Derenz Lake

Derenzy Lake

Today was the day I determined to make it into Derenzy Lake. After morning chores, I headed up the Carmi-Beaverdell Road past the Ellis Reservoir and onto the Weyerhaeuser 201 Forest Service Road. Turning south (left) I went past the 29 kilometre sign and before reaching the 28 kilometre sign ,turned west onto the Derenzy Forest Service road.

The first branch to the left at 0.7 km leads to the South Ellis Reservoir and is gated well back from the dam and lake. The Fish Wizard site shows rainbow trout present, but no stocking records. One day I will check out this body of water to see if I can reel in a rainbow trout. Soon after this junction the road is closed to hunting with a vehicle. There are a lot of nice deer in here, but you have to walk in and quarter the animal to bring it out. I saw ten large deer this day
.
Keeping to the right for another 4.6 kilometres I came to the Derenzy 200 Road. This only brought me to a little over 3 kilometres from the lake. I knew the other road got me closer, so headed back to the right on the main Derenzy Forest Service Road and after another 0.9 km I took the left hand fork for 4 more kilometres, and then parked and headed off up the hill with the Lake co-ordinates on my GPS. (N49-24.635’ W119-29.032’)

Working my way through the brush, I was happy to be wearing jeans instead of my customary shorts. It would have been a good idea to wear a jeans shirt as well for by the time I got back to the vehicle, my arms were fairly well scratch up. Finally, after an hour of fighting bush and windfalls, I came across a trail that showed recent clearing with a chain saw.

Not all the windfalls were cleared, however, and part of the trail is a small creek in the spring. Several times I temporarily lost the trail but finally from a ridge I could see the lake. I worked my way down the broken rocks to the shore, rewarded myself with a good long drink of water and set up the rod.

My float and fly no sooner hit the water when I could see a lunker rise from the depths and smash into the float, then again rising to take the fly. Unfortunately, I could not set the hook. Half an hour later I had hooked onto six more decent sized fish and landed one that measured 13 inches nose to tail.

The lake is regularly stocked with 500 rainbow trout fry and it appears they survive very well and grow to a good size. The lake itself is quite deep and quite expansive, well worth an early start and a full days’ fishing. The shoreline of the section I fished was broken rock and at the end there was some brush and a lot of floating logs. I understand there is also a small cabin/shelter somewhere along the shore. I’m thinking this would be an excellent lake to fish from a belly boat.

I managed to find a trail at the end of the lake and followed it back down, at times making detours as windfalls still lay across the trail. Eventually I joined the trail I went up noticing that it split. Perhaps the other one might have led to near the cabin. The tail down pwas 1.7 kilometres and came out on the road about 50 metres further along from where I had parked. Not easy to see if you do not know it is there.

My ideal career for when I eventually retire will be to upgrade trails into lakes like this. The trail here would also include a scenic route past my first view of the lake.