: [00:03:46] No, no, I just, I met her at the Trade Ex when I was 16 .

Travis Bader: [00:03:50] Ahh okay.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:03:50] And we kept in touch. And then with that program I had to do a practicum in the summer. So I asked her, I’m like hey, need any help? She’s like, yes. And then she hired me right on the spot in February before summer. So, and then I just stuck around, helped her with some office stuff, fly tying, all kinds of stuff, shipping out packages, blah, blah, blah. So did that for a few years. 

Well, sorry, hold on, backtrack. Out of high school. I got a job at the Fly Shop in Surrey, Michael & Young Fly Shop. 

Travis Bader: [00:04:20] Okay.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:04:21] So I was there part-time on top of working for April, did whole bunch of fish bumming.

Travis Bader: [00:04:28] Fish bumming.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:04:28] For a few years.

Travis Bader: [00:04:29] Fish bumming. I like that term.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:04:31] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:04:31] It’s kind of like bandit camping and out on the river there. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:04:35] Yeah, exactly. Living in a trailer by the river.

Travis Bader: [00:04:38] Perfect.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:04:39] And then came back, needed money. So I got a full-time position at Michael & Young, and I’ve been there ever since. 

Travis Bader: [00:04:46] Wow. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:04:47] Yeah. 

Gillian Steele: [00:04:47] I only have one question for you.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:04:49] Yeah.

Gillian Steele: [00:04:49] So you said your dad being French Canadian, did he count three, two, one, or did he count.. Threeee, twooo, oneee!? Fish on! Only cause I jnow your dad and I love him. I was like, he does not just say three, two, one. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:05:08] Cat, eh Cat, ready? Threeee, twooo, oneee. Sorry, dad. 

Travis Bader: [00:05:13] Love it.

Gillian Steele: [00:05:14] Love him. But yeah. I knew that I was like, yeah he did not. Three, two, one, absolutely that’s not how it went. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:05:22] Not at all.

Travis Bader: [00:05:24] Gill?

Gillian Steele: [00:05:26] My intro, my dad has owned Highwater Tackle in North Vancouver for, I guess now we are 20, 36 years coming up in April. 

Travis Bader: [00:05:36] Wow.

Gillian Steele: [00:05:36] So quite a long time and he’s owned that shop for pretty much its entirety with the exception of six months. He bought it off another guy there, quickly thereafter who was not very well received in the retail business.

Travis Bader: [00:05:50] One of those types, I hear ya.

Gillian Steele: [00:05:51] Yeah, so he purchases off, then he essentially came home to my mom and said, Hey, I bought a tackle shop and my mom wasn’t exactly that excited about it, but. 

Travis Bader: [00:05:59] No. She didn’t know?

Gillian Steele: [00:06:01] She knew what she was getting into a little bit. They met at a guiding lodge up at Stuart Island back in the day, SonoraIsland Resort. So she knew what she was getting into at that point.

Travis Bader: [00:06:13] Got it, fair enough.

Gillian Steele: [00:06:15] Anyways, so it’s a bit of a romantic love story with them. And then I came around and I was just kind of pushed into it. Not pushed into it, I shouldn’t say that. I was just kind of indulged in it my entire life. So it came very naturally for me. 

And a little bit of a contrast, I have a sister who never really got into it. I was camping and everything. Whenever we went out in the outdoors, it always revolved around fishing in some way. So my dad wasn’t going to camp somewhere that didn’t have a water body attached to it that just wasn’t going to happen.

Travis Bader: [00:06:44] I can get behind that.

Gillian Steele: [00:06:45] So yeah, so fishing was always a part of it and it just kind of grew naturally. And then when I was about 15, I started working at the shop and then going to university, it became a very convenient working space for me as well. And then ever since then I’ve just kind of grown and adapted through there. And I’ve got myself involved in a couple of things since then. Various non-governmental organizations, NGOs, and some other things as well. 

Travis Bader: [00:07:12] Okay.

Gillian Steele: [00:07:12] And then dabbled a little bit in that guiding side of it too. 

Travis Bader: [00:07:16] Like consulting for the NGOs or volunteering?

Gillian Steele: [00:07:19] Yeah. I work for the Steelhead Society as a director, not work, I volunteer for the Steelhead Society as director. So that’s been a big passion of mine for. 

Travis Bader: [00:07:27] It can be viewed as work, but yes, yes. 

Gillian Steele: [00:07:29] It can definitely be work sometimes for sure but.

Travis Bader: [00:07:32] It’s a labour of love.

Gillian Steele: [00:07:33] Yeah, it is. So just kind of got involved and then just fish when I can and meet lots of great people and the industry certainly helps that a lot so. 

Travis Bader: [00:07:44] Well, one of the things that Tiffany, you’re going on about, was the calendar, the fishing calendar. And I really wanted to sit in on that episode, but you know, it is the BC Women’s Fly Fishing group. So I guess I get to hack it a little bit by having you guys here on the podcast and learn about this fishing calendar. Can you tell me more about that.

Gillian Steele: [00:08:09] The calendar, or do you want to know more about the group from the get-go?

Travis Bader: [00:08:12] Well, I don’t know. What do you want to talk about first? 

Gillian Steele: [00:08:17] We can talk about the calendar. I think that’s.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:08:19] The calendar was sort of something Gill sort of did amidst COVID. We tried to do a bunch of like zoom meetings to keep the group active.

Gillian Steele: [00:08:30] Right.

Travis Bader: [00:08:31] While not being able to interact in person so much. So Gill’s has been really great about doing all these zoom meetings and zoom courses for the group. And one of the things she did over the holidays was kind of explain all of the fishing opportunities in the lower mainland throughout the year. Well you guys must get that question all the time. 

Gillian Steele: [00:08:53] Yeah, I think one of the things that is, I mean, maybe an advantage for us and maybe an advantage for our group overall is that, both of us working in shops and having worked in shops for a long time, relative to other people.

Travis Bader: [00:09:08] Yes.

Gillian Steele: [00:09:09] You start to learn the questions I get asked and you start to learn what the perspective is of a new angler walking into the store. So one of the questions that you get all the time, especially this time of year, cause it’s January and if you’re not like hardcore steelheading.

Travis Bader: [00:09:24] Right.

Gillian Steele: [00:09:24] What do you do? You know, or if there’s, in the lower mainland, we don’t have ice, so you’re not necessarily ice fishing. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:09:31] We’re lucky not to have ice.

Gillian Steele: [00:09:32] Yeah, maybe we’re lucky. We have lots of flowing water, not hard water. 

Travis Bader: [00:09:37] Yeah.

Gillian Steele: [00:09:37] So, we could ask them a lot about what to do and what are some other alternatives. So I thought that was maybe a good thing. And then the other thing is, you don’t want to miss out on something, so you don’t want to get halfway through a season and then not be prepared. 

Travis Bader: [00:09:50] Right.

Gillian Steele: [00:09:51] So just kind of preparing a calendar of kind of, what are your target species, what you should be thinking about based on the time of year, and this is based in the lower mainland.

Travis Bader: [00:10:02] Sure.

Gillian Steele: [00:10:02] So of course it’s not going to necessarily transcend to all aspects of the province, but at least, kind of gives it a good rounded idea of what you should think about and then what you should kind of plan for as well. Cause that definitely, I would say in the shop is.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:10:19] Upcoming fisheries.

Gillian Steele: [00:10:20] You know, people walk in and they say like, you know, what can I do now?

Travis Bader: [00:10:24] Yeah. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:10:25] Salmon, season’s over. I love to fish. What do I do now? 

Gillian Steele: [00:10:30] Yeah, we get that all the time in the shop, at least. So setting that kind of up and making people think also alternative fisheries, you know, although it’s not like, you’re not chasing coho and chinook and the rivers right now in January when we’re recording this, but there’s tons of other things that you can do.

Travis Bader: [00:10:46] Sure. Yeah. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:10:47] Whitefish. Gill’s favorite.

Travis Bader: [00:10:51] Whitefish.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:10:51] The Mountain Whitefish. 

Gillian Steele: [00:10:52] But it’s true. There’s there’s lots of other, I mean, you can go steelhead fishing. You can still, there’s lots of like for right now January, if we start at the beginning, there’s resident trout you can go for. Bull trout, there’s starting to be.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:11:04] Whitefish.

Gillian Steele: [00:11:06] Cutthroat. I really like whitefish. Cutthroat trout, you know, depending on where you are. So we kind of just got into that, cause that was just something that we get asked all the time and I didn’t realize kind of necessarily like how you don’t think about it. Like how big of a question that is until you start making a PowerPoint presentation.

Travis Bader: [00:11:32] Well I heard it was pretty voluminous. I heard you had a lot of information in it. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:11:35] Oh my gosh.

Tiffany Bader: [00:11:36] I wrote a lot of notes. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:11:37] Yeah. I signed in a little late on that one and I was like, wow. This started at seven it’s now almost 11. Dimitri hates me. 

Gillian Steele: [00:11:48] Yeah, that’s my problem. I have to tone it back on the info.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:11:50] It’s very detailed. I liked it.

Gillian Steele: [00:11:53] A little, maybe too detailed. But yeah, but anyways, so we kind of went through that. So I think we could, for the listeners here, we could probably go through our kind of our rundown of what. And it’s a good time, it’s January, so we can do our calendar year kind of thing.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:12:06] Maybe not as detailed as. 

Gillian Steele: [00:12:07] No, we’re not. Don’t worry. We will not go on for three hours.

Travis Bader: [00:12:11] Seven o’clock now, so we’ve got, okay.

Gillian Steele: [00:12:12] 11:30 of this. But yeah, I dunno. We can just kind of jump into it. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:12:20] We can start basically with, with now, January. 

Travis Bader: [00:12:23] That’s a good way to do it. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:12:24] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:12:25] Beginning of the year.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:12:26] What do we do? 

Travis Bader: [00:12:26] What do we fish.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:12:27] January. There’s.

Gillian Steele: [00:12:28] What do we do? 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:12:28] Winter steelhead in certain rivers. Not all rivers in the lower mainland will have winter steelhead, but you know, the main ones that have the earlier run of steelhead would be the Vedder. And it’s. Fishing great right now. The Chehalis is another one that gets early runs of steelhead. 

Gillian Steele: [00:12:46] You can start thinking about the Capilano if you’re on the North shore.

Travis Bader: [00:12:50] When you say fishing great on the Vedder. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:12:52] Ooh. Yeah. I mean, there’s fish around.

Travis Bader: [00:12:55] Okay.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:12:55] There’s also a lot of anglers around. 

Travis Bader: [00:12:59] Man is there ever!

Catherine Laflamme: [00:13:00] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:13:01] Yeah. That’s one of the things that’s always kind of scared me away from the Vedder river rafted down that thing numerous times.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:13:09] Sweet.

Travis Bader: [00:13:10] But I’ve never fished it because I just look in they’re cheek by jowl going down there. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:13:14] Yeah, it’s crazy. 

Travis Bader: [00:13:15] Is there many steelhead going down there?

Catherine Laflamme: [00:13:17] It’s got the biggest number of steelhead in the lower mainland that’s for sure. And that’s why it’s the busiest. And you’re also allowed to keep a fish, a hatchery fish. So find anywhere you’re allowed to retain a fish, there’s usually more people. 

Tiffany Bader: [00:13:32] So for newbies, how do you distinguish a hatchery fish from 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:13:37] A wild one? So hatchery fish will have a clipped adipose fin, so that little nub of flesh above in front of the tail. So it’s a little fin that’s essentially useless and they clip them when they’re young. So you’ll see, there should be a scar there where it’s kind of healed over and a wild one will have that adipose intact. 

Tiffany Bader: [00:14:00] Okay. Cool. 

Gillian Steele: [00:14:02] One thing I’ll say about the Vedder, just cause it gets a lot of hate.

Travis Bader: [00:14:05] Sure.

Gillian Steele: [00:14:06] And the Vedder gets a lot of hate because it’s busy. 

Travis Bader: [00:14:09] Yeah. 

Gillian Steele: [00:14:10] From the steelhead anglers that I know, and a lot of the steelhead anglers that are very prominent or very well-rounded steelhead angler,  being a good steelheader is not necessarily about how many fish you catch, but it’s being able to adapt. The Vedder is probably hands down one of the best rivers if you want to learn how to steelhead fish, and you want to learn how to steal at fish well. 

And it gets a lot of hate because it is busy, but as soon as you have a catch and keep fishery, that’s what’s going to happen. However, in terms of the water that’s available there, the diversity of the runs and the water type there, and from a learning perspective, it is hands down one of the best systems out there. So it’s a lot of hate all the time, all the time. People are like, Oh I don’t want it to become the Vedder, or I hate the Vedder. 

Travis Bader: [00:14:56] Right, right.

Gillian Steele: [00:14:57] We need to throw that out because I don’t think that’s fair. It is busy because it’s also a high access area. 

Travis Bader: [00:15:02] Easy access.

Gillian Steele: [00:15:02] You can fit a lot of water, easy access that’s available for a lot of different kinds of people. You know, maybe you’re not mobile, there’s lots of places that you can go. So we need to kind of, I think dispense that idea that the Vedder’s bad because it’s busy. Let’s think about the Vedder as being good because it has so many opportunities. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:15:19] There’s also big fish in the Vedder, you know, there’s 20 pound fish that come out of there every year.

Travis Bader: [00:15:26] Wow.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:15:27] I was just there with my boyfriend today and he got a 15 pound wild buck, it was amazing. And there’s not a lot of places where you can live in Canada or North America for that matter, where you can drive 45 minutes and catch 15 pound wild buck. You know what I mean? We’re pretty lucky. And yeah, the Vedder is super busy, but it’s also incredible. 

Travis Bader: [00:15:46] So I wonder if we’re going to see more people on the Vedder, what you’re just saying right now. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:15:50] I’m sorry Dimitri, I ruined your cover. I’m kidding.

Gillian Steele: [00:15:54] Maybe, but I think on the other hand, people know where they’re going when they are, what they’re getting into when they go out there. But I just, I kind of want to dispense that cause a lot of people put a lot of hate on that river. And from a fishing perspective, it is probably one of the nicest rivers to fish. It’s diverse, there’s lots of water, so.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:16:09] It’s true. From the top to the middle, to the lower.

Travis Bader: [00:16:12] And it’s all very beautiful.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:16:13] It’s all very different.

Gillian Steele: [00:16:14] It is beautiful! And it just gets hated on. And I just want to dispense that cause you know, you think winter steelhead and everybody’s like, Ugh, I don’t want to go to the Vedder.

Travis Bader: [00:16:21] Right.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:16:22] But you’ll do.

Gillian Steele: [00:16:22] Go to the Vedder, you will learn. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:16:23] You don’t but you do.

Gillian Steele: [00:16:26] Yeah. But yeah lots of winter steelhead opportunities in the lower mainland.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:16:30] January, February, and that fishery will go till the river blows out in May pretty much. Well, the Vedder closes in May, above, not. 

Gillian Steele: [00:16:40] Not this year. There’s proposals to change that so. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:16:45] TBI is that changing this? 

Travis Bader: [00:16:47] Is this top secret?

Catherine Laflamme: [00:16:48] It might be.

Gillian Steele: [00:16:48] No, no, no, it’s not top secret. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:16:49] No, no, no, there’s proposals. Yeah. 

Gillian Steele: [00:16:52] So typically May, but there is, I don’t know how it would go in this year. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:16:56] I don’t know.

Gillian Steele: [00:16:56] Actually. TBI.

Travis Bader: [00:16:58] Okay. 

Gillian Steele: [00:16:58] Anyway, usually it closes above the Vedder crossing May 1st and the lower, below the Vedder crossing stays open in May, but you usually might get like a week and then it blows out.

Travis Bader: [00:17:10] Okay well, we’ll look it up and put it in the podcast notes. If we can find it, if it changes. Yeah. 

Gillian Steele: [00:17:16] Yeah. And then you get into kind of as well this time of year. And I would say pretty much through till March. I mean, there’s lots of resident trout fisheries. So all those, any system that got salmon in the previous fall, those are all going to have resident trout. 

So your bull trout, your cutthroat, your rainbows, they’re moving into those systems, looking to key in on egg patterns, on flesh patterns, on all those kinds of things. So you see lots of guys fishing fly patterns, like big flesh flies and stuff like that. That goes right till March pretty much. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:17:46] March the salmon fry will actually start hatching when the weather warms up in March typically, or sometimes late February.

Travis Bader: [00:17:54] Okay.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:17:54] And then the trout, resident trout fishing gets phenomenal cause they’ll gorge on those salmon fry. So bull trout fishing is great, cutthroat fishing is great. Rainbows. Yeah, yeah. All through till the rivers blow out with.

Travis Bader: [00:18:09] Well that’d be up Squamish as well and up through. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:18:13] Yep, absolutely. Yeah. Squamish systems, anywhere that connects to the Fraser in the Valley there, Harrison, Nicomen, Dewdney all that stuff. Stave.

Travis Bader: [00:18:23] Okay. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:18:24] Yeah. 

Gillian Steele: [00:18:24] Yeah.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:18:25] Lots of opportunities. 

Gillian Steele: [00:18:26] Lots of opportunities. And then.

Travis Bader: [00:18:28] So I see people sometimes fishing, you know, as you drive down towards the border down highway 99, and right by the.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:18:37] Yeah there’s the Nicolmickle, Serpentine, Campbell, all those ditches. 

Travis Bader: [00:18:42] Right.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:18:42] I grew up, when I was in my teens, that’s where I used to go, cause I grew up in North Delta. So I used to go fish cutthroat in those ditches all the time and it was great. I mean, mind you, they’re not big, but it’s super fun after school, on an afternoon. Anything that connects to the Fraser or the ocean will have little runs of  and sea run cutthroat. 

Travis Bader: [00:19:04] And that’s what they’re going for is cutthroat?

Catherine Laflamme: [00:19:05] Yep, cutthroat, or well, some of those rivers will have coho in the fall and chinook in the summer and some of them will also have steelhead there’s hatcheries on the little Campbell. And I think the Nicolmickle as well. 

Travis Bader: [00:19:17] That’s pretty easy access.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:19:18] Super easy access.

Travis Bader: [00:19:19] Do they get pretty crowded as well?

Catherine Laflamme: [00:19:20] No. Dirty ditch water, people don’t find it very attractive. 

Travis Bader: [00:19:25] But they have fish.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:19:27] There’s fish in them. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It’s not exactly the most picturesque fly fishing experience in the woods.

Travis Bader: [00:19:35] No, no.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:19:37] Fishing amongst farm fields and whatnot, but it’s something to do and it’s close so. 

Travis Bader: [00:19:42] I remember one time going, I think it was the Serpentine and I thought I’m going to raft down the Serpentine. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:19:47] Nice!

Travis Bader: [00:19:47] I was getting really into rafting at one point and I thought, well we’ll just take this raft, I’ll put it in and I’ll catch it as a tide’s going out. And I basically put it in a ditch, me and this other fellow. And I spent hours kicking and paddling and kicking and paddling with a case of beer in my lap. Thinking I could have some nice lazy little, little  drift down, it never happened, but yes.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:20:08] It sounds like a lot of work. 

Travis Bader: [00:20:09] It was a lot of work. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:20:10] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:20:10] And yes, it’s not the most scenic place to be. But did see some anglers. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:20:17] Yeah, there ya go. 

Gillian Steele: [00:20:19] So, yeah. So you get those kind of fry popping out in that kind of Mar- late February, March, April. And that’s a big, that’s a big food source for a lot of those resident fish. So anywhere that had salmon, you think about it, we got chum fry coming out, we’ll have pink fry next year, I guess. Any of those systems, that’s when the fries start to move out and all the resident trout really key in on that.

So that can be a fishery as well. You know, March, you have a little bit longer days, but maybe you’re not into steel heading, you know, it’s not quite lake season. What do you do? SO there’s all that available cutthroat. Some guys will go fish off beaches in the lower mainland in the salt water, if you want to do that. But rainy day sometimes that’s not ideal either. 

Travis Bader: [00:21:01] True, true. 

Gillian Steele: [00:21:02] It can be a little bit harder as well. That can be a little bit nitpicky, but there’s lots of options too. And then you get into the springtime and then you have BC’s 20,000 lakes that’s available to us.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:21:12] Fish a different lake every day for the rest of your life.

Gillian Steele: [00:21:15] Pretty much. So that’s you’re, what, late. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:21:19] Yeah, depending on the year and the temperatures we get. Yeah. But based on how this year is going, it could be a really early lake season.

Travis Bader: [00:21:27] Right, yeah.

Gillian Steele: [00:21:28] Mid to late April. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:21:29] Yeah, mid to late April. There’s usually the lower elevation lakes that are icing off and then may and June will be your prime, still water months. 

Travis Bader: [00:21:40] Okay. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:21:40] And there’s so many other things going on at that time too. You can go bass fishing, which is also a very new thing in the lower mainland. 

Travis Bader: [00:21:48] Where do you go bass fishing?

Catherine Laflamme: [00:21:49] Oh my gosh. Anywhere. 

Travis Bader: [00:21:50] Really?

Catherine Laflamme: [00:21:51] Yeah. There’s any pon- Oh, I’m going to ruin it.

Travis Bader: [00:21:53] It this an invasive species or what?

Gillian Steele: [00:21:55] Yes.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:21:55] It is. I mean, it’s a fairly new fishery, but basically any pond or slew in Abbotsford, Pitt Meadows, Langley. 

Tiffany Bader: [00:22:04] I heard there’s a –.

Gillian Steele: [00:22:06] Yeah.

Tiffany Bader: [00:22:06] In the — area. 

It’s a secret. Shhhh, shut up.

Travis Bader: [00:22:13] You know what’s funny.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:22:14] You might want to cut that.

Tiffany Bader: [00:22:18] I noticed you didn’t mention that during the presentation. I wasn’t going to say anything 

Travis Bader: [00:22:22] But what’s funny is, is the person who actually asked this question, I’m going to call him out right now because he gave us some heat for doing a crabbing episode with MeatEater with April Vokey. 

Tiffany Bader: [00:22:37] Oh that’s right.

Travis Bader: [00:22:39] Remember that? So Brock, don’t think I forgot that one. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:22:41] Well you’re giving them secret crabbing spots?

Tiffany Bader: [00:22:44] No, we didn’t even say the location. We were just out crabbing and I guess he was able to determine what beach we were at. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:22:50] Oh my God.

Travis Bader: [00:22:51] He’s a local. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:22:52] Okay.

Travis Bader: [00:22:53] But in his defence, it was his idea and actually there’s a few people who put it up, but I just thought he’d get a kick out of hearing his name mentioned on here. It was his idea to share this information. But you guys let me know if we’ve got to beep things out as we go through here, we can do that. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:23:06] Yeah, maybe specific spots. 

Gillian Steele: [00:23:08] We won’t say. We’re not going to talk about specific spots. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:23:11] But I mean, there are like, right in vanc- Burnaby, Deer Lake has huge bass. 

Gillian Steele: [00:23:17] Yes. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:23:17] Burnaby Lake has huge bass and super easy access and right in town. You don’t have to go very far, but there’s there’s bass. Yeah. Those ones you’re okay to say. 

Gillian Steele: [00:23:26] Yeah. And we do. 

Tiffany Bader: [00:23:27] Would you eat them?

Catherine Laflamme: [00:23:28] Nah.

Tiffany Bader: [00:23:29] I’ve heard people say you can. 

Gillian Steele: [00:23:30] You can. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:23:31] Not from Deer Lake.

Gillian Steele: [00:23:31] I think. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:23:32] No! Serious? You can? You can?!

Gillian Steele: [00:23:36] But I wouldn’t. 

Tiffany Bader: [00:23:37] Okay.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:23:38] I mean, depending on where you got it from, if it was like a nice, clear Lake, maybe. Apparently they’re delicious, but not deer lake.

Tiffany Bader: [00:23:47] I’ve eaten straight Mexico so.

Gillian Steele: [00:23:51] No, so yeah, but they are an invasive. And I think that is something that people, it is becoming more prevalent in the lower mainland, probably at the cost of a lot of other species. Especially as they, those systems that they’re in to now that connect to the Fraser in the last, maybe two years, there’s been some systems that do connect to the Fraser that are serious problems.

Tiffany Bader: [00:24:12] Yeah. 

Gillian Steele: [00:24:12] For residents steelhead salmon in some instances. So it is a problem, but we have to be realistic that it is a fishery that is here now, and it’s very popular.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:24:21] It’s so much fun. 

Travis Bader: [00:24:23] Yeah?

Gillian Steele: [00:24:23] It is fun. 

Tiffany Bader: [00:24:25] Would you fly fish for them? Or what do you use for? 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:24:27] You can, the only issue with that is it’s hard to, people are gonna hate me for this, but it is hard to fly fish in the spots that you get good bass fishing. In the lily pads, under brush and that sort of stuff in the weeds, it’s definitely better with gear. That being said, I have fly fish for them a bunch and like Pitt Meadows, just take the dogs for a walk and bring your fly rod with a little bass popper. You get tons of the smaller ones and a bunch of little pumpkin seed and pan fish and that sort of stuff. It’s super fun. But if you want like bigger bass, I’d definitely switch to gear. 

Tiffany Bader: [00:25:06] Actually an episode of DAS boat, I remember that.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:25:10] Das boat. 

Gillian Steele: [00:25:10] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:25:10] Ahh, that’s right, you’re.

Tiffany Bader: [00:25:11] She’s getting all frustrated. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:25:12] Some people might hate me for this cause the fly fishing purists will say otherwise, but there’s a reason Bassmaster Classics is all gear fishermen. Just saying.

Tiffany Bader: [00:25:25] Can’t catch everything with fly. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:25:26] Exactly. You know, you gotta know your place. Yeah. 

Gillian Steele: [00:25:30] But yeah, and back to our lakes, I mean, you got your lake fishing, which is just exceptional. And it doesn’t, you don’t have to do crazy trips either. I think that’s another thing too, is there’s lots of Lake fishing. certainly within an hour or two hours, three hours, you have the exponential number of local lakes. So it’s not, it doesn’t have to be a big production. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:25:50] Yeah. Not even that far really.

Gillian Steele: [00:25:52] You don’t have to invest in a boat. Like there’s lots of options that you can do locally, which I think gets underrated a little bit because people think that you have to make some big excursion to some camping, you know, 150 miles house.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:26:06] Yeah. We’re really lucky to have the trophy lake fishing that we have in the interior in Merritt Kamloops, Caribou, blah, blah, blah. But a lot of people forget that there’s all of the local lakes in the lower mainland are also stocked with trout. And if you don’t want to drive too far, or you’re a young kid and you don’t have a car, there’s a lot of lakes that you can even bus to and fish.

Gillian Steele: [00:26:30] Absolutely. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:26:31] That’s all stocked with trout. 

Gillian Steele: [00:26:32] That’s a great, like the Freshwater Fisheries Society does an unbelievable job in the lower mainland stocking those lakes. So it, yeah, that’s a great point actually, because people get so uppity about like going to a big trophy, but it meant you can go to like Lafarge lake in Coquitlam, Grayslake and like North Van was like 10 minutes from my house.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:26:50] Green Timbers, in Surrey, they throw in the odd broodstock rainbow in there.

Travis Bader: [00:26:55] Ohh, there ya go!

Catherine Laflamme: [00:26:55] Once in a while an 8 year old kid will pull out a 10 pound trout and your like, what?

Travis Bader: [00:27:00] So cool.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:27:00] Yeah. 

Gillian Steele: [00:27:00] You don’t have to go far, right. And I think that’s kind of, you know, you see all the pictures of all the grand adventures, but that’s like, you don’t have to do that.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:27:10] Yeah. If you don’t have the means to do that, there’s lots of fishing nearby. If you do have the means to drive out to the interior, we are extremely lucky with what the Freshwater Fisheries Society of BC has done with our interior lakes and the triploid fish that they’ve done and it’s absolutely phenomenal. You can have some really, really incredible fishing and that’s from yeah, you know, late, mid to late April till November.

Gillian Steele: [00:27:39] Technically yeah. Depending on your elevation. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:27:41] Yeah. Till it freezes up. 

Gillian Steele: [00:27:43] Yeah. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:27:43] Obviously it’s better May, June will be your ideal month, sometimes July. Middle of summer is usually your summer doldrums, the water’s too warm, the fish go deep. And then it picks up again in the fall, so September, October, sometimes November. 

Travis Bader: [00:28:00] So summertime just take out on the ocean fishing.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:28:04] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:28:04] Take your fishing out there. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:28:06] Ocean if you want.

Gillian Steele: [00:28:07] Ocean and everything that we love.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:28:07] And trout! Oh my God. My favorite, the best months.

Gillian Steele: [00:28:10] The best months.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:28:11] For river trout fishing. 

Gillian Steele: [00:28:13] Yeah. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:28:14] So there’s a lot of, err, not a lot, there’s a few rivers that open up July 1st. Like the Skagit, Similkameen that are fantastic. Dry fly trout fisheries, and we’re absolutely obsessed with them. On the Thompson, good trout. 

Gillian Steele: [00:28:32] Yeah, I think that actually opens earlier. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:28:34] Yeah, it opens earlier.

Gillian Steele: [00:28:36] But like the Chilliwack, so then the Vedder opens again July 1st and you can target chinook in there if you are.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:28:41] And trout.

Gillian Steele: [00:28:42] So apt. And trout as well. But the summertime, I mean, in British Columbia, especially in the lower mainland, it is endless. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:28:48] So many options.

Gillian Steele: [00:28:49] Summer, you know that June, July, August, September, October, pretty much into November pick what you want to do. We have so much here. I think that we like to complain a lot about how busy things are here. Being attached to.

Travis Bader: [00:29:07] It’s been known to happen.

Gillian Steele: [00:29:08] Being attached to a city of two plus million. But on the other hand, it is endless. We have so much. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:29:15] Yeah. 

Gillian Steele: [00:29:16] And I mean, we, we share a passion for trout fishing a lot, that’s kind of where we, I think fostered our friendship, I would say. So the summertime is definitely just endless things that you can do. We got salt water fisheries on the ocean if you have a boat or access to a boat as well, and you can go there. And then yeah, we have dry fly fishing. We have some of the best dry fly fishing around.

Travis Bader: [00:29:39] Yeah?

Gillian Steele: [00:29:39] I think a lot of people would argue that, but there’s we have some in British Columbia, I should say as a whole.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:29:44] Yeah. Oh yeah. British Columbia has a hold absolutely. Yeah. The, I mean, the closer you get to the city, obviously the more pressured the fish are, so you definitely have to. Yeah, the fish are definitely pickier, more selective. But the farther away you go, like we fished the Blackwater the summer and any fly in your box, pick the biggest one, skate it, like everything you’ve ever known about dry fly fishing, throw it out the window because it doesn’t matter. Those are so un-pressured.

Travis Bader: [00:30:15] Really?

Catherine Laflamme: [00:30:16] And not picky whatsoever. You know, hundred fish in a day, no problem. And there’s so many other fisheries like that in BC. What was that when you fished by Prince George there? Regardless, doesn’t matter, I don’t have to name rivers.

Travis Bader: [00:30:32] You’d probably have to beep it out anyways. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:30:33] Yeah, exactly. Beep. River X. But yeah, we’re really lucky with what we have here in BC. The rivers closer to the lower mainland or in the lower mainland, or obviously a little bit trickier. 

Gillian Steele: [00:30:50] But the other thing we have this year, 2021. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:30:52] Oh yeah.

Gillian Steele: [00:30:53] Pinks.

Travis Bader: [00:30:55] I love it when the pinks come.

Tiffany Bader: [00:30:58] Except when they bump into the boat.

Travis Bader: [00:30:59] And you’re not catching them.

Tiffany Bader: [00:31:01] It’s frustrating.

Gillian Steele: [00:31:02] Tiffany knew right where I was at. She’s like pinkksss. 

Tiffany Bader: [00:31:04] I love catching pinks.

Gillian Steele: [00:31:08] Yeah. And I think this is a huge thing. And going back to what we were talking about, new anglers as well. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:31:13] Yeah.

Gillian Steele: [00:31:13] This is your fishery. 

Travis Bader: [00:31:15] The pinks?

Gillian Steele: [00:31:16] If you are a new fly angler.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:31:17] This is your year, 2021.  

Gillian Steele: [00:31:19] This is your year. Okay. New year, new you. This is where we’re going. But this, yeah. This, especially for fly anglers.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:31:27] Absolutely, for sure. 

Gillian Steele: [00:31:28] So you’re not catching’ tiddlers. You’re catching salmon and they are spunky as heck. And if you.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:31:35] They put up a good fight.

Gillian Steele: [00:31:36] You know what, as a new angler, this is a fantastic resource that we have that comes in, I mean even.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:31:41] Every couple of years. Yeah. Every odd year.

Gillian Steele: [00:31:43] Every odd year. And they come into pretty much almost every. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:31:47] Yeah, almost all the systems. Most of them.

Gillian Steele: [00:31:51] I mean, big ones would be like the Fraser.

Travis Bader: [00:31:55] The Frasers.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:31:57] Squamish, Chilliwack, Harrison.

Gillian Steele: [00:31:58] Yeah. They all, you know, they all get them. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:32:00] Hopefully they let us fish for them. 

Gillian Steele: [00:32:03] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:32:03] Yeah last time we were.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:32:04] Knock on wood. 

Travis Bader: [00:32:04] A little out of luck down there.

Gillian Steele: [00:32:06] Yeah. But pinks are a great option, especially for those new anglers. Cause they can go out.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:32:11] Absolutely.

Gillian Steele: [00:32:12] And I mean, you’re not catching like a little like me- you know, little dinker, you’re catching a salmon that’s gonna be anywhere from three to six pounds on average. You might get a bigger one than that, but you can go and you can catch them and you learn a lot. And as a fly angler, especially when you have that consistent kind of rate where you’re interacting with fish, you know, it really helps you as an angler. So that’s depending.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:32:37] Depending on.

Gillian Steele: [00:32:38] Mid July.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:32:38] Yeah. Certain rivers.

Gillian Steele: [00:32:40] Till September.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:32:40] Like Squamish usually gets them earlier. Like Howe Sound Fisheries usually get them earlier than the Fraser. But yeah, usually it’s like mid July, even early July people start getting them off the beach and then July through. Mid-October.

Gillian Steele: [00:32:55] Yeah, technically.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:32:55] Yeah. 

Gillian Steele: [00:32:56] Depending on where you are for sure.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:32:57] Depending on where you are, the Fraser will get them till October anyways, through September and.

Gillian Steele: [00:33:03] That just overlaps all the trout fishing we have too.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:33:05] Oh my gosh. Everything’s overlapping in that time. 

Gillian Steele: [00:33:08] Yeah. That’s when I have.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:33:10] September. 

Gillian Steele: [00:33:10] You have people coming in the shop and they’re like, so I want to go fishing. I’m like, what do you want to do? 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:33:14] Cool. Pick one. 

Gillian Steele: [00:33:15] Which way do you want to go? How far and what do you got?

Catherine Laflamme: [00:33:19] Big fish? Little fish? 

Gillian Steele: [00:33:20] So yeah, summer is great and that’s not, we’re not even counting the, like you kind of touched on before the crabbing that you have available to you, the saltwater fishery that sits right out in front of our city.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:33:32] Oh. So lucky.

Gillian Steele: [00:33:33] You know, so. 

Travis Bader: [00:33:34] So lucky.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:33:34] So lucky.

Gillian Steele: [00:33:35] So lucky. You know, people are like, what do I do? I don’t know what to do this weekend. I’m like,  you know, we’ve got so much.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:33:40] Do you not know what to do because there’s too many options? Too many things. 

Gillian Steele: [00:33:45] Yeah. And then we, I guess we would shift into the fall and then. And you got salmon for days.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:33:52] Salmon, coho. 

Gillian Steele: [00:33:54] Coho, chinook, chum. Where viable.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:33:57] Yeah. Coho starts in September in the South Fraser systems anyway, like the Vedder we’ll get them early, early September through mid November, almost. Squamish got some in October, November. Chum will start showing up in October, November. Yeah, it’s just a roller coaster of options.

Travis Bader: [00:34:19] Back into winter springs.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:34:20] Yeah. There you go. 

Travis Bader: [00:34:22] There you go.

Gillian Steele: [00:34:23] And then you also, there’s all trout in like.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:34:25] Oh in the fall.

Gillian Steele: [00:34:25] Pretty much in the fall too. I mean, they’ll follow those salmon up as well. So there’s lots of trout opportunities as well that go right through till Christmas time and.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:34:33] Absolutely.

Travis Bader: [00:34:33] Really?

Catherine Laflamme: [00:34:33] Through salmon eggs. 

Gillian Steele: [00:34:34] Yeah, absolutely. There that’s another thing too, that 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:34:37] October on really when the salmon show up.

Gillian Steele: [00:34:40] Yeah. All the egg fishing and stuff. So there’s, that’s always kind of there and people forget about that.

Travis Bader: [00:34:46] Interesting.

Gillian Steele: [00:34:47] We get so stuck. And then just like you said too, October, you can go lake fishing. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:34:51] Oh yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:34:52] Totally.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:34:52] It can be super good, but that just kind of gets thrown out the window.

Gillian Steele: [00:34:55] As soon as July comes around. Oh, for, I mean for us living in lower mainland anyway, I’m sure the guys end up in Kamloops or. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:35:04] Like what are you talking about all the way till it freezes up. And then we fish the hard water. 

Travis Bader: [00:35:09] That’s right. 

Gillian Steele: [00:35:10] Yeah. And then, yeah, ice fishing, which, you know, we don’t get a lot of down here, but that’s definitely an option. A lot of people do that. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:35:17] I’m dying to go ice fishing this year. I don’t know why, something about it. 

Gillian Steele: [00:35:22] It’s pretty fun.

Travis Bader: [00:35:23] I’ve never had too much success ice fishing. I would dig a bunch of holes, I put up flags. I would.

Tiffany Bader: [00:35:28] Drank a lot of rum. 

Travis Bader: [00:35:30] I did drink a lot of rum, this is true.  

Gillian Steele: [00:35:31] Yeah, it’s pretty fun. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:35:32] That’s the thing, you just drink and stare at a hole in the water or the ice. 

Gillian Steele: [00:35:37] It’s pretty fun. I did go to Tunkwa last year. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:35:39] Oh yeah.

Gillian Steele: [00:35:40] And it was, it, it got pretty addicting. 

Travis Bader: [00:35:43] Yeah?

Gillian Steele: [00:35:43] I’m not going to lie. Yeah. And you have like the little, when you have your fish finder too, it’s pretty much like a.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:35:48] Oh yeah, you guys had a video game going on.

Gillian Steele: [00:35:49] It was a video game, 100% a video game happening, live video game. And huge shout out to Tunkwa Lake resort for that and.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:36:00] Ugh, we’re supposed to go this year.

Gillian Steele: [00:36:02] Rob up there at Tunkwa lake, pretty much like helped me with that. And it is unreal.

Travis Bader: [00:36:09] Very cool.

Gillian Steele: [00:36:09] When you get somebody that is like dialled into ice fishing. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:36:12] Yeah. 

Gillian Steele: [00:36:13] And he like mentors, you. I was like, this is the funnest thing. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:36:16] Oh, we did a trip, a family trip up to a mile high resort last winter. I mind you, the fish aren’t big, but it’s so much fun. 

Gillian Steele: [00:36:24] So fun.

Travis Bader: [00:36:25] It is fun up there. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:36:26] Especially when it’s not, like mind you, we didn’t have a big ice fishing tent, we were just in lawn chairs on the lake, but man, it’s so much fun. 

Gillian Steele: [00:36:37] I could see if you had a tent and a stove. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:36:39] Yeah. So my dad.

Gillian Steele: [00:36:41] You’d be hard pressed to get me off that.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:36:43] My dad, we did that one trip. He bought himself a huge 10 person ice fishing tent this year. 

Travis Bader: [00:36:48] Nice.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:36:49] So we can go, but thanks to COVID, everything’s closed. So until next time, I guess. 

Gillian Steele: [00:36:56] Yeah so.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:36:56] But we’re set for next time. 

Gillian Steele: [00:36:58] Oh, there’s, I don’t think you could say, unless it rains torrentially, which can happen in January.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:37:04] Yeah. 

Gillian Steele: [00:37:04] And we’re in Vancouver so, disclaimer. But honestly, unless there’s some apocalyptic event, you can do something every single day in the lower mainland. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:37:15] And even when there’s those crazy rains, there are a couple systems with dams on them.

Gillian Steele: [00:37:19] There’s things that you can do. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:37:20] That are still very fishable with that. 

Gillian Steele: [00:37:23] Yeah. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:37:23] Amount of rain.

Gillian Steele: [00:37:24] We are so lucky here. There is never a day when there’s not something that you could do. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:37:28] Absolutely. 

Tiffany Bader: [00:37:29] So with the rain though, that sort of blows out the river or it’s just unpleasant to fish? 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:37:33] No, it blows up. Yeah. Like we’re supposed to get what? 80 mils tomorrow that’ll blow at the river, it’ll be brown, it’ll be too high. Eh.

Tiffany Bader: [00:37:42] So go duck hunting?

Catherine Laflamme: [00:37:43] Go duck hunting. Yeah. 

Gillian Steele: [00:37:46] Yeah. You know, maybe, maybe, or, you know, it’s January, you could go up the mountain or something like that too. But that, however, if you were really, really, really keen on it, there would be things that you could go.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:37:56] There’s some options. 

Gillian Steele: [00:37:56] To do tomorrow. You know, you might have to work a little bit harder and it might not be productive as other opportunities, but you could fish 365 here in never do the same thing twice.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:38:06] And the other thing with when the river does blow out, that people don’t really think about, those fish are still there. They don’t just all wash away into the ocean cause the river came up.

Travis Bader: [00:38:17] Right.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:38:18] They’re still there. And you know what, what they do is that we’ll just tuck into, you know, really close to shore and they’ll go up the inside so.

Travis Bader: [00:38:28] So work the inside.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:38:29] Work the inside, maybe use a bigger presentation. There’s still options. It’s definitely not as productive, but there’s still options and those, those rivers with dams, they definitely, you know, hold the water back as one would say.

Travis Bader: [00:38:45] You’re not going to catch anything sitting at home on the couch. 

Gillian Steele: [00:38:47] Definitely not going to catch anything on the couch.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:38:50] Yeah. 

Tiffany Bader: [00:38:50] Practice your cast.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:38:51] It’s a long cast from the couch.

Travis Bader: [00:38:53] I like that. You’ve used that before.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:38:56] That’s not mine. I’ll have to give a shout out for, to Tim. I snatched that one from you, sorry buddy.

Travis Bader: [00:39:04] Well, okay. So we’ve got an idea of a calendar of what we’re looking for. Basically, there’s something everywhere, all the time, if you’re willing to work for it. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:39:12] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:39:13] But a new person getting into it. So there’s a couple things that I’m sure you guys probably hear a lot in, like what gear do I need? And then I guess the other one would be, man, those regulations, they’re tougher to read than the hunting regulations and they change and they change on a regular basis and you gotta be able to keep up with the ongoing changes and on my end, freshwater or saltwater, or am I, is it permissible at this area or not? Are those common questions that you get?

Catherine Laflamme: [00:39:41] Big time. They definitely don’t try to make it easy on you as far as regulations go. 

Travis Bader: [00:39:46] What’s up with that?

Gillian Steele: [00:39:47] No.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:39:48] They want to catch you!

Gillian Steele: [00:39:48] You definitely. And I guess you guys from the hunting side as well, I mean, you, you, you almost need a law degree to read some of that stuff.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:39:56] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:39:57] Kind of.

Gillian Steele: [00:39:57] So, yeah. And yeah. I mean, I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but I do think that there’s a bit of grey area that’s intentionally put in there. 

Travis Bader: [00:40:07] Ooo, this’ll be fun.

Gillian Steele: [00:40:09] No I just, I think that it there’s a lot of instances where it could have been written a lot clearer and that comes from both the federal and the provincial side as well. But it is, it is hard and I can see, you know, people get intimidated when they come in the shop. 

Travis Bader: [00:40:22] Right.

Gillian Steele: [00:40:23] They’re like, what can I do? And you’re like, I get it. I know why you’re confused. Believe me. I sit there and I try and decipher half the stuff half the time, so.

Travis Bader: [00:40:31] Right. 

Gillian Steele: [00:40:32] It can be challenging. 

Travis Bader: [00:40:34] So for hunting, there’s Mark Stenroos. He made an app he’s, did a podcast with him before, called iHunter. And it’s got the synopsis in an app form, but it also has like pictures of the animals and it tells you geo locate where you are and what you can and can’t hunt at that time. Is there anything like that for fishing? 

Gillian Steele: [00:40:54] There is actually, there is a new, the BCWF I believe, it’s on my phone, I can grab it. They had one that just came out as well that is an app that’s similar to that as well. 

Travis Bader: [00:41:04] Oh interesting.

Gillian Steele: [00:41:05] Yeah. I would urge people though, like, you gotta know. You still have to do your due diligence.

Travis Bader: [00:41:10] Right, learn how to read it.

Gillian Steele: [00:41:11] And stuff like that. Yeah. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:41:11] Yeah. I don’t go fishing without, you know, don’t go fishing new area without checking the regulations. I feel like a lot of people they just assume. 

Gillian Steele: [00:41:19] Yeah. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:41:20] I think, I think an app.

Gillian Steele: [00:41:23] I agree with the app. I think the app is a great resource.

Travis Bader: [00:41:26] Resource, but you never rely on it, but the same breath you read the synopsis, it says this is a resource and it’s not the law. Have you ever seen that?

Gillian Steele: [00:41:33] Yeah, I, yeah. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:41:34] Woah, I haven’t seen that. 

Gillian Steele: [00:41:35] I feel like we have to be aware of, you can’t use it and be like, Oh the app said.

Travis Bader: [00:41:43] Right. Oh totally not. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:41:44] Yeah. 

Gillian Steele: [00:41:44] That doesn’t work. I’ve heard that before.

Travis Bader: [00:41:46] But if you can cross check it. Just say, okay I got it, it says it’s open, let me take a look at the synopsis. Yeah, it looks good. And I should put a caveat on that one, for the hunting synopsis anyways, it says this isn’t law. This is to be used as a reference. It’s a synop- the word synopsis means condensed version of, and the same thing I would think applies to the fishing synopsis. Cause it’s all based on something else so. 

Gillian Steele: [00:42:09] I would think that too, but then how do they charge you on the wildlife act then?

Travis Bader: [00:42:12] Under, it wouldn’t be under the synopsis, but it would be under the wildlife act. The wildlife act would be synopsisized. 

Gillian Steele: [00:42:22] See, already we’re in the grey area. That’s all of two sentences to get into the grey area.

Travis Bader: [00:42:31] Boop. Let’s back out of this one. Okay, so. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:42:38] I mean, in short, the fishing synopsis, it’s not that ridiculous to read. The fresh water one anyway, for trout.

Travis Bader: [00:42:49] Sure, freshwater.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:42:49] And steelhead and whatnot.

Gillian Steele: [00:42:51] For sure. Don’t get me started on DFO. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:42:52] Yeah, the province. 

Travis Bader: [00:42:55] We talked about this earlier.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:42:56] Yeah, exactly. So the annoying part as somebody who works in a shop anyway, is that salmon regulations aren’t printed out. They’re on a website.

Travis Bader: [00:43:10] Right.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:43:10] So they’re are two totally different regulations.

Travis Bader: [00:43:13] Right.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:43:13] And a lot of people don’t know how to find them or don’t know where to look. So trout and steelhead, everything managed provincially is printed out in the synopsis and you get a paper copy. 

Travis Bader: [00:43:23] And that does get easier. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:43:26] It is easier. So based on  what region you’re in every, you know, there’s chapters based on the regions, you look at the front page of that region and it’ll give you the general regulations and if you’re going to a specific river or lake, you look them up in those. There’s basically a huge list of all the different exceptions. 

Travis Bader: [00:43:45] Right.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:43:45] So it’ll be, you know, let’s say rice lake, I’m going to rice lake tomorrow. Look up rice lake it’ll if it says something, if it says, you know, no motors allowed, no bait allowed, blah, blah, blah. Then those are the rules for that lake.

Travis Bader: [00:43:59] Easy.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:43:59] If  you don’t see rice lake in the list, then you just refer back to the general regulations in that region. 

Travis Bader: [00:44:06] Yeah. That makes sense. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:44:07] Salmon regulations are on the a whole other thing and they get updated pretty frequently in season, so it’s definitely a lot harder for people to fall along with that one.

Travis Bader: [00:44:19] Especially, well, I mean the Fraser River, we’re talking about that, but that’s going to be tidal water up until what 

Gillian Steele: [00:44:25] Mission. 

Travis Bader: [00:44:25] The bridge? 

Gillian Steele: [00:44:25] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:44:26] Yeah.

Gillian Steele: [00:44:26] Yeah. I think, yeah that’s probably actually one thing that gets asked a lot. I mean, we have provincial regulations which apply to all our freshwater systems. And then we also have salmon, which transcends both freshwater and saltwater system. So they’re managed by saltwater.

Travis Bader: [00:44:44] Right.

Gillian Steele: [00:44:44] Or by sorry, by the federal government, but when they enter into a freshwater system, the freshwater system regulations still apply, but they’re still managed by the provincial government. 

Travis Bader: [00:44:57] Right.

Gillian Steele: [00:44:57] So for instance, in the summertime on the Capilano, you cannot use bait after August 1st. 

Travis Bader: [00:45:04] Okay. 

Gillian Steele: [00:45:04] Okay. That’s a provincial regulation. 

Travis Bader: [00:45:07] Okay. 

Gillian Steele: [00:45:07] But if you’re fishing for coho in the summertime, in August, you cannot use bait, which is a provincial regulation, but you can only keep X number of coho in there. So you have to constantly be looking at two different regulations at the same time, which is not all the time. I will say, clearly explain that that’s how it works. 

Travis Bader: [00:45:29] I’d agree. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:45:30] Yeah. So they had some confusing ones this season too. 

Gillian Steele: [00:45:32] Yeah, so that can definitely, that’s another thing. That’s a bit of an inhibitor, especially to a new angler coming. They’re like, so what do I read? I’m like, well, you actually have to read both. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:45:42] Yeah. 

Gillian Steele: [00:45:43] And they’re like, what? But I’m fishing in the river and I’m looking at a DFO? I’m like, yeah but you’re fishing for salmon, you know? So that can be a bit of a hurdle for new anglers as well, is that, we’re fortunate because we have all these anadromous species and we have these, two regulatory bodies, but then on the other hand, it’s like woah, woah, woah, now I have  twice as many rules?

Travis Bader: [00:46:08] Right. And you gotta make sure you’re following both of them and you’re not. 

Tiffany Bader: [00:46:11] And be able to identify the fish too.

Travis Bader: [00:46:13] Right. At what stage in their spawning sequence. 

Tiffany Bader: [00:46:15] Yeah, yeah exactly. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:46:16] Yeah, one thing I will say, if you are confused about regulations, just call your local shop or go into your local shop. Don’t just go fishing thinking that you got it all figured out based on one of the regulations that you read, or somebody said something, blah, blah, blah. Your buddy said that this is okay. Just ask. You know, the guys at the shop will know. 

Travis Bader: [00:46:38] And they’re used to it. You guys get it all the time right?

Catherine Laflamme: [00:46:39] They’re used to it. We get those questions every day, all day. 

Gillian Steele: [00:46:42] I think that’s actually a really good point because that kind of segues into our, like the whole premise of our women’s group is just ask the question.  You know what I’ve had phone calls at the shop where it’s like, Hey uhm, uhm, uhm, and you can hear the river in the background. And it’s like, uhh, can you keep this fish here? And you’re like, uh no, it’s closed. It’s like, okay, click. And you’re like, uh ohh. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:47:04] What did you kill? 

Gillian Steele: [00:47:05] Something is on the beach that’s not supposed to be, but if you’re not sure, just like Cat at said, just ask. Phone a shop, a shop is never gonna say anything to you, and I’m sorry if you’ve had a bad.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:47:16] We don’t bite.

Gillian Steele: [00:47:16] Experience for that, but the shops don’t bite, like we’re here to be that, literally our job is to read those regulations and understand those regulations.

Travis Bader: [00:47:24] Right. 

Gillian Steele: [00:47:24] So we sit there and when a new notice comes out or something, you have to sit there and it’s terrible to sit there and read through all that, but that’s our job. And so phone your shop and be like, Hey, I’m a little confused on this, what’s the perception here, and then go from there. That’s why the shops are there. That’s why we have small businesses that are there to read those rules. 

Travis Bader: [00:47:42] Exactly.

Gillian Steele: [00:47:43] And understand them. 

Travis Bader: [00:47:44] So tell me about the BC Women’s Fly Fishing group. Just one day you woke up. Sorry, I was waiting until you took a drink. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:47:55] Yeah. How did it start really? So maybe we’ll start with how, how Gill and I started fishing together, I guess. 

Gillian Steele: [00:48:03] Yeah. Cause that’s where the conversation came up. I remember the conversation we had.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:48:07] Me too.

Gillian Steele: [00:48:08] And it was really, it was fun. Do you wanna? Okay. 

Travis Bader: [00:48:11] Yeah, let’s hear it.

Gillian Steele: [00:48:12] Okay. I’ll go. Okay. So essentially what happened is back in the day. So my ex boyfriend and her boyfriend are best friends. 

Travis Bader: [00:48:20] Okay. 

Gillian Steele: [00:48:21] Okay. And so they would guide up in Haida Gwaii and they’d be gone all summer because that’s what guides do. Bless them. 

Travis Bader: [00:48:27] Sure.

Gillian Steele: [00:48:27] But they’d be gone all summer. So from mid to late June, right in through til early August, like.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:48:33] Trout season.

Gillian Steele: [00:48:36] Yeah. You know like, okay bye, I love you, have a good time. You know we respect, they do what they love. We respect that, we understand it. 

Travis Bader: [00:48:43] Sure.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:48:43] You do you. 

Gillian Steele: [00:48:44] So then you’re left kind of all summer. So that being said, they started, they’re still best friends and you know, they kind of had that and they go away. So I think actually when it started, cause I’ve known Dimitri longer, her boyfriend longer than I’ve known you. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:48:58] Yeah. 

Gillian Steele: [00:48:58] Actually, and Dimitri said like, Hey you should get in touch with Catherine. Like she really likes trout fishing. I was like, Oh, okay, that sounds cool.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:49:05] So I have to say one thing too, our boyfriends don’t like trout fishing. They’re a nuisance. If it’s not a steelhead, chinook or a sturgeon. Who cares. So anyway, that was what it.

Gillian Steele: [00:49:18] That was never appreciated.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:49:19] How it started. Yeah. 

Gillian Steele: [00:49:21] Yeah. So then I said, I think we went and fished the Thompson for trout I think for the first time that was kind of our thing.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:49:27] And then your car got stolen.

Gillian Steele: [00:49:29] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:49:29] What?

Gillian Steele: [00:49:29] But that’s a different story, but anyways.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:49:32] Adventures. 

Gillian Steele: [00:49:33] Yeah. So it kind of grew from there and we kind of got connected through them and it came to be that we had this shared passion for trout fishing, which we couldn’t necessarily have them have with them because you know. 

Travis Bader: [00:49:47] Cause they’re not into it.

Gillian Steele: [00:49:48] No, and they’re are, they’re both very, extremely good anglers, like. 

Travis Bader: [00:49:52] Oh for sure.

Gillian Steele: [00:49:53] Top tier.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:49:53] They just don’t care about trout.  

Gillian Steele: [00:49:54] They just don’t care. It doesn’t go.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:49:55] Actually I got, Dimitri likes lake fishing. 

Gillian Steele: [00:49:58] Yeah. Disclaimer.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:49:59] Only chironomid though. As soon as the chironomids go away and damsel flies and may fly nymphs come out, uh, no. 

Gillian Steele: [00:50:06] But yeah, so we hung out and then we started to develop that we had this like really great shared passion for trout fishing specifically, which has obviously expanded into more, but it kind of started there and we’re like, Oh, this is great. Like they’re gone. We both are in the same situation. You know, they’re gone, we have each other, we can hang out. It’s perfect. 

Travis Bader: [00:50:22] Totally, totally.

Gillian Steele: [00:50:23] And then we go trout fishing.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:50:25] And the vibe with another female angler. So different than with, I dunno, it’s, I don’t wanna be, mean to be,

Travis Bader: [00:50:33] It’s just different.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:50:33] Sexist, but yes, it’s so much fun. It’s not competitive. It’s, you know, you’re yeah. It’s just.

Gillian Steele: [00:50:40] Our conversations are different in the car.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:50:42] On the same level. Conversations are so much fun. 

Gillian Steele: [00:50:45] It’s not like, I missed that fish like four hours ago and I’m like really pissed about it. Although it does happen. But, you know, it’ll be still like girl talk, it’ll.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:50:55] Yeah. 

Gillian Steele: [00:50:55] So it’s still fun that way. So we kind of went and it just like instantly clicked.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:50:59] Somebody gets a big fish and there’s like crazy screams going on. 

Gillian Steele: [00:51:03] And we’re like so pumped for each-other. It’s not like I’m going to be like pouting.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:51:06] No.

Gillian Steele: [00:51:06] Not to say that all boys pout, but I’ve been in situations where I’ve fished with.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:51:10] There’s never.

Gillian Steele: [00:51:10] Guys.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:51:11] Been a pouty session with us.

Gillian Steele: [00:51:13] No.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:51:13] No pouts.

Gillian Steele: [00:51:14] But to be like, disclaimer, I fish with other the guys and it’s like 20 minutes of pouting cause I got one. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:51:19] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:51:19] That’s hilarious.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:51:21] I’m just going to say it comes from actual observations that I’ve had. 

Gillian Steele: [00:51:26] Yeah. Right. And so we’d go and it was just fun and it was different and we’re like, Oh my God. Like, I wish that everybody could, all like.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:51:33] Experience that.

Gillian Steele: [00:51:34] Our female anglers could have this. Like, we’re so lucky that we had the, kind of that relationship built.

Travis Bader: [00:51:40] Right.

Gillian Steele: [00:51:41] From them. But we were just so excited about that and it was cool. And then we’ve, that’s grown since then. That was, that was a while ago now.

Travis Bader: [00:51:49] How long ago was that? 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:51:51] Five years. Almost.

Gillian Steele: [00:51:54] At least almost.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:51:55] Five years this summer, I guess. Cause Dimitri and I, it was the first summer Dimitri and I were together, I think. Yeah. Something like that. 

Travis Bader: [00:52:01] So right, right away. You guys decided, Hey, we click, this is awesome. Let’s get others into this? Or did it take a while? 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:52:09] It took a while. Well, I think I brought the idea up with you one day when we were driving back from the river. It’s like, Hey.

Gillian Steele: [00:52:16] Yeah. And then you said it and I was like, hey I was thinking the same thing because it was weird. And we just had this kind of, we were kind of on the same page of that. And it’s funny, cause we always talk about being on the same page, but yeah, you just you’re like, Hey, I was kinda thinking that, you know, and.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:52:31] With the two shops. 

Gillian Steele: [00:52:32] Yeah. We both our shop’s.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:52:34] There’s more and more ladies coming into the shops. We just wanted to create this little, like. 

Gillian Steele: [00:52:40] We kind of wanted to recreate.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:52:41] Community.

Gillian Steele: [00:52:41] For other people kind of what we felt.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:52:45] And there’s a lot of women’s groups, women’s fly fishing groups in the States and I feel like Canada’s really behind on that. So yeah, we just wanted to try it out and start one here.

Gillian Steele: [00:52:58] There’s tons in the states. 

Travis Bader: [00:52:59] So how many people belong to the fly fishing group? 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:53:02] So what, it’s two and a half years old now.

Travis Bader: [00:53:04] Okay.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:53:05] And we’ve got over 650 now. 

Travis Bader: [00:53:08] 650?

Gillian Steele: [00:53:10] That’s on our facebook group. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:53:11] Just BC. Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:53:12] Wow.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:53:12] Well, yeah, I think the Facebook groups I checked the other day, it was like 640. Although a bunch of people joined the other night after your zoom thing. 

Gillian Steele: [00:53:20] Yeah it’s grown quite a lot. And I think too, It’s just kind of having that access. I mean, Facebook, I think is a great forum for you can participate as much or as little as you want, but it’s still, it’s still right there for you.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:53:32] It’s free and it’s easy to join. Easy to find. We have a base, I’ll explain it. We have a closed group page on Facebook. BC Women’s Fly Fishing group, if you want to look it up, feel free, but it’s closed right? So you have to ask to join. So we kind of weed out all the fake accounts or guys, but there’s definitely been some guys trying to join.

Travis Bader: [00:53:54] Seriously, you find that? 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:53:55] Yeah. Oh yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:53:56] Wow.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:53:56] But we just want to have like a safe place for women to ask questions and you know, I’m going fishing this weekend, anybody want to come along and we just don’t want to have any creeps on there, if you know what I mean. 

Tiffany Bader: [00:54:09] There’s no like snarkiness or meanness or anything. I won’t name the names of the groups on Facebook, but there’s a few different groups on Facebook for hunting and fishing and there, there’s just so much attitude and you get.

Gillian Steele: [00:54:27] Ego. 

Tiffany Bader: [00:54:28] Yeah, totally. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you get ego. If you ask, like heaven forbid, you’re one of these guys that’s new to hunting and says, Hey, I’m going up to region eight, you know, where’s a good spot to get whatever. You can’t ask that. Your group, it’s a given, if you have a question, just ask it. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:54:47] Yeah. 

Gillian Steele: [00:54:48] Yeah. I think that’s so important.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:54:49] Everyone’s so polite and nice and encouraging. I don’t know. I, yeah, I don’t know what it is. 

Gillian Steele: [00:54:56] I think that comes from that. We’ve kind of fostered that because it be, because we come from the shop, we know that those questions are out there. Don’t be scared to ask that question, but we also want the space to be there. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:55:07] Yeah. 

Tiffany Bader: [00:55:08] Hmm. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:55:08] Yeah. People to feel comfortable asking those questions. It’s easy, it should be easy. And when you do ask those questions, you know what you’re going to get legit responses. 

Travis Bader: [00:55:17] So you’ve got the Facebook group, but you guys also do zoom calls.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:55:21] Gill started that basically with COVID. 

Gillian Steele: [00:55:23] Yes. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:55:24] Cause we used to do a couple of years ago.

Gillian Steele: [00:55:27] We used to do so much!

Catherine Laflamme: [00:55:27] Yeah, I know, it’s so sad. We used to do like fly tying nights every.

Gillian Steele: [00:55:33] Trips.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:55:33] Month almost.

Gillian Steele: [00:55:34] Casting lessons.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:55:34] At the shop, in person. We did some like big seminars at Cabela’s with some special speakers. Everything in person. We had some like introduction to fly fishing courses in person, but with COVID we haven’t been able to meet up in groups. Mind you, it’s kind of a good and bad thing because doing the stuff in person, it is a BC women’s fly fishing groups. So there’s people from all over the province, the Kootenays, Prince George, Smithers, blah, blah, you name it. So having those in-person courses only select people.

Travis Bader: [00:56:13] Pretty tough.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:56:13] Yeah! I mean, mind you, we have a great group of ladies in the lower mainland that are super active in the group and love coming to our courses and that. But the zoom courses definitely opened up to having those other women able to join, which was really cool I find. 

Travis Bader: [00:56:30] So do they have to pay to join?

Catherine Laflamme: [00:56:31] Nope. Free.

Travis Bader: [00:56:32] All free?

Catherine Laflamme: [00:56:33] You know, I thought about, and this is actually interesting. Cause on Saturday night we did that zoom call and I was talking to Sarah Simpson who has the Western Outdoors Women Facebook group too. And they’re in Salmon Arm.

Travis Bader: [00:56:49] Okay. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:56:49] And she does it and I was talking to her and we were just kind of conversing on a couple of things too. And she was under kind of the same thought. And we’ve talked about it, cause people say, Oh, you know, maybe you should charge and stuff.

Gillian Steele: [00:56:59] Membership fees, yeah.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:57:01] You know, we will charge, like if we do a casting lesson or something like that. 

Gillian Steele: [00:57:04] Yeah, not everything is free. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:57:05] Yeah. Or a.

Travis Bader: [00:57:06] Sure.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:57:06] Like our in-person fly tying nights where materials were required and stuff, there was a charge just to cover the materials essentially and.

Gillian Steele: [00:57:12] But.

Travis Bader: [00:57:12] That makes sense.

Gillian Steele: [00:57:13] It’s super affordable.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:57:14] For sure. But the zoom calls and stuff, I think we did, we still want it to be on a format where it was, it was accessible to everyone because even if there’s a charge on a membership, it still puts a bit of a boarder to some people. 

Travis Bader: [00:57:29] Sure.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:57:29] The fundamental thing is it’s supposed to be a safe space they can ask questions and there’s no judgment. You know, there should not be judgment. And this also comes from us, both working in shops. I’ve been a girl, you know, I.

Travis Bader: [00:57:42] How long have you been a girl for?

Catherine Laflamme: [00:57:43] A long time! 

Travis Bader: [00:57:45] Most your life.

Tiffany Bader: [00:57:45] Since the beginning.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:57:46] Pretty much my entire life.  But anyways, I’ve been a girl that works in the shop for, you know, 15 years. I get it. Like I’ve, you know, I. 

Gillian Steele: [00:57:57] Talk about judgment. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:57:58] My dad owns the shop, I’ve worked there since I was 15, without doing the math, that’s like 16 years for me. But I’ve had people that have walked in and have refused to talk to me.

Gillian Steele: [00:58:10] Same. 

Travis Bader: [00:58:11] Really?

Catherine Laflamme: [00:58:11] And you know what, like, okay. 

Gillian Steele: [00:58:13] Still happens.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:58:13] Sure, whatever, but you know what, like this is not a side job for me, this is my job. This is.

Travis Bader: [00:58:22] This is your life.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:58:22] Catherine’s full time job. This is not a side hobby for us. 

Travis Bader: [00:58:26] Totally. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:58:27] I do this, I spend hours out on the water, so don’t walk in and talk to the 14 year old kid that works at my shop.

Gillian Steele: [00:58:35] That’s the funniest ever.

Catherine Laflamme: [00:58:35] Because he’s a male, that’s been fishing for a year and a half. 

Travis Bader: [00:58:39] You know what, if they want to, go ahead. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:58:42] Yeah, no problem. Yeah, and when he can’t answer your question and turns to me I will gladly help you. 

Gillian Steele: [00:58:48] And it’s not about being a female or not, but it just it still annoys me that we, you still get that. So I don’t want anyone to feel like that cause I guess I felt like that, on the daily. She gets felt like that on the daily. So I don’t want people, I want you to come in and I want you to come into our group and ask a question and feel confident asking that question. 

Travis Bader: [00:59:09] Nice. 

Tiffany Bader: [00:59:10] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:59:11] I like it. That’s accessibility. 

Gillian Steele: [00:59:13] Yes. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:59:14] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:59:14] And you said something earlier that you touched on, which is really interesting. I think it ties into this, but you brought up the word mentorship and you said, you know, if you go out there, you’ve got a good mentor to show you, show you the ropes. So many people don’t have that. 

Catherine Laflamme: [00:59:28] Yeah. So another thing I guess we didn’t really chat about, but we do a lot where we try to do a lot of trips day trips and we do our best to have either Gill and I, or both of us there. So the cool thing about that is like, we have a lot of women in the group that, they might not fish unless they come on one of our trips and they come on those trips because they feel comfortable going on a guided trip. 

The guide, yes is a male, but one of us, they know either Gill or I through the shop or through the group. And they feel comfortable going with a group of strangers essentially because they know one of us.

Whereas, it is intimidating booking a trip, not knowing a single person going on that trip. I mean, you came on one of our trips this fall. You didn’t know anybody, mind you, Gill and I weren’t there on those ones, unfortunately, but.

Tiffany Bader: [01:00:23] I did know the guide though. 

Catherine Laflamme: [01:00:24] You didn’t know the guide. Yeah. Pat was one of your guides at Skeena Spey. So it was less intimidating. It is less intimidating when, you know at least one of the people right. 

Tiffany Bader: [01:00:33] And I never, I never would have thought, hey, Trav, I’m gonna spend Sunday up in Squamish. I’m gonna go fishing.

Catherine Laflamme: [01:00:40] Bunch of strangers. 

Tiffany Bader: [01:00:41] I’m going to hire a guide and go out fishing for whatever right. Like it just, I would never have done it, but you guys coordinated the whole thing and it was amazing. It was like one of the best days of the year. It was so much fun. And I didn’t like, like you said, I didn’t know anyone. 

Catherine Laflamme: [01:00:56] Yeah.

Tiffany Bader: [01:00:57] It was just awesome. 

Catherine Laflamme: [01:00:58] Awesome. 

Tiffany Bader: [01:00:59] Really enjoyed it. 

Catherine Laflamme: [01:00:59] We have just as much fun. Like I love our women’s group trips, honestly. It’s, they’re so much fun. I look forward to those more than anything we do. We try to do. A decent amount. I mean, we usually do a few in the spring up the Lillooet with Curtis and those are my favorite. Oh my God. We booked two boats and it’s like 10 ladies and jet boats going up the, you know.

Travis Bader: [01:01:26] Ooo.

Catherine Laflamme: [01:01:26] Across Harrison Lake up the Lillooet. Catching trout left, right and centre. And it’s so much fun. 

Gillian Steele: [01:01:33] We, it’s just been like the best two years. 

Catherine Laflamme: [01:01:38] It’s so much fun. And the cool thing is like, we’re making tons of friends from it. And I feel like a fishing buddy matchmaker a lot of the times.

Gillian Steele: [01:01:46] Yes, 100%.

Catherine Laflamme: [01:01:49] Friends that come out of it. Like there’s people in our group that are like best friends now because of this group and it’s so cool. 

Gillian Steele: [01:01:56] And they’ve found fishing themselves. It’s amazing. I love it. I love it. It, it makes me like, that’s probably like the best part of it is when you see people and they’re like, Oh, we went fishing the other day and you’re like, so cool. We’ve done our job. But I think too, like I sometimes, I feel like both of our families grew up fishing and stuff. So that was always available to us. Not everybody has that, right. Not everybody has a dad or a family, or a mom or a boyfriend or a husband. 

Catherine Laflamme: [01:02:27] Absolutely. 

Gillian Steele: [01:02:27] Or you know, a grand parent that got them into fishing. Some people just generally want to get into it, but I couldn’t imagine trying to jump in nowadays. 

Catherine Laflamme: [01:02:35] Oh my god. 

Gillian Steele: [01:02:36] It’d be scary as heck, right. 

Travis Bader: [01:02:38] So I got to ask, for the other 50% of our listeners. Do you guys have a counterpart? 

Catherine Laflamme: [01:02:44] Oh, I mean, there’s certain clubs in the lower mainland, guy, you know, there’s what the Totems, the Ospreys.

Gillian Steele: [01:02:52] Yeah, North Shore Fish and Game Club. There’s different games, clubs out there for sure. 

Catherine Laflamme: [01:02:55] A lot of them are, they’re not as easy to join. You gotta be whatever certain level. I don’t know. I find the guys aren’t as open to having random strangers join. I don’t know it’s not the same. I find they’re not as encouraging and I don’t want to bash.

Tiffany Bader: [01:03:11] Yeah, that’s why you started your group.

Catherine Laflamme: [01:03:13] Yeah. 

Tiffany Bader: [01:03:14] It’s different when you’re a woman.

Gillian Steele: [01:03:16] It’s different. 

Catherine Laflamme: [01:03:16] That’s such an odd. I feel so mean saying that. 

Gillian Steele: [01:03:21] That’s such a great question. I’m trying to like, think of an example and there’s not really something that parallel’s.

Travis Bader: [01:03:25] Cause there’s a lot of guys out there that’ll want to learn in the exact same way. 

Gillian Steele: [01:03:29] Yeah. It’s a lot more competitive.

Travis Bader: [01:03:31] Sure.

Gillian Steele: [01:03:31] For the guys. 

Travis Bader: [01:03:32] Not all.

Gillian Steele: [01:03:33] Yeah, not all.

Travis Bader: [01:03:33] Not all. And there’s a ton out there that just, they want to learn in the same fashion, but.

Catherine Laflamme: [01:03:36] Absolutely. So one thing we have like kind of thought about is. To do more like co-ed trips or couples trips. So that might be something down the road, but it would be cool to have a similar guys group. I mean, there’s a few out there. There’s like Stillwaters that Facebook page, that thing’s great. 

Gillian Steele: [01:03:57] No, I think. 

Catherine Laflamme: [01:03:58] But there is.

Gillian Steele: [01:03:59] It might not be as pronounced and it might not be as defined as an individual group, but I think there is.

Catherine Laflamme: [01:04:06] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [01:04:06] Is that, when you say stillwaters, that’s not the store sports. 

Catherine Laflamme: [01:04:09] No not the shop. Yeah. There’s like a Facebook page. It’s super, they’re super friendly on there. Any questions you have about lake fishing.

Travis Bader: [01:04:17] There you go guys.

Catherine Laflamme: [01:04:17] Brent Gill, I think is the one that runs it. Anyway great group, but it’s super open. It’s co-ed it’s not just guys obviously.

Travis Bader: [01:04:28] Sure.

Catherine Laflamme: [01:04:29] But there’s I think like thousands of guys on there now there’s a lot, it’s a big group.

Gillian Steele: [01:04:34] Yeah. Yeah. I think actually, just to go into that, because you kind of touched on that a little bit is as we talk about like new anglers too, I think I feel, a little bit as a disclaimer, I have to say this and we get really, really caught up nowadays in the media and portraying yourself as being good. And I think something that we’ve always talked about in the group as well is, it’s okay to be new. 

Catherine Laflamme: [01:04:56] It’s okay. 

Gillian Steele: [01:04:57] It’s okay.

Catherine Laflamme: [01:04:58] It’s so okay to be new.  

Gillian Steele: [01:04:59] It’s so okay it’s not even funny. 

Travis Bader: [01:05:01] It’s okay to suck. 

Catherine Laflamme: [01:05:01] It’s okay to suck.

Travis Bader: [01:05:02] Cause that’s how you learn.

Catherine Laflamme: [01:05:02] I sucked so bad today on the river, it’s not even funny.

Gillian Steele: [01:05:05] Honestly though that is so important because everybody now, and it’s just the climate that we live in. Okay. Social media, it’s it’s in your face all the time. It’s all.

Travis Bader: [01:05:15] Well everyone rocks on social media. 

Gillian Steele: [01:05:16] Of course.

Catherine Laflamme: [01:05:16] Everyone’s a rockstar. 

Gillian Steele: [01:05:20] Live your best life. 

Catherine Laflamme: [01:05:21] But, but it it’s okay to be new. And I think that’s really important to talk about because you get a lot of people and they get so wound up about like, Oh my gosh, I have to be able to prove to everybody that I’m good. We have to remember to learn the process to love the process of learning again. 

Travis Bader: [01:05:38] I like that.

Gillian Steele: [01:05:39] Because.

Catherine Laflamme: [01:05:40] That’s the cool thing about fishing you’re constantly learning.  

Gillian Steele: [01:05:43] You never know everything and I’m sure it’s the same with hunting. I mean, I don’t dive into the hunting world, but I’m sure it’s the same with hunting right? 

Travis Bader: [01:05:48] Always.

Gillian Steele: [01:05:49] You don’t know everything. And we have to remember to learn to love that process of learning.

Catherine Laflamme: [01:05:55] Absolutely.

Gillian Steele: [01:05:55] And it’s fun and it’s okay. You know what, if you went out and you didn’t get anything today. 

Catherine Laflamme: [01:06:01] Oh my gosh. That’s fine. 

Gillian Steele: [01:06:02] That’s fine. It’s so fine. 

Tiffany Bader: [01:06:05] That’s what I love about fly fishing is because I very rarely catch anything. SO it’s really taught me to be like, chill out on the expectations of success. And I don’t need to bring, especially catch and release. It’s like, I’m not bringing home any fish meat at all tonight.

Gillian Steele: [01:06:20] Doesn’t even matter.

Tiffany Bader: [01:06:21] It’s like I’m going to go, I’m going to practice my cast and it’s going to be calm. It’s like it’s the most relaxing, meditative experience I’ve ever had in my life. I am completely addicted to it. I just, I love it so much. And it’s so against everything that I’ve ever been like super excited about, because I suck at it and I very rarely catch anything. But when I do, it’s just awesome, but it’s not. 

Catherine Laflamme: [01:06:45] It’s that much better.

Tiffany Bader: [01:06:46] Yeah, but it’s not like why I’m out there doing it. 

Gillian Steele: [01:06:48] No, but you also know that feeling when you make a really nice looking cast.

Tiffany Bader: [01:06:51] Oh it’s the best, I love it.

Gillian Steele: [01:06:53] So, you have to learn to love that process. And that’s what it’s about. It’s not about like, you know, getting that pictures that you can post it so that you can be like, look, how many likes I got? It’s like, Hey, look, I made this really great cast and I feel really good about myself today because I laid out a 70 foot cast and I feel great. 

Tiffany Bader: [01:07:08] Plus most of my friends wouldn’t care if they saw an awesome cast I did.

Gillian Steele: [01:07:14] No, but I think that’s where we have to shift. That importance too. And I, it doesn’t matter if it’s angling or fly fishing or whatever, it’s like, we have to shift that. And so talking just to, you know, the new, the 100% group, not just the 50% talking to the 100% group, like let’s talk about learning.

And I think that’s what it is group. Especially we try and like ask questions, please ask questions. We, or whoever else here is expert, because there’s certainly lots of other girls in our group that are very experienced as well. Like let other people help you. And like, it’s okay. I’ve lots of questions. I don’t know anything about hunting, but you know, if I’m going to get into it, I’m going to go ask somebody that knows. And I don’t care. 

Catherine Laflamme: [01:07:53] It’s hard to learn if you think you already know everything. 

Gillian Steele: [01:07:56] Absolutely.

Tiffany Bader: [01:07:57] I think that’s like the biggest thing about this group, is that there is no, like you guys don’t act like you know everything. I’m not not saying that you act like you don’t know anything, but not at all. Like, I’m always amazed at how much I’m like, Oh my God, I can’t believe how much there is to know how much you guys do know, but you don’t act like you know everything. 

Whereas I find sometimes dealing with other shops or people or, not to say guys in general, but just other people, like you have to have an answer and you guys don’t act like that. And the group’s not about always having an answer. I mean, you do but.

Gillian Steele: [01:08:35] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [01:08:36] It’s  okay to say I don’t know.

Gillian Steele: [01:08:37] Yeah. 

Catherine Laflamme: [01:08:37] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [01:08:38] I can look into it and find out later. 

Gillian Steele: [01:08:39] Yeah, that’s an absolutely another thing, if I don’t know, I’m going to be like, I don’t know. Let me, let me, let me figure out the answer for you. I might have to get back to you, but I’ll figure it out an answer.

Catherine Laflamme: [01:08:47] And the cool thing about the group too, is there are so many amazing women on there. If I don’t know.

Gillian Steele: [01:08:52] 100%.

Catherine Laflamme: [01:08:53] The answer, if it’s some crazy like entomology thing or fish ID thing, there’s amazing biologists that work for DFO that are part of the group. And you’re like, Oh, well, Katie can answer or so-and-so can answer. Or, you know, maybe she knows, I don’t know everything.

Gillian Steele: [01:09:11] Actually. I just asked Katie today if she would do a presentation again on, she just got her master’s degree last year. So we’re going to get to.

Catherine Laflamme: [01:09:21] There’s a few, there’s quite a few biologists actually in the group.

Gillian Steele: [01:09:23] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [01:09:24] So this is going to be an upcoming possible zoom presentation?

Gillian Steele: [01:09:27] She did one in the spring. 

Travis Bader: [01:09:28] Katie, you’re committed.

Catherine Laflamme: [01:09:29] Yeah. Sorry, Katie you’re in. 

Gillian Steele: [01:09:31] I did talk to her today, so she knows what’s coming. But yeah, so we try and do that, but yeah we know we certainly don’t know everything, but we just want to be able to facilitate. 

Catherine Laflamme: [01:09:43] Yeah. 

Gillian Steele: [01:09:43] Some answers, whether it comes from elsewhere, that’s fine. 

Catherine Laflamme: [01:09:47] Absolutely. Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [01:09:48] Well, is there anything else that we should be talking about? Cause I’m looking at the time here and I think best practices for a podcast and they say we’ve gone over it, but that’s okay. This is very interesting. Is there anything else we should be talking about? Do we got to get some plugs in for your shops? Any specials coming up?

Gillian Steele: [01:10:05] Oo.

Travis Bader: [01:10:06] Ahh, put you on the spot.

Catherine Laflamme: [01:10:07] Boxing day’s over. So we don’t really have valentine’s day sales.

Gillian Steele: [01:10:14] No, no. We could, we could. You could say, you could say.

Tiffany Bader: [01:10:17] Totally should!

Gillian Steele: [01:10:17] You could say you got your, your lady angler in your life that really wants to get into fly fishing or gear fishing, depending where you’re at, you know, go and buy gold and buy them a rod they’re really.

Catherine Laflamme: [01:10:27] You know what your lady really wants. A fly rod. 

Gillian Steele: [01:10:30] Yeah, she says she wants flowers, but I guarantee you, she really wants a new fly rod so, better get it.

Travis Bader: [01:10:40] You heard it here.

Gillian Steele: [01:10:40] No, I think.

Catherine Laflamme: [01:10:40] Who needs jewelry on their fingers when they can have jewelry on their rungs. 

Travis Bader: [01:10:46] Absolutely.

Catherine Laflamme: [01:10:48] I don’t know, just, we need to be more positive and we just need to all be more supportive of you, whether you’re a guy, girl, however you go, like just let’s keep it positive. 

Gillian Steele: [01:10:58] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [01:10:59] I like it. Thank you very much for taking the time to come and speak on The Silvercore Podcast. I have a funny feeling. There might be follow up podcasts.

Catherine Laflamme: [01:11:09] Well this is really fun.

Gillian Steele: [01:11:12] Thanks for hanging out. This has been so much fun. You guys are awesome. 

Catherine Laflamme: [01:11:14] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [01:11:16] Tonight I’m joined by Catherine Laflamme. Did I say that right?

Tiffany Bader: [01:11:26] No, you didn’t. You said it like laphlegm. Ekk.

Travis Bader: [01:11:28] See.

Tiffany Bader: [01:11:28] You’re saying it like it’s phlegm. It’s Laflamme.

Travis Bader: [01:11:31] Laflamme.

Catherine Laflamme: [01:11:32] Sorry.

Travis Bader: [01:11:33] We’ll try this one again.  And we met through a mutual friend, April Vokey of Anchored Outdoors. Welcome Cat. 

Catherine Laflamme: [01:11:41] Hi! Sorry.

Travis Bader: [01:11:43] Hey, that’s quite alright, not a problem.

Catherine Laflamme: [01:11:47] I’m still laughing about the phlegm. Okay, okay. Serious.

Travis Bader: [01:11:52] No problem. 

Gillian Steele: [01:11:54] You know, and uh, I, I’ll, oh.

Travis Bader: [01:11:56] It’s okay, you don’t need those. 

Catherine Laflamme: [01:12:00] Your heads too small. 

Gillian Steele: [01:12:01] I have a really small head and I have really small ears.