Tag Archives: Beaver

Spring Rains

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It seems that all the rain we were wishing for at the start of the season has finally caught up with us. The Grand River has jumped from a steady and measly 4cms to over 40cms for the last several days and other rivers in the area, including the Credit, have been running high and dirty. It’s put a bit of a damper on fishing some potentially great hatches, but I suppose that’s to be expected at this time of year. The good news is that it looks like some excellent fishing conditions are just around the corner.

Between the untimely thunderstorms, rain and other life commitments, I haven’t been able to spend much time on the water lately. Two or three hours after work, one or two times a week is about all I’ve managed. Most of my outings have been for Brook Trout and well… there’s not much to see there. Just a bunch of average but equally beautiful fish, as are all southern Ontario Brookies.

An average small stream southern Ontario Brook Trout.

An average small stream southern Ontario Brook Trout.

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Algonquin: Big Crow Trip Report

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I was going to start this blog post out with “as expected”, but this trip started out with the unexpected. As planned, we did manage to get away to Algonquin Provincial Park last week for a few days of backcountry paddling, portaging, hiking and wildlife viewing. This is the second year in a row that we chose Big Crow as a destination, since bad weather prevented us from doing much exploring last year.

The idea was to set out Thursday bright and early, driving about 3.5 hours to the Opeongo Lake access point. As luck would have it, I came down with a cold Tuesday, which led to a severe lack of sleep and general feeling of being run down Thursday morning. With almost no sleep and the cold still lingering, we would have to postpone the trip by at least one day, or at worst cancel the trip altogether.

After getting a bit of sleep Thursday afternoon, I was feeling a bit better. However, come Thursday night, I began to feel hot. I took my temperature several times, expecting to have a fever, but everything looked normal. I was convinced we needed to turn the air conditioning on in the house, but everyone else was cold. Lying in bed at night was uncomfortably hot, so much that it affected my sleep for the second night in a row. My alarm was set for 5:15 am and when it went off, I awoke with a total of 2.5 hours of sleep. Aside from this, I was feeling surprisingly well: it seemed that the worst of my cold was behind me. Against my better judgement, I decided to stick to the plans and we set out at just after 5:30 am for Algonquin.

The drive up Friday was relatively uneventful. We grabbed a Timmies breakfast and slipped out of the GTA before rush hour traffic. We had booked a 10:00 am water taxi from Algonquin Outfitters to take us from the Opeongo Lake access point to the Proulx Lake portage. Last year, we decided to canoe across Opeongo Lake and while it was a great experience, it just doesn’t make much sense to spend half a day paddling this giant lake when you can zoom across it in 30 minutes with a water taxi.

We reached the access point at 9:30 and we rushed to get everything ready for the taxi at 10:00. The boat ride across Opeongo was chilly… a brisk cold wind blowing in my face for 30 minutes was just the ticket to wake me up and give me some energy for the portage and paddling that lie ahead.

At the Opeongo - Proulx Lake portage at 10:45 am

At the Opeongo – Proulx Lake portage, 10:45 am Friday

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Trout Season is Fading

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It seems like trout fishing season (open May-September on most waters here) was barely existent this year.  Now, there’s only one week left before it’s gone. Hopefully I’ll be able to sneak out a couple more times next week, before or after work and on the weekend.

I absolutely loving fishing in the fall.  Cool crisp temperatures and colours galore, on both the trees and the fish. Yesterday was full of walking and roller coasters, as I took my son to Canada’s Wonderland, but today I managed to get out for a few hours of fishing. Normally I would choose to fish my favourite brown trout water this time of year, but seeing as how I failed to catch any fish during my Algonquin trip, I thought I’d try to make amends and head to some brookie water today.

Fishing was pretty slow for most of the day. Rain was off and on and temps were quite cold, but overall it was great to be out. I managed to catch a few small brookies in the first couple hours – nothing to brag about, but better than nothing.  I also took a break to watch a beaver that lives in this section of the river (I’ve seen him here for several years now).

Resident Beaver chilling out on a rock in the middle of the river

I started out casting dry flies and eventually switched to a small streamer since there wasn’t anything happening on the surface. The streamer provided 2 hits, but no fish landed.  As daylight faded, I approached a nice stretch of water and decided to go back to dries. I tied on a size 12 stimulator and the second cast produced a nice brookie.

Nice colourful resident Brook Trout caught on a Stimulator

I had hiked in quite a way from my car and it would be a long walk back. Since I packed my headlamp, I figured I’d push my luck and stay a while longer and hike back in the dark. Then it hit me… I had put my headlamp in my fishing net in the car… and now I was wearing my fishing net on my back. Unfortunately, the lamp was no longer in the net. It had obviously fallen out somewhere along my trek today, which took me through a lot of heavy brush. Not only did this mean I just lost my new $50 headlamp, but it also meant I had to stop fishing if I wanted to avoid stumbling back the 30 minute hike in dark without a light. Doh!