There’s no better place to start than the Credit. It is still, after all, where I spend most of my time on the water. In my experience, the river has fished quite well this year (aside from some warm spells that is). The last of the large broodstock Atlantics that were stocked in the upper river a couple years ago seems to have finally cleared out and I’ve been seeing a catching a good number of both brook trout and brown trout on the main branch. Lots of smaller browns and brookies as well, which is nice to see.

Of course, there are still the small Atlantics that continue to be stocked and there are also a curiously high number of rainbows being caught this year. I would say the rainbows are the biggest difference in the river. If the MNR and CVC are concerned about brook trout populations, this is the fish they need to worry about, not the brown trout. I’ve heard they are likely still escaping from ponds in Erin, although I’m pretty sure they’re also reproducing in larger numbers as well. In addition to the usual smaller catches, I have caught a few larger rainbows this year as well, which is quite unusual.

So, unsurprisingly, many of my outings this year have had me catching 3 to 4 different species, sometimes in the same pool.

Most of the major hatches were present and decent throughout the season, including Hendricksons, Drakes, Foxes, Stoneflies, Yellow Sallies and Isonychia (which are still kicking around). I even happened upon a Hex hatch, which is not very common on the upper Credit – though, the only large fish I got out of it was a rainbow. Of these hatches, the Grey Foxes were the most reliable, at least earlier in the summer. They were present in good numbers for about a month and it seemed that every time I hit the river looking for a different hatch, it was the Foxes that ended up stealing the show. Often I was slow to realize this and as a result likely missed some opportunities to land some better fish that refused previous offerings.

I’ve spent far less time this year fishing past dark than previous years. This is due, in part, to a few factors:

1. Not being around during the prime night fishing times
2. An unfortunate accident with a really hot cup of Tim Hortons coffee
3. An encounter with a Bear, which had me spooked for some time

A few trips kept me off the river during the month of July and August, which is prime night fishing season. One of those trips was a family vacation to Florida, which (before some last minute research) had absolutely nothing to do with fishing. I’ve been meaning to dedicate a post to that trip, which was my first venture into saltwater. I’ll try to get to that post after this one.

Regarding the coffee accident… if it wasn’t apparent from the title of my blog, I really like my caffeine and I drink a lot of Tim Hortons. After a couple dozen years drinking hot coffee without issues, I finally managed to spill a HOT black cup of freshly brewed Tims all over my leg while preparing to drive home from my parents’ place in Windsor (yes, it only got my leg). That resulted in a 6 hour venture to the hospital and nearly a month of healing, during which I couldn’t really fish. I’ve suffered a lot of injuries in the past, but those second degree burns were the worst I’ve ever experienced.

Finally, about the Bear… yes, I ran into a Black Bear on the Upper Credit! I was fishing about an hour before dark by myself at a usual spot, when I noticed some bushes/trees moving on the opposite bank. As I looked closer, I saw a large dark animal walking toward the bank. I couldn’t make out the entire animal, because it was covered by a lot of brush. However, it was definitely large and wide – larger than any other animal that exists in southern Ontario – and it was black. As it walked slowly toward the bank, I began to back up. At this point, it seemed to notice me and stopped for a second, then briefly charged in my direction closer to the bank. I again stopped and this time started making a bunch a noise and shouting at it. It remained mostly still, though did inch a little closer a couple times. It managed to hide itself mostly behind some fallen trees near the bank and when I was fairly certain it was safe(r), I again started slowly backing up and left the area.

I had heard of Black Bear sightings in Caledon, though this was my first encounter – and happened to be with a bear that thought it a good choice to threaten charging. Thankfully the river separated us, though that honestly was little relief and likely didn’t add much to my safety. I believe it was a large cub and in fact, not a week later, I saw a news article indicating that there had been three sightings of the same bear cub in Caledon.

Needless to say, fishing alone in the dark freaked me out for a while after that, though I’m slowly re-gaining my courage and venturing out alone later again. Anyway, here are a couple nighttime fish from late June and one from the other night.

I suppose the last update I have is regarding the Grand River. This is the river that introduced me to fly fishing and I have given it very little attention in the past few years. I remember in my teens and early 20’s, spending hours casting to countless rising trout on the Grand and catching stockers at will. That sight of rising fish after rising fish is something I have have rarely seen since those days. The Credit simply is not a dry fly fishery, at least not most of the time (hatches are less reliable and, honestly, the fish are simply smarter on average). I’ve even struggled to find rising fish on the Grand in recent years. Whether that’s due to bad timing, increased fishing pressure or others reason I am not sure.

However, Ryan and I did venture out to the Grand on two back-to-back nights at the beginning of July, for the first time this year. We opted to fish a very heavily trafficked section of the Grand, one that I always tend to bypass in favor of less crowed waters. What I have never understood, is how on earth a small section of river can be so heavily and frequently over-fished and yet continue to produce not only a large number of fish, but big fish. The Grand is weird that way. I guess it’s a combination of a lot of dumb fish (the stockers) and huge concentrations of food in certain sections of the river keeping the bigger fish around. Either way, in the few hours we spent fishing this stretch of water, we cast to more rising fish and had more success than I think we had combined the last three years on the Grand. No huge fish, just a lot of chunky fish and a couple larger ones for me.

I wish more sections of the Grand fished as reliably. I want to believe they do, but in my experience, most don’t. Even when they look like they should and even when they have better water and far less fishing pressure, they just don’t. Some of the more frequent locals and guides will say “the whole upper river fishes just as good”, but almost every time they take a client out or fish by themselves, there’s back to that same spot

Anyway, absolutely nothing against the Grand or those who guide and fish it more than me. They certainly know it better than I. As much as I love the Credit and it’s wild, elusive browns, the Grand is very much a special river in its own right and is definitely a central figure to the sport of fly fishing in Ontario.

To wrap things up, I was out on the Credit the other night for a couple hours and caught a few nice small to mid sized browns. One of the fish was sipping Isonychia at the very back of a pool, tight to a fallen tree. I managed to drift an imitation back there and it exploded on my fly. I wasn’t overly big (maybe 13 or 14 inches), but it was a memorable take and an impressive looking brown to boot. It had a very obvious wild brown signature blue/black patch on its cheek.

Normally you remember catching the same big brown twice. However, while this fish wasn’t big, it resonated with me in a weird way, like I had caught it before. Then, as I was going though my photos for this post yesterday, I realized that I actually had caught it previously this season. In the same pool, feeding on Grey Foxes back at the end of May (it’s in one of the slideshows above).

Here’s the same fish again for a comparison. You can clearly see that the spots are identical and it’s the same fish. Gotta love catch and release!

The post Summer Updates appeared first on Caffeinated Fly Fisher.

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.

I suppose there’s also that rodent I ran into while fishing for Brookies a couple weeks ago. As I was hunched over tying on a new fly, I noticed out of the corner of my eye a large dark shadow drifting towards me. My obvious initial reaction was “wtf is that!”. As I raised my head to look, I startled the shadow which turned out to be a Beaver, now a foot away from me. With a sense of urgency, it stood up in the shallow water and leapt back upstream, violently splashing its tail and scaring the living crap out of me!

A Beaver, going about its business after we were both startled when it nearly bumped into me.

I’ve been experimenting with different fly patterns again this year, mainly wet flies and soft hackles. A couple years ago I began using them quite a bit, but I was fishing them mainly downstream and across (swinging). This year, I’ve been focusing more on upstream presentations and while I’ve been finding it slightly more difficult, I’ve also found it more reliable in a lot of situations.

A few days ago, I was fishing wets on some pocket water that I frequent. There’s a small plunge pool there that’s moderately difficult to present a fly to, which has eluded me in years past. As inviting and fishy as it looks, I’ve somehow never managed to get a fish (over 6″) out of it. This time around though, I managed to coax a slightly better Brown out of the small pool using a traditional wet fly. I presented the fly with some slack line to the back of the pool and as it sank, a fish with much more attitude than size smashed it. It amazes me how smart these wild trout can be, even at this size. It wasted no time and immediately dashed to the right side of the pool, near the surface where there was a sunken tree branch. It wrapped my leader around the branch and somehow managed to stay hooked long enough for me to stumble over and scoop it out from under the branch, breaking my fly off in the process.

A pretty Brown Trout caught on a March Brown wet fly.

The above picture was taken with my brand new Olympus TG-4 camera. This is my first Steve-proof camera… that is, it’s waterproof, crush proof and impact proof. Ask my wife or any of my co-workers how many times I’ve dropped a phone or camera into the water or sand and you’ll realize how long overdue this purchase was. I’ve only had it out a couple times so far and due to the rain, the water has been too murky to really test out the underwater capabilities. It does however have an absolutely amazing macro mode, called microscope mode. I used it to snap a couple quick bug shots while on the water and I was very impressed with how quickly and easily it focuses. I’ve since picked up a neat LED Light Guide accessory that improves macro shots even more, especially in lower light.

A quick test shot of a Caddis Larva, using the microscope mode of my TG-4.

Another macro test shot, this time of a Little Yellow Stonefly that landed on my jacket.

In addition to the underwater and macro modes, it has a bunch of other neat modes and features, including RAW support and the ability to remote control it with a smartphone. I’m looking forward to messing around with it more on my future excursions.

The post Spring Rains appeared first on Caffeinated Fly Fisher.

Friday and Saturday were spent exploring small streams close to home, none of which I’d fished before. These are tiny, virtually untouched waters that contain moderate numbers wild trout. The smaller fish in these streams are all too eager to take even a sloppily presented dry fly, but the larger fish require stealth, small tippets and perfect presentations. Of course, larger is relative to the size of the streams here, so a 12″ fish is a trophy on waters like these.

I spent a couple days exploring small, quiet streams like this one.

Most of these streams have a mix of brookies, browns and rainbows, with an average size of about 6″. Over the course of two days, I spent hours catching trout in these waters, bushwhacking my way through overgrown banks, fallen trees and spider webs. Before heading in on Saturday evening, I decided to check out one last spot. Years ago, a fly fisherman who grew up in the area told me that the “Holy Grail of Brook Trout” (so he called it) existed somewhere in a nearby town, but he had never been able to find it. I hadn’t really given it much thought until now – after all, he fly fished the area for decades and wasn’t able to find it, so I assumed I wouldn’t either.

After scouting a few likely roads in town, I pulled over at the entrance to a trail and double checked my maps. It looked like a stream ran fairly close by, so I grabbed my 3 weight and headed out. As I hiked further, the sound of running water grew from non-existent to that of loud rapids. When I reached the stream, I found a fairly slow stretch of water above the rapids, with a nice little pool that was now completely shaded (it was getting late).

I had a bushy size 12 Stimulator tied on, which seemed like overkill for the fish that usually inhabit waters like this. However, before downsizing, I thought I’d give it a few casts. I carefully approached downstream of the hole, knelt behind some tall grass and presented a cast about 25 feet upstream. As the fly drifted over the middle of the pool, I watched a good sized brookie dart up from below and inhale the Stimulator. As fast as it rose, it dove back down from where it came and an even larger brookie chased after it. The second fish was an honest 3-4″ larger than the one I’d caught, which itself was pushing 12″!

A beautiful small stream Brook Trout

In the few remaining minutes of light, three more brook trout in the 8-10″ range came to my net from the same pool. I’m not sure if I found the fabled Brook Trout hotspot that I’d heard stories about, but I was certain that I was on the right track!

Sunday was back to more familiar waters, in what would be the last day on my beloved Credit River for the season. As expected during this time of year, there area around the Upper Credit was utter chaos. Not due to fishermen, but nature watchers. Each year, autumn brings hordes of people from around the GTA to Caledon to hike and enjoy the scenic area and changing of the leaves. It means the normally peaceful and quiet streets are booming with cars and people for closing weekend.

Of course, fishing pressure is also expectedly higher, but nothing like that of more popular rivers such as the Grand. A little legwork goes a long way though, and it wasn’t long before I was on the river by myself, passing only a single pair of anglers all day.

Peace and quiet on a rugged section of the Credit River

The weather and scenery were excellent and the fishing was challenging, but solid. I caught a number of small browns, with one larger brown hooked and lost in some fast moving water. I also hooked into what I believe were a couple baby Atlantic Salmon, which is not surprising given the stocking being done in the Credit. I’ve mistaken these little guys as brown trout in the past, but the big give away is the heavily forked tail and the smaller mouth (does not extend past the eye). If you knew nothing about identifying these, you’d know somewhat was up when you hooked one as they are absolute rockets. Way too aggressive for their own good, these little fish put on quite the acrobatic show and (as you can see below) have no problem attacking flies the size of their own head.

I caught a couple of these small, super-aggressive stocked Atlantic Salmon

A friend and I spent the last two days of fishing season on the water as well. Monday was back to exploring new water, which turned out to be informative but entirely unproductive. We waded stretches of a larger river that lies between two dams, making fish passage up and downstream virtually impossible – thus greatly reducing the fish populations. Still, these sections are almost completely untouched by anglers and there are known to be some populations of resident trout in them, so it was worth at least an investigation. We waded some absolutely beautiful water, with some of the nicest pools and runs I’ve seen on any river in southern Ontario. It’s an absolute shame that this water goes almost completely unused and inaccessible to fish.

With a bit of time left to spare Monday, after hundreds of casts without a fish to show for it, we stopped off at a couple of the tributaries I fished days prior. My buddy was in disbelief over the stories I told of the fish in these waters, so I wanted to prove him wrong.

A slow section of a little stream we stopped off at on the way home

In the few minutes we spent fishing the first stream, I caught a bunch of small trout, including as a nice 9″ brookie. Ryan also managed to spook a much larger brookie from under a log while untangling his fly from a tree branch.

We then moved on to the same trib that I caught the 12″ brookie from Saturday. With the success I experienced last time, I confidently declared a guarantee of some big brookies. It was still relatively early when we got there though, with perfectly clear skies and bright sun shining down onto the stream. In the daylight, I was surprised at just how small the pool I caught the brookies from was – it seemed so much larger and deeper at night. Once again, Ryan was in disbelief that this tiny little pool would hold such fish; and I can’t really blame him.

We slowly walked up to the side of the pool, being careful to stay behind the tall grass so not to spook it. Unfortunately, a number of fish must have caught a glimpse of us and they were sent scurrying in all directions for cover, not to be seen again. The pool was spooked, but at least there was proof of some of the nice fish that inhabit it. It goes to show you just how important stealth is on these small streams.

Tuesday wrapped up fishing season with a day trip to the Grand River. This had been our regular stomping ground (when we fished together) for a couple years, but it treated us like shit this year with constantly high and murky waters and difficult fishing conditions. As such, this was our first trip back to the Grand in several weeks. The river had been a bit high (~10 cms) leading up closing weekend, but thankfully they dropped the flow down to just over 5 cms (which is about perfect) for the last day of fishing.

The Grand River – it can be frustrating trying to decide where to present a fly on this large river

We expected to face some finicky browns, as they’d undoubtedly been absolutely hammered with flies for the last 3 days straight. My thoughts were that we’d either have to exactly match the hatch (with perfect presentations), or use something different – something that the fish hadn’t seen hundreds or thousands of times before.

On that note, there’s an very simple nymph called Walt’s Worm that I’d been meaning to try for some time. I recently watched this video on tying the competitive style nymph on a jig hook. What appealed to me about this fly was its extreme simplicity, as well as the weight and anti-snag nature of it (due to the inverted jig hook). I really dislike having to add weight to my leader, so having a very fast sinking nymph is ideal. I feel like most of the time, we’re tying flies to please ourselves rather than the fish. Given the mangled bugs that regularly float down the river and the fact that you rarely see someone fishing such a simple looking nymph, I decided to tie a couple for our trip.

We were on the river by about 7 am, before the sun was up. We were both casting streamers – Ryan to a hole he knows holds a monster Brown and me to a run above that. Things were pretty slow for the first couple hours, as Ryan failed to entice the big brown to come out and I missed 3-4 hits on a size 6 woolly bugger. Forgetting about the Walt’s Worms that I tied the night prior, I must have gone through a dozen flies (streamers, nymphs and wets) before finally deciding to tie a caddis dry fly on. I hadn’t seen a single fish rise all morning, but I was frustrated and wanted to have some stress free casting for a while. In fairness, it’s hard to go wrong with a caddis any time on the Grand… it may not always work, but if you have no other ideas, it’s probably a good place to start. A combination of desperation and luck brought the first fish of the day to the net.

The first Brown Trout of the day, caught on a Sparkle Caddis variation.

It worked out that shortly after tying on that caddis, the river came alive a bit and some fish started rising. There were decent numbers of caddis about, as well as solid numbers of BWO. It’s hard to say what they were actually feeding on, but we stuck to caddis and landed a few more fish before they stopped rising again.

With difficult fishing conditions setting in once more, we went back to trying streamers, caddis pupa, various emergers and BWOs. Other than the infrequent hit on a streamer, the fish just weren’t cooperating. After recalling the Walt’s Worms that I tied the night before, I decided to give one a try. A couple casts later and I hooked up to a decent fish. In fact, I began regularly hooking up to fish from that moment on with the Walt’s Worm (I also had luck with the Sexy Walt’s). I was fishing it without an indicator and the fast sinking fly made it easy to keep a tight line and detect hits. I dead drifted it near the bottom and fished it on the swing – I even caught some rising fish with it!

One of several nice brown trout taken on a Walt’s Worm

Despite a decent number of fish landed (at least compared to previous trips to the Grand this year), it was a fairly tiring and hard fished day. After a late 2:00 lunch, the river was filling up with anglers and the fishing was continuing to slow down. We finished off the day fishing dry flies up by the 2nd Line bridge, hoping for more rising fish. I only found one such fish and it came to my net.

Last resident trout of 2014, once again caught on a Sparkle Caddis

All in all, 2014 was a memorable trout season, though somewhat of a polar opposite to last season. While last year I focused heavily on catching large browns in well known water, this year was much more focused on exploring new waters and new techniques. I traded the fewer (bigger) browns for more (smaller) trout and easily caught some of my nicest resident brookies to date. I also caught my first steelhead on a fly, as well as my largest bass to date.

While I take a long break from resident trout fishing, I still have a few months of fishing bass, steelhead and trout ponds. Now if only Sage could hurry and return my twice broken 6 weight VXP so I have something between a 4 and 8 weight to fish with…

The post 2014 Trout Closing Weekend appeared first on Caffeinated Fly Fisher.

This is the time of year where our fly boxes need to be the most diverse. Depending on the time of day, river and hatches, you might be casting streamers, nymphs, wet flies, emergers, tiny dries, large dries, or even huge topwater patterns. Consequently, I’ve been hitting the tying bench a lot lately, trying to cover all my bases. In what has been an increasing trend of mine, I’ve concentrated more on sub-surface patterns this season to up my odds when fish are either not rising, or when they’re rising but refusing dry flies. Below are some flies I’ve been tying and fishing on some of my local waters.

Grand River

If you fish the Grand River, you know how frustrating it can be if you rely on dry flies to match the hatch. Although I don’t spend as much time on the Grand as I do other rivers, I’ve come to realize that it’s a largely sub surface and emerger river. In response to this, I tied a bunch of the following emerger patters in various sizes, mainly for caddis and blue winged olive hatches. I’m sure that by simply swapping out different colors and materials, these could be used to imitate a much wider variety of caddis and mayflies.

Caddis or BWO emerger, loosely based off a Snowshoe Emerger pattern

A variation of the above fly, tied with slightly different materials and colors

A sparkle caddis pupa emerger, which (in various styles) has done well on the Grand

Caddis pupa nymph: one of the simplest, yet most effective sub-surface flies on the Grand

As a reminder of just how versatile you need to be, I set out to the Grand River last Saturday with a friend and a bunch of the above flies. The weather was perfect, flows were low and there had been no rain for many days prior. Our expectations were high: clear conditions, lots of bugs and rising trout. We spent a total of about 12 hours on the water that day and what we were met with instead was very murky, low-visibility water and not a single witnessed fish rise for the entire day (on the upper and mid stretches). We fished during one of the thickest caddis hatches I’d seen in quite some time, with loads of large caddis floating down the river and fluttering helplessly on the surface – yet we didn’t see a single fish come up. It wasn’t until we drove several kilometers downstream to the lower river (which usually has less visibility than the upper) that the water cleared up and we got into some rising fish. I later learned that the water clarity issues were caused by the first big algae bloom of the year.

Credit River

I was on the Credit after work a couple weeks ago and managed to hit a smorgasbord of hatch activity, with Sulphurs, Isonychia and Caddis all in good numbers. Despite the impressive hatches, fish activity was surprisingly average that evening. I saw and caught a few small fish that were rising, but nothing out of the ordinary. The point is, it takes more than nice weather and lots of bugs to reliably bring up larger trout. I’ve fished many smaller hatches on the Credit in the recent past, with much more (and bigger) fish. I specifically remember an evening a couple years ago at the busiest access point on the river (normally the least-productive fishing) where an Isonychia hatch brought numerous 12-16″ browns to the surface in a feeding frenzy.

For the Credit, I find matching the hatch is generally less of a factor than the Grand. More important on the Credit is presentation and stealth. This isn’t surprising considering the greater angling pressure on the Grand and much smaller, technical water of the Credit. If you’re fishing dry flies, you can usually pick a common food source such as an Isonychia, Stonefly or simply use an attractor. Personally, I like bushy dry flies here, unless there’s a prolific hatch going on: a Stimulator or Humpy are two of my favorites. My only gripe with the humpy is that it can be annoyingly difficult to tie.

Stimulator: One of my favorite and most productive dry flies for the Credit River

Bead Head Soft Hackle Pheasant Tail: One of my favorite sub-surface flies, especially for pocket water and small streams

A simple Isonychia Parachute pattern, effective for imitating this abundant mayfly

A Sulphur soft hackle, effective when sulphurs are out or as a searching pattern

Gurgler: One of my go-to night patterns that I tie in various styles and colors

If I had to fish the Credit with only two flies, the Stimulator and Bead Head Soft Hackle Pheasant Tail would probably be my choices. As mentioned though, I think fly choice is more a matter of personal preference here. I have no doubt that a good Isonychia nymph or simple Walt’s Worm would do equally as well (if not better).

Stillwaters

My experience with stillwater fly fishing is laregly limitted to local stocked water, with the exception of some native brookies and warm water species. Still, I’ve done some experimenting and found a few options that work well for me. I highly recommend checking out the various videos and articles by fellow Canadians Phil Rowley and Brian Chan, who are highly regarded as experts in this area. They’ll tell you that fly selection is much less important than tactics and this has definitely held true for me. Still, its nice to have a few patterns that have proven to be effective.

Slow retrieved nymphs and chironomids are known to be some of the most productive flies, but I’ve found more actively retrieved streamers to be a good all around choice as well – not just for trout, but also for bass and other species.

Redneck Bugger (as I call it): A crystal bugger with a red hackle neck

CB Stocker: Another simple and effective streamer for trout

The above streamers are easy to tie and have worked well for me for both stocked rainbows and smallmouth bass (for the latter, especially the bugger). On days when fish are rising and sometimes even when there are no visible rises, such as warm days when the water is extremely calm, I’ve had a lot of success with a Stimulator. This versatile fly (shown above) can represent a host of different insects: from stoneflies to caddis to hoppers. It also floats extremely well and can be twitched on the surface to entice a strike.

I dont know if it’s just me though, but it seems that irregardlesss of preparations and fly boxes full of favourite patterns, more often than not I end up on the river feeling as though I’m missing some critical fly. This keeps my vise busy and shopping cart full with new tying materials.

The post Preparations appeared first on Caffeinated Fly Fisher.

The Grand River was quiet in more ways than one last week

Last week was a reminder of just how mysterious the Grand River can be. It varies between one of the easiest and most difficult rivers to fish at times. I wonder how much of this has to do with it being a stocked river. I was actually watching In The Loop earlier this week and they were fishing stocked rivers and discussing how difficult they can sometimes be due to the different feeding habits and behaviours of stocked fish over wild fish. There are other factors at play on the Grand as well though, not the least of which is the fact that it’s a tailwater fishery and highly susceptible to the will of Shand Dam. At times like this though, I’m not sure whether to call it challenging, or impossible. There are some nearby freestone wild trout rivers that, while having much less dense trout populations and being quite challenging, are certainly more stable and predictable.

One angler that I talked to on the Grand guessed that the problem was a lack of food in the river: that perhaps the high flows had washed everything downstream. However, every rock I picked up was teeming with caddis larva. I couldn’t entice a strike with these nymphs in various styles, sizes and depths, nor with any other nymphs or streamers I had at my disposal.

Caddis Larva like this were abundant, but the fish didn’t seem to be eating them

Thankfully, Brook Trout have been a bit more cooperative than the Browns, which is to be expected for this time of year I suppose. If you fly fish, I’m sure you’ve driven over your share share of bridges, wondering what the tiny streams and ditches below them might contain. Well, I finally decided to stop at one such bridge last week, after driving past it dozens of times prior. My gut feel had always been that this little stream likely wouldn’t contain much and would be a waste of time.

Small stream that I decided to explore after driving past it many times

Before setting up my rod, I walked down to the little body of water to scout it out. It was crystal clear and quite shallow – I figured if there were any fish in there, I should be able to spot them. After a couple minutes of carefully sneaking around and being unable to see any signs of life, I headed back to the car and debated whether to fish. I decided that I aught to at least give it a try, otherwise I’d keep wondering every time I drove past it. I setup my 3 weight, grabbed a box of flies and tippet and headed back down to the stream.

Although it wasn’t dry fly season, I figured shallow water, small stream and brookies were a good enough combination to fish one anyway. Being careful to not spook any fish, I crouched a few feet back from the bank and began casting my trusty red humpy to the top of a decent looking run. There was little flow, so getting a good drift wasn’t a problem. After a number of drifts without any strikes, my hopes were beginning to sink. I moved a few steps downstream, took another cast and was startled when a nice sized fish slammed my dry fly. It’s not that the fish was all that large, but I was expecting at most a 5-6″ brookie, if anything at all. The fish I pulled in on this tiny stream with my 3 weight far exceeded my expectations!

Nice looking Brook Trout to start things off on an unknown small stream

I’d never been so excited to catch a Brook Trout of this size. I spent the next couple hours exploring up and downstream, involving some serious bushwhacking – and hooking into a few more smaller brookies. Looking back, it seems inexplicable that I hadn’t stopped to fish this stream before. I don’t think I’ll be making the same mistake in the future. It’s so rewarding to find these types of little spots and figure them out all on your own. It certainly made up for my lacklustre fishing on the Grand.

The next week is filled with predictions of rain and thunderstorms, so unless the weather man is wrong again, there’s a good chance the Grand will be back in trouble. Might be a good time to hit some more small streams for Brookies, or to try out my new membership to Glen Haffy.

The post Slow Days on Stocked Rivers appeared first on Caffeinated Fly Fisher.

As expected, the sections of rivers experiencing steelhead runs were completely packed with fishermen of all types: men, women, children, fly fishers, spin fishers, worm and bobber fishers, poachers and just plain troublemakers. Basically, the type of conditions best described as asshattery.  Needless to say, I stayed clear of that mess and as usual headed for more remote waters in search of hungry resident trout.

The only other angler I encountered on opener was my fishing partner (seen in distance)

Several hours were spent Saturday fishing the clear, fast, high waters of my usual stomping grounds. We drove two cars, parked one several kilometres downstream of our starting location and spent a good number of hours enjoying a rather surprising amount of solitude on the river. Conditions were tough and we went nearly fish-less for a bulk of the day trying to adjust to the changed river.

Normally a mere trickle, this tiny feeder stream had a good constant flow

Downed trees and branches from the winter (thanks largely to the big ice storm) had changed several holes. In fact, the very hole I lost the biggest fish of my life from on closing day last season has been completely destroyed by a couple downed trees. Thankfully, slow fishing aside, it was great to be out on the river and a nice Brown Trout finished off the day. The fish below slammed a size 2 rabbit strip fish skull streamer I had tied the night before, while stripping it downstream through a pool.

An excellent Brown Trout to finish off the opening day of trout season

I went out solo on Sunday for a few hours in search of Brookies. The weather was slightly better than the previous day and once again I had the river to myself. I got off to a slow start with some small streamers and nymphs, but finally found my stride when I switched to a trusty Bead Head Pheasant Tail Soft Hackle. I fished it on the swing and hooked up with a good number of fish before calling it a day. They were all on the small side – most in the 5-8″ range, but Brookies are always a pleasure to catch so I certainly had nothing to complain about.

Small but pretty, it’s always a pleasure to catch colourful Brook Trout like this

When I got back to the car, I ran into a pair of fishermen who turned out to be two of the nicest people I’ve met on the river in years. Strangers to each other with a fairly large age gap (I’m guessing 20-30 years), they met about 20 years ago on the river and have been fishing together ever since. We chatted about our experiences opening weekend, years past, the state of the river and exchanged a few stories. This river, the one the MNR are planning to destroy, always seems to produce excellent stories and the most mannered of fly fishermen.

The Upper Grand was running at about 25 cms on Saturday, which is unsafe for fishing. It didn’t really affect my plans as I generally stay clear of the Grand on opening day (again, crowds), but I’m sure it spoiled the plans of countless other fly fishermen who bet on kicking off their season on this excellent river. Luckily, they did drop the river level down to about 5 cms Sunday afternoon, so it likely saw a huge surge of activity thereafter.

Unfortunately, this week has again been filled with more near-record-breaking rainfall, so the Grand is back to unfishable again. There’s more rain in the forecast for the remainder of the week, but I’m hopeful that it will slow down and give the rivers a bit of a break for the weekend. My wife is taking the kids to her parents’ place this weekend and leaving me behind to fish, so I want to take full advantage of this rare opportunity!

The post Happy Trout Opener appeared first on Caffeinated Fly Fisher.

Credit River after heavy rains last night and today

I obviously didn’t attempt to fish this, which was too bad because the sun had just come out and there was a nice hatch going on. Apparently the Grand was still running nice and low today, but I’m sure they’ll dump Belwood Lake sometime soon and change that real fast.

The post Damn Rain appeared first on Caffeinated Fly Fisher.

This morning I woke up early again and headed to the river for a few hours before work. I had intentions to fish the Credit, until I read a tweet by Wilson’s, mentioning that the Grand was in excellent shape. It was pretty obvious during my last outing that fishing a dry fly in such murky water was pointless. Rather than sticking to the tried and true nymph, I focused primarily on streamers and soft hackles – and while I hooked into a few fish, it wasn’t really high percentage fishing.

When all else fails on the Grand, fish a Caddis. Better yet, fish a Caddis Pupa. I should probably adopt this strategy more often. If only catching trout on dry flies wasn’t so fun, or if swinging wet flies and streamers wasn’t so easy – then I guess I would. Today though, I was out for revenge and decided to stick to the tried and true. I’ve been trying to get my wife to take up fly tying and conveniently, she recently tied a handful of a very simple caddis pattern for me: Rick’s Caddis, from this book.

The result was somewhat of an improvement over my last trip. I was catching fish all morning and the only time the action let up was when I spooked the pools by landing too many fish in them. I missed quite a few trout due to poor hook sets as I wasn’t expecting so many fish back-to-back. None were exceptionally large, but I’m not complaining – there’s no such thing as a bad trout in my book.

The post Redemption appeared first on Caffeinated Fly Fisher.

With a break from all the rain and cooler temps of late, I figured the river should be back in tip-top condition. So, last Thursday I set out at sunrise with an arsenal of Tricos, expecting to be tossing tiny dry flies to eager fish. When I arrived, the river flows were as expected, but the water was inexplicably murky – as if a huge rainfall had just gone through. Apparently, the heavy rains in weeks past have caused somewhat of a backup of sediment and algae in Belwood Lake, which is still being released from Shand Dam. The river was definitely more slippery than I’ve ever seen it, so blaming it on algae seems logical. Still, I didn’t travel 45 minutes at 6 am to turn around and drive back home.

Other than the water colour, everything seemed normal. Deer on the river, Cranes and the resident Osprey about and a bit of insect activity, hinting at the likely hatches in the coming hours.

It’s becoming a common occurrence to be greeted by a Deer in the morning

For the first half of the morning, I was too stubborn to tie on a nymph or streamer and instead fished wet and dry flies. Tricos were hatching in pretty good numbers but very few fish were rising, most likely due to the poor visibility. Obviously, not a good time to be fishing a dry fly. When I finally gave in and decided to tie a nymph on, things got interesting. Not because of the sudden excellent fishing – it was still difficult. Rather, due to the resident Osprey who is always looking for an easy meal.

Resident Osprey (picture snapped on a previous trip a few weeks ago)

A couple casts with a bead-head nymph and I was into my first fish of the morning: a respectable ~14″ brown. As I fought to bring the fish to the net quickly, it did a couple somersaults and splashed on the surface. All of a sudden, a huge splash directly on top of the fish startled me. A second later, the Osprey emerged from the water with my fish in its claws, hook still set in the fish’s mouth! I had no idea what to do… for a couple moments, I was literally fighting an Osprey trying to fly away with my fish. My hook eventually popped out and the thieving bird flew off with my catch. This was right up there with the strangest thing that’s ever happened to me on the water.

This seemed to set the mood for the rest of the day. Out of only three fish that were hooked (all on either a nymph or streamer), none made it to my net. The first lost to the Osprey, the second lost due to a poor hook set and the last fish spit the hook at my feet while I was fumbling with my landing net.

Two days later, I returned with a friend for revenge, hoping that the visibility had improved. Unfortunately, it did not improve and we were stuck swinging streamers in the very murky water once more.

Stripping streamers in the murky water

Ryan (above) has been obsessed with catching a certain large brown that has managed to evade him a few times now. The fish didn’t show up on this morning, though I did see a very large brown roll no less than 2 feet in front of me. It was another slow day on the water, with even less fish on than two days prior. I did however manage to bring one fish to net without bird intervention, so that’s something to be thankful of.

This fish took a Muddler Minnow on the swing

September is just around the corner and that should mean much improved fishing conditions on the Grand. In the meantime, I may try my luck at some night fishing there and stick to other rivers for morning and daytime fishing.

The post The Cruel Grand appeared first on Caffeinated Fly Fisher.

Admittedly, as great a river as the Grand is, I haven’t fished it too much in the past few years. Most of my time has been spent on other less popular rivers. However, the several trips we’ve made so far this year have reminded of a few things I had forgotten:

1. Morning is an amazing time to be on the water

Stepping out onto the water at the crack of dawn is a wonderful experience. The crisp morning air, quiet, calm and undisturbed water instantly makes you forget how difficult it was climbing out of bed. With the entire day ahead of you, your sense of urgency is non-existent. Wildlife is abundant and fish are still a bit more careless than they might be after a day of dealing with anglers. On a morning trip last week, we were greeted by a pair of playful deer as we stepped into the river. They remained for several minutes before finally realizing we were there, after which they calmly walked back to the river bank out of sight.

A couple deer playing in the river

Birds were also plentiful and active. An osprey sat at the top of a tall tree, watching us fish for a good 30 minutes before deciding to show us how to catch a real fish. I heard a huge splash behind me, turned around and saw a splash that I imagined could only be caused by a large boulder falling into the river. A second later, the osprey emerged with a good sized fish in its claws.

Osprey on the lookout for unsuspecting fish in the river below

A lowly seagull also decided to out-fish us and as can be seen below, happily feasting on its fresh catch.

Seagull proudly displaying its morning catch

Unfortunately for this poor gull though, he was not the biggest bird on the water that morning and shortly after his meal was stolen by a great blue heron. Needless to say, he did not seem happy.

Size does matter, as this great blue heron proved by stealing its breakfast

2. There are a lot of big fish in this river

Wildlife was not the only excitement we witnessed on the river. Caddis hatches and undisturbed pools reminded me of just how many browns are in this river. One nice thing about the Grand is that a tiny fish here is generally 8-10″ due to the decent size of stockers. Average fish are a bit bigger and fish in the high 20’s are taken often. While we had a few nice fish roll on us, most of the fish we caught were in the 10-14″ range. I’m not complaining, I’ll take those fish any day. I’ve always found the larger fish on the Grand quite picky, no doubt due in large part to the sheer number of flies they have seen in their long lives. In clear water conditions, especially when fishing a dry fly, it seems even a 6x tippet or the slightest of water disturbance can alert them.

Many average sized fish like this were caught, with a few larger

The fly of the month for us has been the Bubble Caddis Emerger. I just started tying and fishing this fly and I have to say, so far it hands down beats fishing a more typical elk hair caddis. The fish here seem to prefer it and it’s nice that it can be fished both as a dry or an emerger.

3. At least some of the stories about clowns on this river are true

Ah yes and then there’s the clowns. I’ll start by saying that in the countless times I’ve fished the Grand in the past, I’ve been lucky enough to avoid them. I’m sure it’s not as bad as people say, certainly nothing like the real circus found on the lower sections of some rivers during a good steelhead run. Nevertheless, a couple hours into fishing one morning, we ran across one such person.

We were fishing a productive stretch of water and started working the water directly in front of us. We were carefully covering all of the water, working out towards the other (deeper) side of the pool which seemed to be holding some better fish. We noticed a person enter the river downstream, dressed entirely in black. He stood around for a minute or two after which he crossed to the other side of the river and began stomping upstream with rod in hand. We weren’t quite sure what to make of him – it was hard to see from a distance, but he certainly wasn’t wearing your typical fishing gear. It was a cold morning and he was dressed in long, plain black cloth. He literally walked right into the pool we were so anxiously working towards, no more than 40 feet away from us and began casting across the river directly into the water we were fishing.

It’s a good thing I was in too good of a mood (and am generally too nice a person) to say anything, because I have honestly never seen anyone be so rude or bold on a river in my life. He made casts that were no more than a few feet from our drifts. Eventually he moved on upstream, while we were left to ponder what just happened and deal with the fact that he just spooked every fish in the river.

Thankfully, you shouldn’t expect to see this stuff too often and it was already later in the morning. One more plus for early mornings on the river though: increased chance of avoiding situations like this one.

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