PPS Destinations Report
Stoney Lake Lodge, Douglas lake Ranch, B.C. Canada
Date: May 17 - 19, 2002
Speaker: Dr. Stephen Tsotsos, DDS; Toronto, Canada
Topic: Winning and the Hi-Tech Game - A review of Digital Radiography, Cerec Cad/Cam and other advanced hi-tech hardware/software.
Reported by Ernst 'Ernie' Schmidt
As spring unfolded in the higher elevations surrounding Canada's largest working cattle ranch, the comfortable facilities at Stoney Lake Lodge was the venue for this spring's PPS destination. The lodge itself is part of the Douglas Lake Ranch, and functions as just one facet of the ranch's huge operations. Sixteen of us (capacity of the lodge) converged from distant points such as Holland, Ohio, California and Ontario as well as a core from Washington and BC in order to sample some of BC's best still-water fishing and hear one of the world's notable experts on hi-tech integration into dentistry.
Our adventure started
out with many of the participants arriving on the Thursday night in order to get
a good night's sleep before the official start at 10:00am. Following an
excellent overview of hi-tech 
systems
available in the modern dental office (more on the seminars later), we all
adjourned - eagerly at that - in order to fish either Stoney or Minnie
Lakes. With the operations to ourselves, we were able to choose the
fishery which best suited our styles and travel back and forth. Part of
our group traveled to the furthest upwind section of Minnie Lake where we opted
to fish from shore and avoid the white caps out in the open lake. Fish
were obviously active as they were constantly jumping within 10 metres of shore
and were easily spotted cruising along the shoreline. Coming from the
coastal region of Vancouver, I found it a delightful visual feast to fish in the
wide-open, blue-sky expanse of this cattle territory. As spring in these
productive lakes is synonymous with chirnonomid fishing (aka midges, order
diptera) we all fished with dry lines, long leaders, strike indicators and
various sizes of the pupal form. I found that olive and black in sizes
14-12 seemed to be the most productive. Despite the enormous populations
of gammarus scuds clearly visible on the lake's shore, chironomid pupae are
favoured by these over-fed fish. The group were quickly rewarded with many
fish in the 2 to 4 pound class with some fish over 5 pounds. Action was
consistent up until 3pm whereas the chironomid hatch declined and only the odd
fish was picked up using larger attractor patterns such as leaches and wooly
buggers.
On day 2, Steve and I decided to give Stoney Lake a try. Unlike the first day, this was a calm sunny day which made fishing the secluded bay at the far end a real joy. Karen, fishing with Tyler the fish master, was clearly 'cleaning up', releasing in excess of 20 rainbows over the four-hour period of the hatch. Despite the rest of us doing relatively well by most standards, Steve was somewhat frustrated by being skunked for the day as he witnessed the mixed successes of the rest of the group. Success was achieved by fishing with a dark chironomid pupae dangling about 6 - 7 feet below the strike indicator and letting it sit quietly suspended just off the shallow muddy bottom. Cruising fish would gently suck in the imitation, whereby the angler would have to strike with heron-like speed in order to achieve a hook-up. Failure to set immediately upon the slightest movement of the indicator usually resulted in the strike indicator and fly hurtling back - fishless to be sure - at the angler. Later in the afternoon, the bite went off and the group assembled back at the lodge for a convivial dinner in front of the massive stone fire place. Dinner was followed by good cheer on the deck with numerous fish stories being carelessly tossed about.
On day 3, with all the hard work of speaking behind him, Steve showed his mettle and proved that anyone who is a quick study with hi-tech tools would not be outsmarted by a fish. Steve and I fished the bay at Stoney Lake again from 10am to 2pm, with each of us sharing the catch/release of about 30 fish and losing at least that much again. Our biggest problem was that the bigger fish would not fit into the landing net that I had brought along. The bigger fish were in the 24 to 25 inch range and being very thick in girth made for some difficult releasing boat-side. Oh well, one just has to live with these problems!
In addition to the excellent fishing, an additional highlight of the trip was the excellent presentation given by Steve each day. Day 1 was an overview of many hi-tech systems (both hardware and software) available in today's dental practice; day 2 was a summary of digital radiography systems; and day 3 was devoted to cerec 3 cad/cam technology. Each day was an informative PowerPoint presentation which kept the group captivated. Myself, also a member of the CACD (Canadian Academy of Computerized Dentistry; see Steve's hat in the above picture) and the ISCD (International Society of Computerized Dentistry) was truly impressed and deeply envious of the technologies used by Steve. I know that this was a real eye-opener to the entire group, especially as members try to grasp and grapple with the emerging technologies. More than once I heard the comment "I really didn't fully comprehend the technology until now". My sincerest thanks to Steve for the entertaining and captivating presentation. This was one of the first 'fishing trips' I have been on where I was truly looking forward to getting back to work!!!
Despite the exotic and distant venues that PPS has visited over the past few years, I am proud to say that my home province of BC still has some of the best to offer the adventure traveler. Douglas Lake Ranch is a private ranch featuring a dozen or so managed, yet highly productive, lakes in this semi-arid high-altitude range land. The accommodations are on par with many of the world's best lodges and make for an excellent relaxing fishing destination. In addition to fishing and other forms of relaxation, Stoney Lake Lodge comes with an adjoining conference centre making it an ideal venue for corporate retreats or Continuing Education seminars such as ours.
For further information on this venue (Stoney Lake Lodge) , please visit their website at Douglas Lake Ranch or email me at eschmidt@direct.ca.
To view more pictures of this trip, please view the Photo Album
For participating members wishing to see a photo album (including some hero shots!) of the trip, please visit More DLR photos