The May long weekend saw me taking a last minute trip to the Lake Superior Park interior for four days of paddling and trout fishing. Work had been unusually busy, which both delayed and shortened my spring backcountry trip plans. What’s usually a month of planning for up to ten days in the backcountry was condensed into about two days of rushed planning, packing, and a 9.5-hour drive north to a hastily chosen destination. I forgot some food and gear at home and was very low on sleep, needing to adjust my plans once again at the eleventh hour.

I’ll save the details of this trip for another post, but aside from the horrendous black flies and difficult portages, it was a good time, with some excellent fishing, scenery and solitude.

Green Drake Hatch

Not long after returning from Lake Superior, I was surprised to find out that the Green Drake hatch on the Credit had started extra early this year. It hadn’t even been on my mind, but in retrospect, it makes complete sense with the short (i.e. non-existent) winter we had. This is also why the black flies were so bad on my trip, when I had tripped at the same time last year (further south even) without any bugs.

I spent two nights of the green drake hatch on the river, but only for about an hour before and after dark each night. There were good numbers of drakes, along with a few intermixed grey foxes and a very thick sulphur hatch on the second evening. On both nights, there was a flurry of rising fish, but with my limited time and fly selection (I wasn’t prepared for the hatch to come so early), I failed to bring any large fish to the net. Or, that’s my excuse anyway. I think they were mostly feeding on emerging duns, which I had no suitable presentations for.

Between the two nights, we managed just a few smaller fish. Still, it’s always great to catch the drake hatch, with both the insects and rising fish a wonder to behold. It really gets me fired up to get out there and catch the hatches more often.

Float Trip From Hell

Speaking of drakes, that brings me to last weekend’s events. It was our first float trip of the year on a large southern Ontario river. Running late as usual, I quickly dug my pontoon boat out of winter storage, assembled it and threw it and all my fly fishing gear in the truck before heading out for the roughly 2 hour drive to the river.

After dropping one vehicle off at the take-out point and getting the boats loaded up, we set off from our access point and were instantly reminded of the tranquility that floating down a scenic river in a pontoon boat brings.

We’ve done countless trips in our pontoons and have yet to experience any real mishaps with them. Though, I suppose there was that time I snapped my 6 weight sage rod, after getting it caught up in some weeds while padding a lake a few years ago. But I digress – these drifts are almost always without drama. Still, as innocent and peaceful as they can be, it’s wise to remember that there are still many things that can go wrong – as we were soon to be reminded.

We happily floated down river, stopping to fish some of the nicer pools along the way. Insect activity was fairly low, but it was still early. We saw small numbers of Grey Foxes and Stoneflies, which eventually gave way to a lot of caddis and an absolute smothering of Brown Drakes at the end of the night (more on that later).

Steve (the other Steve I was with, not me) missed a decent fish or two in the first pool. There weren’t any visible rising fish, other than maybe one or two at our last stop for the evening, where we’d fish until just past dark. We split the river here, fishing from opposite banks on a fairly wide section of river with many nice runs and pools in it.

Since the light was fading and there was some fairly turbulent water here, I decided to fish a large stonefly, which we’d seen a few of earlier. I figured, it’d be easier for both me and the fish to see. That turned out to be a good decision, as I hooked into a nice brown within the first couple minutes here. It pulled hard on my 6 weight, leading me to believe it was bigger than it really was. It still turned out to be a nice chunky brown, but not quite the tank I first imagined.

Soon after releasing this fish, I spotted a large beaver swimming upriver towards me. It seemed fairly territorial and had no real fear of me. At one point it disappeared only to re-surface about 6 feet in front of me, without an ounce of hesitation or surprise.

We continued fishing until dark, but insect activity was decreasing rapidly as the temperature plummeted and winds picked up. This is generally the sort of weather that spells the end of good fishing, as it’s usually the warmer evenings that have some hatches going at or slightly after dark. We were sure this wasn’t the case tonight with the change in weather, so headed back to our boats to finish the kilometer or more of river we had left to float, in the dark.

We know this section of river well and we’ve floated it countless times in the dark. The river was higher and more pushy than normal though. We donned our boat lights and started out with an uneventful float. As we approached some slower frog water, we surprisingly started to see a flurry of insect activity. There were lots of caddis, but more surprisingly, there were hordes of giant mayflies, which turned out to be Brown Drakes.

Just like the presence of Green Drakes on the Credit, I wasn’t expecting Brown Drakes so early (or on such a cool evening after dark), but again, all bets are off with this year’s weather patterns. It seems like almost every hatch on the rivers are overlapping at the same time this year. Anyway, there were LOTS of Brown Drakes on the water. If you aren’t familiar with them, they’re also a very large mayfly, close to the size of the Green Drakes (ranging between size 8-10).

Steve and I were like two kids in a candy store as we glanced at the water while slowly continuing to drift downriver, paying little attention to the rest of our surroundings. This is when things started to spiral out of control.

Strike One

We were trying to capture some of the drakes on the water – and as I reached forward while sitting on my pontoon seat, I managed to slip off and plunge into a fairly deep section of river. I went in up to my chest, filling my waist-high Patagonia waders and soaking my wallet and other items in my pockets. I scrambled to get back in the boat as I couldn’t really touch ground.

Thankfully, other than getting soaked and cold, no real harm came of this. I shook it off, gathered my composure and still managed to snag a drake from the surface to observe and photograph.

Strike Two

We sort of laughed off my swim and continued downriver. Not shortly after this though, I heard Steve yelling and turned around to see him trying to save his fly rod that had got caught in a tree while drifting too close to it. That’s no joke in the fast moving waters and in the dark, but thankfully, another disaster was averted as he saved the rod. Once again, a close call, but no harm was done.

Strike Three

After waiting for Steve to free his rod and catch back up, he quickly (and unintentionally) passed me. His pontoon is the frameless type – an Outcast Stealth Pro. Dare I say, that boat is his pride and joy. It’s also very fast compared to my steel-framed Outcast Fish Cat XL-IR. So, he tends to ride ahead of me as a result.

I was putting my phone away at this point, after using it to photograph the above brown drake (yes, it has a decent macro camera!). I’d stashed the phone in my top shirt pocket, then quickly grabbed the oars as the boat was turning sideways through some fairly fast moving water. As I rowed to right the boat, I heard a loud “ka-plunk“. It took me a second to register that sound, then began wondering what it could have been. I looked all around, wondering if perhaps I had something on my lap that fell in. My panic increased as I imagined something important (but still unsure what it could be) falling into the dark depths of the river. As I was looking down, I noticed the zipper of my top shirt pocket unzipped – and EMPTY!!

My heart sank, as I realized that my $1500 phone just sank to the bottom of the river, in the pitch dark! I was at least 50 meters downstream of where it would have fallen in already and I began to frantically back paddle, to no avail. The river was very fast in this spot and there was no way to make upstream progress. Not knowing what else to do as more distance continued to add up between me and the point of entry, I foolishly jumped off my boat – thankfully this time, into water that was shallow enough to stand in. I put my headlamp on high beam and began dragging my pontoon back upstream, in the middle of the river. Deep down I knew that I had almost no hope of finding my phone, which was at least 100 meters or more upstream, in some unknown location at the bottom of the river. I could only hope that the river depth would hold and that the phone would be sitting on the bottom in such a way that my headlamp’s light might reveal its reflection.

Miraculously, for the third time this evening, I was thrown a bone. I managed to walk upstream far enough, get lucky enough to have a near perfect lie of my phone and shine my light in just the right location to see it sitting at the bottom of the river in about three feet of water. I reached down to grab it, submerging the rest of my upper body that hadn’t yet been soaked from the previous dump. The phone (Pixel 7 Pro) is waterproof and other than a warning about water in the USB port, was back in hand, unscathed and working!

Three Strikes and You’re Out?

I thought that’s how the saying goes – three strikes and you’re out. Somehow, we were still going though. We certainly weren’t laughing, but we were floored by how many chances we’d been given thus far. The river seemed to be teaching us some real lessons, that’s for sure.

I could only imagine what Steve was thinking at this point. I’d been screaming, but he was way too far downstream to know what was going on. When I finally caught back up to him and explained the situation, he could only share in the disbelief in how we’d been so unlucky (and lucky) tonight.

We were only a couple bends way from our exit point now, which we managed to carefully float back to without any more mishaps. I was freezing and soaked, but had my phone. Steve had his rod. We were in one piece!

We followed our usual routine from here, which is to first carry my (heavier) boat up to my truck and load it in the back. Then we carried Steve’s lighter boat and loaded it on top of my boat, strapping both boats to the truck with some tie down straps. We’ve done this countless times over the last couple of years and have always felt confident about the setup. It’s only a few short, quiet kilometers of travel back to the start point where Steve’s truck is parked.

However, on this particular night, something felt different. That difference was obviously all of the events that transpired earlier, but it was also fairly windy. It felt like a storm was brewing and there was an ominous feeling in the air. So, I was extra careful and made sure the boats were tied down well and that we definitely had all our gear loaded up. I drove slower than usual this time, trying to keep an eye on the back of the truck, to make sure everything stayed put. Again, I don’t usually have a care in the world when doing this.

It was pitch dark and difficult to see through the back tinted glass. As we drove slowly on the quiet highway back to the access, I thought I heard something from the back. I asked Steve to check if everything looked alright back there. We both looked, but neither of us could really see well enough to verify. I had a bad feeling, so pulled the truck over onto the shoulder. I opened the back sliding window and that bad feeling started to get worse – almost panic again. I quickly got out of the truck to check the truck bed – and Steve’s boat was GONE! It literally was no longer in the back of the truck and we couldn’t see it on the road behind us!

I’m not sure what felt worse for me at this point – seeing my $1500 phone go missing, or seeing Steve’s even more expensive boat disappear from the back of my truck. Both were intense, that’s all I can say, but Steve’s boat probably took the cake. I think we both had visions of a car or truck running it over (which would have been bad for both parties!) or it being completely mangled. I jumped in the truck and quickly made my way back up the road, being careful to not hit it myself! I was pretty far back and we were lucky enough that no vehicles had driven by yet. We spotted the boat sitting almost perfectly on the shoulder of the road, off the road itself – albeit upside down. It looked to be in one piece and upon further inspection, indeed it was. There was a busted GoPro mount and some serious beating done to a Scotty arm mount – which seemed to have absorbed a lot of the impact and lived to tell the tale! One of the front corners of the boat also looked like it hit the road and had a pretty good scuff mark, but nothing through to the inflatable pontoons thankfully.

The strap that I’d tied the boat down with tore right off his boat. I guess a big gust of wind must have lifted the boat like a sail and just snapped it off instantly. Steve was either faking things really well, or just happy to see his boat was not completely trashed. Either way, he was taking it extremely well. We gathered his seat and a couple other things that had gone flying and ended up in the middle of the road. At one point, another truck pulled over after passing by to make sure everything was ok.

This was our fourth mishap of the night and they seemed to be getting progressively worse. Needless to say, we were extremely cautious from this point on. We got ourselves sorted, tied his boat down again (this time much more reliably) and I proceed to crawl the truck back to the access. We unwound and packed everything away before convincing each to be extremely cautious on the long ride home, given all that had unfolded today. Thankfully, we did indeed make it back home safe and sound – me still damp but with my phone – Steve with his boat in one piece but a little more “used”.

They say that the vast majority of car accidents happen within 10 miles of one’s home. I managed to travel 10 hours to the middle of the Lake Superior backcountry, paddle across frigid deep lakes, sleep in a hammock in bear country, portage with 150lb of gear through mud and over hills so large that they could easily be called mountains and come out with far less scrapes than this seemingly routine and simple float down a local southern Ontario river. Other than thanking my lucky stars and being grateful that things turned out the way they did, I’m going to take the lesson mother nature gave us to heart – which is to slow down, think twice (or thrice) and never get too comfortable or complacent.

The post Debacles After Dark appeared first on Caffeinated Fly Fisher.

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.

The weather hasn’t exactly been ideal for mayfly hatches this season, though it’s given us some really nice water levels going into the end of spring. We did get a good run of weather in time for the drake hatch though, which started promptly on the first day of June. A number of anglers and “bug watchers” were out eagerly awaiting the beginning of the hatch and all saw good numbers of Green Drake duns that evening.

A Green Drake dun from the beginning of the 2017 hatch on the Credit River.

Compared to last year, the duns seemed fairly small on average, though the trout weren’t overly concerned about it. The pool I was fishing had several Browns interested in the emerging duns, more than can be said for most of the remainder of the hatch.

Typically the spinner (Coffin Fly) is what really gets the fish excited – and although it was too early to expect spinners, I’d tied only a single Green Drake dun for our evening fish. I brought a friend along, hoping to get him into a nice Credit River Brown. We sat for a while and simply observed, until some fish began rising in a foam patch at the back of the pool. When the rises became regular, I tied on the only dun I had and carefully placed several casts across the pool into the foam. It didn’t take long before hooking into a nice mid-sized brown that eagerly inhaled the size 8 extended body fly.

A good looking Credit River Brown Trout taken on a Green Drake Dun at the start of the hatch.

In hindsight, I should have let Ryan take the first casts, as we failed to fool any more trout for the remainder of the night (except on nymphs). Mind you, we only fished a small piece of water and had limited time before the sun went down.

A small Brown that took a Green Drake nymph.

Along with the drakes were a good amount of foxes, increasing in number as the sun faded. It’s possible the trout were more interested in the foxes, but I didn’t have any such flies with enough weight to penetrate the foam where the browns were rising.

Grey Foxes were thick for most of the drake hatch (and beyond).

When the sun did finally set and only the very odd rise could be seen at the back of the pool (and when we gave up trying to convince them to take a drake or fox imitation), I decided to try a large mouse(like) fly before calling it a night. I wasn’t expecting anything, but since there were some trout obviously looking up, I thought I’d give it a try just in case.

Well, a few casts in, as our eyes were still adjusting to the dark, a huge fish came right out of the water in the corner of the pool for my fly. In the light, the shape appeared to be that of a brown… only, it was huge… close to 30 inches was my guess. We both freaked out, thinking it was the biggest brown of our lives.

Unfortunately, if history teaches me anything about this river, it’s that when I think I’ve hooked a 30″ brown, it’s probably a Pike. This held true once again as I managed to land the fish on my 4 weight.

Another unfortunate catch on the upper Credit, briefly mistaken for a huge trout.

The next evening was similar to the first, with a large number of Green Drake duns and a few spinners later on. However, fishing was much tougher, with only a couple smaller fish hooked on a fox dry. Not many risers and much less interest both my duns and spinners. Apparently the peak activity was earlier (before 6:30 pm, which is when I arrived at the river), so perhaps I missed the better window.

A coffin fly (spinner) from the second night of the hatch.

I fished a couple more times over the next week and witnessed a couple fairly thick spinner falls, both of which started extremely late and didn’t bring any large fish to the net. It wasn’t until last Thursday, when only a few straggler spinners were left kicking around, that I hooked two more chunky, colorful browns. I caught the browns back to back blindly fishing a spinner imitation on a nice run. Considering the lack of activity, I was only half-heartedly casting and not expecting the catches – so didn’t have my camera ready. It just goes to show you though: even when trout aren’t actively rising, if there were recently big bugs on the river, short-term memory may very well be enough to trigger a strike from a decent fish.

Although the fishing wasn’t quite up to par with last year, the Green Drakes certainly made another decent appearance and it seems that they have indeed made somewhat of a comeback on the upper Credit. Unfortunately though, this is true for only a small section of the river – with the West branch still almost completely devoid of them. I suppose there’s still hope that other sections of the river may also slowly recover their populations.

Over the course of the hatch, in addition to the regular folks, I met a few new people on the river as well, including a couple friendly guys (Simon and Paul) who recognized me from the blog. It’s always great meeting like-minded anglers on the river and putting faces to names. Simon was fishing a pretty sweet setup too (the same rod and reel as me, up one weight)

From here on out, we have Isonychia and Stoneflies to look forward too, as well as some night fishing as the weather continues to warm into the summer.

The post Green Drake Hatch, 2017 appeared first on Caffeinated Fly Fisher.

Early spring was largely spent pursuing brook trout on small, quiet streams. The MNR dumped an undisclosed number of adult/broodstock Atlantic Salmon into the upper Credit this year, including some previously brook trout only sections of river. This drew an unprecedented number of new anglers to the river – some with good intentions and others, not so much. The fact that these fish were dumped into some of the smaller brookie-only waters (which were already sensitive to over-fishing and predation) had me pretty unhappy about the state of things on the Credit, so I stayed clear of that area for a while.

A small stream brook trout from early season.

I never get sick of the colors on these fish.

When I did return to fish the brookie-only section of the Credit where the Atlantics were dumped, what I found were far less brookies and instead, a bunch of atlantics and a few rainbows. The rainbows were quite unexpected as I had rarely seen them in this section of river before. I’m not sure how to explain that. My normal fish catches in this section of river from years past were something like: brookies 96%, rainbows 2%, browns 2%. This year’s visit yielded me more atlantics and rainbows than brookies. I hope I was just unlucky…

One of a couple unexpected catches in primarily brookie-only water on the Credit

There’s been no lack of rain this spring and it’s kept our rivers in a constant struggle to stabilize themselves. Whenever it seemed they were just about ready to settle down, we’d get dumped on again and start all over. This is to be expected in spring, but it did have an impact on the early insect hatches. Hendricksons in particular were not nearly as successful (from a fishing standpoint) as last year due to all the rain and corresponding temperature fluctuations.

Water level graph for the upper Credit River this spring.

As you can see by the graph above, water levels on the upper Credit have been all over the place (the blue dotted line is the average). There have been some opportunities for dry fly fishing amidst this, but there’s also been lots of opportunities for throwing big streamers. This is something that can be both a blessing and a curse.

On the plus side, big streamers catch big fish. But on the negative side, well… big streamers only catch big fish. Actually, there are rare cases where this isn’t true, but for the most part we can ignore that.

A large articulated streamer that was lost to a log jam shortly after being tied

High, off-colored water is a perfect excuse to fish big streamers and if you cover enough quality water, you’re more than likely to move some huge trout. This was the case for me, as I elicited strikes from at least a dozen large trout over several days of streamer fishing – some subtle and some extremely violent and rod bending. Unfortunately though, in all cases, I failed to hook up with the fish. One particular strike that occurred just as the fly hit the water at the back of a very big pool still haunts me daily. That fish moved more water than any I can ever recall.

My failure to hook up with fish was a stark difference from last season when I missed very few strikes on big streamers. I’ve been toying with which hook to cut off on my articulated streamers this year, leaning more towards keeping the front hook (whereas last year I was fishing the back hook). I’m not sure if this played a part, or if it was bad luck or my own error, but I accepted it as part of the challenge and risk of this type of fishing.

When the rivers were tame and fishing normally, I was back to my old ways, stalking wild trout with more delicacy and matching the hatch. Despite being ashamed that the biggest fish I caught this season so far was a hatchery-raised atlantic, I’ve certainly also caught a few memorable brown trout.

One in particular was during a recent Grey Fox hatch while fishing with a friend. There was a single trout rising in a pool we were fishing, in a slow pocket at the back of the pool. In between us and the pocket was a lot of very fast moving water, which made presenting a dry fly nearly impossible (for more than a split second). I decided to move a good distance up above the pool, putting several other pockets and an overhanging tree in between me and the fish. There was a current seam from this position, that, with some patience and many mends, could deliver my fly along the insect escalator, under the tree to the feeding fish. I managed to deliver a perfect drift over the fish and it inhaled the fly with a convincing take.

Not very big, but a beautiful Credit River brown trout and a memorable one nonetheless.

A nice Credit River brown taken on a technical Grey Fox drift.

Grey Foxes have been fairly prevalent this year on the Credit.

When the fish and bugs were inactive, going sub-surface with nymphs also yielded a few decent browns.

An otherwise handsome Credit River brown with some battle wounds.

Another medium sized plump brown taken on a nymph.

It’s good to see the river in relatively good health as of late and somewhat refreshing to be catching smaller fish and seeing lots of insect activity. The Grey Foxes are still going strong. They seem to be quite prolific this year, more so than I remember in past years (but perhaps I just missed them). Even more exciting though is the insect that overlaps the foxes and has been underway for a few days now on the Credit… the Green Drake. I’ll post more on these when the hatch is complete –  and hopefully they’ll stick around for a bit longer. With all the rain and storms we’re expected to get in the coming days, I’d hate that to result in a short-lived (and barely fished) Green Drake hatch.

The post Catching Up appeared first on Caffeinated Fly Fisher.

Since the Green Drakes in early June, I’ve been back to the Credit just a handful of times to fish for browns. I went into lots of detail about the Green Drake hatches in my last post, so I won’t reiterate that here. However, I did manage to fool one more nice brown on a Green Drake spinner during the tail end of that hatch. It was a stronger, heavier and more colorful fish than the previous ones I’d caught during the hatch – and it put a nice bend in my 4 weight.

A large Brown Trout from the tail end of the Green Drake hatches on the Credit River

Speaking of my 4 weight… I managed to break it last month while fishing the Credit. I was never particularly gentle with the rod (Hardy Zenith #4) and I suspect it may have suffered some prior damage where it broke. It’s been sent back to Hardy for repairs and I’m hoping it won’t take too long to return, as I’m left to fish with a 7′ #3 and 9′ #6, neither of which I’m overly fond of for brown trout on the medium sized rivers I fish.

When I caught the above fish, the Drakes had thinned out considerably. There were a few still kicking around that evening and some big fish (like the one above) were still keying in on them, but it was the last I would see of the Drakes for 2016.

A Coffin Fly from the end of the Green Drake hatch

Gray Foxes provided some opportunities when the Drakes were less active. During one such window of heavy Gray Fox activity intermixed with some of the larger insects, I tied on a very old Gray Fox dry fly that a friend of my Dad tied for me back when I first started fly fishing. It had barely been fished and was still in great shape – and while the hook seemed sharp after all those years, I managed to pull it out of the jaws of another large trout that it fooled and momentarily hooked.

A Gray Fox Dun, from a short-lived but thick hatch that brought up a few fish

By mid-June, temperatures had risen and there was much less insect activity on the water. We were in between hatches on the Credit and although I was hoping for Isonychia, a small to moderate number of large stoneflies were the main morsels that were now providing opportunity for feeding trout.

A large stonefly from the Credit River

On the evening I broke my 4 weight, after walking back to my car to exchange the broken rod with my 3 weight, I fished back down through some water that failed to produce even a sign of fish earlier. In typical fashion, as daylight faded, water that was seemingly devoid of trout hours before suddenly gave way to rising fish. The brown below took a size 8 stonefly dry from such a spot just before calling it a night – giving me at least one memory other than a broken rod to leave the river with.

A Brown Trout taken on a size 8 stonefly dry just before dark

A few days later, I returned to the same location with my trusty 3 weight and had a similarly quiet evening of fishing with little bug activity. In an attempt to salvage the outing, I decided to chuck some large streamers (because, that’s what 3 weights are made for, right?) through a big pool that failed to produce any fish on the previous trip. After casting downstream and across didn’t work, I switched to casting upstream and stripping down to fish the streamer deeper. The result was another hefty Credit River brown with a heavily damaged jaw – but otherwise beautiful.

Credit River Brown Trout with damaged jaw

I haven’t been back to the Credit since the heat wave and severe lack of rain moved in, though I did night fish the Grand for the first time a couple weeks ago with a friend, where I caught an unexpected Walleye (apparently they are quite common on the Upper Grand) and a 17″ Brown. I’m planning to head to the Credit tomorrow for a night fish as well, which I imagine should be fairly productive given the warm days we’ve been having.

The post Browns ‘N Bugs appeared first on Caffeinated Fly Fisher.

Of course, I’m referring to mayflies here, the Green Drake specifically. If you fly fish the upper Credit River, you probably know that the Green Drake has been going through a rough time. Once a prolific and highly anticipated mayfly hatch on the Credit, it underwent a rapid decline in the past couple decades and had all but disappeared. Dr. Henry Frania, an entomologist with the Royal Ontario Museum, has been studying the Green Drake issues for many years and rather than reiterate his findings, you’re better off Googling it yourself. Essentially, it had been found likely that the nymphs were dying due to ingestion of a toxic substance (chemical or organic). As a result, very few nymphs were reaching the adult stage, leading to the Green Drake being (for the most part) functionally extinct on most of the Credit River.

Fast forward to 2016 where (as I indicated in my previous post) the season started with some of the heaviest Hendrickson hatches seen in years. Blue Winged Olives were also in good numbers, followed by Sulphurs, Yellow Sallies and Gray Foxes. Next up was the infamous and ever-absent Green Drake. I was told they made a half decent showing in 2015 (relatively speaking), although I managed to miss them entirely. In serious need of a break from work and feeling optimistic with the number of bugs so far this year, I took a few days off in hopes of witnessing some of these giant mayflies. As it turned out, the weather and timing were perfect and I was able to spend three evenings among what was possibly the largest showing of Green Drakes since their decline many years ago.

A slightly beat-up Green Drake Dun from the Upper Credit River

In the 12 years I’ve been living in the area and fly fishing the Credit, it was the first time I was able to truly experience what a real Green Drake hatch is like on this river. Many long-time veterans to the river (who are all too familiar with the careless behavior these big bugs bring about in large trout) were also there to partake in the action, along with a number of others there simply to observe and take notes (Dr. Frania included).

When I arrived Wednesday evening around 5:30 pm, it was clear, sunny and warm, with a few Yellow Sally stoneflies fluttering about. Still too early to expect any major bug activity, I tied on a yellow sally and casually fished upstream, keeping an eye out for signs of Green Drakes. In about an hour and a half of fishing, I caught a couple small browns and a slew of another fish that I imagine many unknowing fishermen believe to be tiny browns: stocked Atlantics. Fishing smaller water for average sized trout has become extremely difficult on the Credit due to these fish… when there’s not a larger trout to chase them away, they simply  take over the river, virtually eliminating any chance of catching a wild brown or brook trout. They’re also twice as aggressive (and dumb) as the wild fish, meaning they’re usually the first to jump at a potential meal.

Around 7:00 pm, I peered up into the trees and noticed a good number of large mayflies fluttering about, still fairly high up but slowly making their way down. They seemed far too large to be Gray Foxes and I was hopeful they were the Drakes I’d been waiting for.

Large mayflies that appeared to be Green Drakes spotted in the trees overhead

Less than 5 minutes later, they began descending rapidly towards the river and I confirmed that they were indeed Green Drakes. They were spinners in fact – and there were lots of them! The duns would have emerged a day or two prior and it meant there was a good chance for some hungry browns to come out from hiding.

Green Drake spinner (a.k.a. Coffin Fly) descending onto the Credit

Thankfully, I opted to skip the Dun imitations and instead tied a few spinners earlier that day. They seemed to be a decent match to the bugs I was seeing.

Green Drake spinner imitation, tied earlier that day

As most fly fishermen know, even when the stars align, the conditions are just right and the fish are rising – it’s still never a free ride. You need to work for your fish and you have a limited time window to do so. The urge to rush should be resisted – it’s best to observe and be patient before making hasty casts. Fooling a large wild brown trout on a dry fly is no simple task, even when they have Green Drake tunnel vision.

Such was the case as I fished to a pool of trout rising to these large mayflies. My first fish was easily the largest of the night (and of the season so far). I watched it rise violently under a large overhanging tree branch… the type of continuous rises that I have very rarely seen the likes of. After several such rises in the same location, I carefully placed a cast a couple meters upstream and watched in anticipation as my coffin fly imitation floated over the target zone. The rise was even more violent than the previous ones as it leapt a foot out of the water with my fly. It was a large, dark fish, but sadly it was a short-lived battle that I lost as it thrashed back and forth while performing another aerial acrobatic.

Thankfully, it didn’t take long for another fish in the pool to forget about the alarms and dangers it had just witnessed and it graciously took the same fly. This time a smaller fish, around 12″, but satisfying nonetheless.

My first Brown Trout caught (and landed) on a Green Drake Spinner

The drakes were fairly constant from about 7:00 pm until past dark, along with a fair number of duns that I spotted emerging. The spinners were bouncing all over the water, depositing their eggs on the surface. I became fixated on another large fish that was rising but simply was not interested in my spinner. I’d noticed a few duns coming off in the vicinity and while I didn’t have any dry fly duns, I did have a couple Green Drake wet flies that I decided to try. It was to no avail however as the fish eventually suspected my shenanigans and was put down.

I had another fish snub my fly at the last second and I pulled the hook out of one more before finally hooking into a better fish. It wasn’t as large as the first brown that I lost, but it was a good size and very healthy and strong. It’s hard to beat catching wild browns like this on a dry fly. On that note, someone please remind me why we’re stocking millions of 3-4″ atlantics that will either die or at best make it out to the lake then die (and never contribute to the upper river fishery), when we have wild browns like this in the river?

A nice, clean 16-17″ wild Brown Trout caught on a spinner

This was my last fish of the night, but I stuck around for a while to film some of the drakes and rising fish. With two days of vacation still remaining, I left the river content, having experienced what I hoped to. The drakes were very thick at times, so much so that a few even bounced off my fly rod while I was casting – a feeling that was similar to casting a bead-head streamer and having it clip my rod.

The resurgence of the Green Drakes this year has certainly been encouraging and it makes one wonder whether mother nature has begun sorting out the issues that plagued these insects for years past. As great as it is to see the bugs making a bit of a comeback though, it’s not all silver lining. There are still sections of the river that remain devoid of the Green Drake, where it was once abundant. There’s also other ongoing threats, such as declining native Brook Trout numbers, over saturation of the river with stocked Atlantic Salmon and MNR imposed threats to the remaining wild Brown Trout. For now though, I think this is one win that’s worth celebrating.

The post Return of the Drake appeared first on Caffeinated Fly Fisher.

I spent my Labour Day with a bit of a change in scenery, opting to fish the Brook Trout water above the Cataract on the Credit. I’m usually hesitant to give specifics about where I fish, for good reasons. However, I think in some cases, secrecy and tight lips can lead to lack of awareness about issues. This is water that has been in a state of decline for the last decade or so and only more recently are these issues coming into the foreground. There are definitely still healthy Brook Trout here, but in much smaller numbers and generally  in smaller sizes as well, especially at the more easily accessible locations. Catch & Release and barbless hooks are more important than ever here.

I fished a long stretch of this section Monday and caught mostly tiny brookies, in the 4″ range. This is water that, not many years ago, was teeming with brookies in the 8-10″ range, some larger. It wasn’t until I made my way much further downstream, around dusk, that a fairly thick hatch of some (unidentified) large mayflies got things going. I assume the bugs were either Isonychia or Hexagenia atrocaudata (Late Hex). I tied on the largest fly I had in my box, a size #8 Robert’s Drake. I cast it upstream into the corner of a back eddy where a large amount of foam was accumulating and this fish smashed it as it hit the water.

A nice Brook Trout taken on a large drake at dusk

It’s encouraging to know that this water still holds some good sized Brook Trout, probably much larger than the one above (which was easily over 12″). However, it’s still very concerning seeing how much of a decline the water has seen in recent years.

Near the access point, I ran across a very interesting fellow who had entered the river behind me, wearing waders and carrying a milk crate filled with ‘stuff’, but not carrying a fishing rod. It turns out, he was an entomologist  by the name of Henry Frania, who was doing some experiments related to the Green Drake disappearances on the Credit River. I recognized the name, as I’ve read some of his papers in the past on this subject. He’s been involved in this research for nearly 10 years and he had a whole bunch of interesting and concerning facts to share.

One obvious bit that stands out to me, which I have said before, is that none of these issues have anything to do with the presence of Brown Trout. There are simply no Brown Trout above the Cataract and there have been upwards of an 80% reduction in fish numbers there, as well as numerous insect disappearances. Wake up MNR… let’s solve the real issues before deciding to remove the Brown Trout and destroy what’s left of this great fishery.

The post (Un)Happy September appeared first on Caffeinated Fly Fisher.

Details on the working proposal can be found here. Apparently, the MNR will be going public with this at some point for broader feedback. When they do, I sincerely hope they get lots of eyes and feedback on these changes, especially from those with intimate knowledge of the river. My main beef with the plan as it stands is the proposal of removing current catch-and-release regulations for Brown Trout on the upper section of this river. They want to allow (and encourage) harvesting of Browns of any size from this excellent and one-of-a-kind fishery. The thought of even considering this change is painful in so many ways… I simply can’t understand the justification.

Looking downstream on the main branch of the Forks of the Credit River

Obviously, promises of reintroducing fish specifies that were once native to the area and have long been extirpated (Atlantic Salmon) or are currently threatened (Brook Trout) is something that any unknowing conservation-minded person might back. Likewise, it’s probably something many tax payers wouldn’t mind knowing their tax dollars are going towards. However, I wonder if that would be the case if they knew the whole story and the history behind it all.

As far as Brook Trout are concerned, I think everyone is right to be disheartened at the declining numbers in the Credit River over the last decade and more. I’ve only lived in and fished the area for about 10 years and even in that short time I have noticed a fairly considerable decline in their numbers. How much of this is REALLY related to Brown Trout though?

If you aren’t familiar with the Credit, the Cataract falls separate two very distinct sections of river. Below the falls (on the main branch), Brown Trout are the primary species, whereas the section above the falls is a purely Brook Trout fishery. If Brown Trout are largely to blame for the decline of the Brookies, why is it that above Cataract the Brookies have been steadily declining, with no pressure from Brown Trout? Just because some research shows that Brown Trout compete with Brook Trout, why jump to the conclusion that removing the treasured Brown Trout that draws most anglers to this river is the solution? I’ll tell you why… it’s because they don’t want any of their precious stocked Atlantic Salmon parr

As for the Atlantic Salmon, the long and short of it is that they completely disappeared from Lake Ontario in the 1800’s. Since then, efforts have been ongoing to attempt to reintroduce them, more recently with the Credit River receiving millions of stocked Atlantics. As a migratory fish, the success of the project can be measured by tagging and counting the number of fish that mature and re-enter their home rivers to spawn after reaching adulthood. While numbers of returning fish are not generally shared, most of those with inside knowledge suggest the numbers of returning adults to be shockingly low – low as in not even a fraction of a fraction of a percent. I’m certainly not most knowledgeable person to back this information, so I suggest you do some Googling and research of your own. In fact, this forum post is as good a start as any: http://www.spoonpullers.com/forums/index.php?topic=19871.0.

Here is some interesting background:

1. Brown Trout were initially stocked into Ontario rivers in the early 1900’s for their allure among anglers and their tolerance to the warming and more polluted waters. They were last stocked in the upper Credit River in the early 1960’s and have since been self-sustaining and completely wild.
2. Brown Trout and Brook Trout successfully co-inhabit the same sections of many other similar rivers in North America. A prime example being the Au Sable River in Grayling, MI – where I frequently catch Brown, Brook and Rainbow trout on the same stretch of water.
3. Of the trout species that inhabit Ontario rivers, Brook Trout are the most susceptible to water temperature and quality changes.
4. Water temperatures have been steadily increasing and recent monitoring has shown dangerously warm (for Brook Trout) temps on the Credit River in recent years. See this background reading from CVC.
5. In recent years, previously abundant populations of mayfly species such as the Green Drake and Blue Winged Olive have nearly disappeared from the upper Credit River, suspected to be caused by temperature and/or water pollution (or their combined effects).
6. Despite stocking of millions of young Atlantic Salmon into Lake Ontario tributaries for years (the Credit River receiving the bulk of this), there continues to be little to no success.

I’m sure I’ve missed some important points, but it’s easy to see that there are a lot of factors at work here and killing off the Brown Trout in the limited section of water they current inhabit on the Credit River is not going to solve any problems. On the contrary, I feel it will unnecessarily destroy one of the last blue ribbon wild resident trout fisheries in Southern Ontario.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t try to improve things. Obviously something should be done about water quality and temperature increases on the Credit and I can say first hand that there is not nearly enough restoration going on today. The Au Sable is yet another great example of how much of a difference conservation alone can make in improving water quality. Why not invest more money and start there? Restore Brook Trout populations above the Cataract, in tributaries such as Silver and Black Creek and perhaps on the West Credit before killing the Brown Trout fishery on the main branch.

Finally, I’m no biologist and I couldn’t possibly claim to have the solution to the Atlantic problem. All I can say is: given the success to date, is it really worth sacrificing existing wild and sustainable fisheries for the slim chance that it could make the difference and turn this currently failing program around? Does the Credit River really need to keep being the test tube for Lake Ontario? Give it a break…

The post Credit River Regulations Changes appeared first on Caffeinated Fly Fisher.