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.

Abnormally clear, low water on the Grand River.

Unlike me, I kicked off the season with a steelhead trip to the Beaver river.  We brought along local guide Nick Groves to show us the ropes on this unfamiliar river and share some of his steelhead knowledge and tactics.  Nick, being a Winston pro staffer, also brought along a couple Boron III switch rods for us to use.  I’m completely new to the world of two handed rods and these were a lot of fun to fish.  When I think of two handed rods, I immediately think of swinging streamers or wet flies.  However, Nick is a nymph fisherman through and through and as such, that’s what we stuck to for most of the day.  It was interesting to experience how much easier (once you get the hang of it) it is to cast these rods compared to 10′ single handers.  On top of that, mending line and controlling a drift at much longer distances becomes a lot easier with the added length.

Ryan drifting nymphs, searching for steelhead on the Beaver River opening weekend.

After waking pre-5 am, driving for nearly two hours and stopping for an early Timmies breakfast, we were on the river shortly after 7 am.  I was thankful for bringing along my gloves as it was cold (both air and water).  We covered a lot of water on a few different sections throughout the day, but the combination of colder than normal temps and general lack of fish made things difficult.  I was the only one to hook into a fish, but proceeded to lose it from both lack of readiness and also from fumbling around with my (heavier than I’m used to) 11′ rod.  We met a couple guys that did get into a fish or two, but most people seemed to be sharing our limited success.  This wasn’t a disappointment by any means however, as we had very realistic expectations going into this.  We had a good time, explored a lot of really nice looking water throughout the day and I personally felt that I left with an increased confidence level for my future steelhead excursions.

A couple days after our Beaver River trip, I decided to head to the lower Credit to put my new found confidence to the test.  I wasn’t able to fish the morning and opted instead to go the more difficult route of fishing the low waters throughout the sunny afternoon.  When I arrived, there were a couple cars parked at the access point – and within an hour or so, they had all left.  You know the fishing is slow when there’s nobody fishing the lower Credit for steelhead during opening week!

A wide section of the unusually quiet lower Credit River on a sunny afternoon.

Slow or not, I know that decent numbers of steelhead had come up into this section of river days before and there had to be the odd fish kicking around. I geared up with a rig similar to what we’d used on the Beaver and patiently drifted what little productive looking water still existed in these low flows.  My patience paid off as I hooked into my first Credit River steelhead an hour or two in.  She took a Hare’s Ear nymph in a deep run and considering I was fishing an 8 weight rod, gave it a pretty serious workout!

A hard earned Steelhead from the Credit River during opening week.

I spent a few more hours on the river but failed to get into any more steelhead. I did however hook an unexpected 18-20″ brown trout while working my way back upstream.  It took a pheasant tail nymph and also put up a very good fight.  As is typical when I’m fishing by myself and dealing with big fish, it managed to wriggle itself free before I could snap a picture (yeah… sounds like a fish story, I know).

In what’s slightly more my style, I also spent a large part of the week scouting smaller streams for native brookies.  I typically choose to target these fish early in the season, while the water is still cold and high enough for them.  Unfortunately, the high enough part didn’t really hold true this year as water levels were also very low in these small streams.  This made finding fish more difficult than normal and also made stealth much more important on these small streams.  Still, I had a good amount of success swinging bead head soft hackles and skating dry flies on the surface.  The net result was a lot of quiet water and plenty of colourful Brook Trout.

My 3 weight experienced lots of small colourful Brook Trout like this throughout the week.

Despite a decent amount of bug activity this past week, there were little to no fish rising.  On the brook trout waters I fished, there were a lot of small black stoneflies. When sub-surface patterns weren’t doing the trick, I tried a couple basic imitations, but dead drifting dries (unsurprisingly) didn’t seem to entice any strikes. Once I tried skating dries across the surface though, it really drove the brookies crazy and I got into a lot more fish!

Lots of small black stoneflies were seen on many of the brookie streams.

Finally, my opener wouldn’t be complete without a trip to the Grand River. After walking my kids to school and making a few stops along the way (including Rob Heal and gang’s new fly shop, Grand River Outfitting), I didn’t get on the river until after noon again. With flows approaching 4 cms, which is quit a bit lower than the Grand’s average summertime lows, lack of water once again made things difficult. I certainly have myself to blame for bypassing the morning fish again, which was apparently pretty decent.  There were some pretty thick Hendrickson hatches in the middle river – the water was literally lined with them – but I didn’t see even a single fish rise to take advantage of it. One of the bugs I caught during this hatch looked an awful lot like a Grey Fox… but I was not aware they hatched this early in the season. Perhaps I’m mistaken in my bug identification though.

What seems to be a very unexpectedly early Grey Fox Dun during a fairly heavy hatch on the middle Grand River last week.

I fished the mid and upper sections and very nearly got skunked before getting a decent drift through a very difficult to cast to (and control) piece of bank-side water with my secret nymph.  A big brown eagerly snatched it up and after a difficult fight, including trying to force it out of some sunken structure on 5X tippet, I got my first taste of big Grand River browns for the 2015 season!

A hard earned 21″ Grand River Brown Trout.

In all the excitement, after snapping a couple photos and releasing the fish, I waded quite far downstream and fished for another hour or so before realizing that I no longer had my net.  I’d left it exactly where it appears in the picture above, floating in some shallow water on the side of the river.  This was a Christmas present from my wife and I wasn’t looking forward to telling her I’d lost it.  I headed back to the spot I landed the fish, only to find the net missing.  I then walked downstream from that spot again and luckily found the net hung up on a rock in the middle of the river!

I’m back to work tomorrow and next weekend is both Mother’s Day and my wife’s Birthday, so I have a feeling there won’t be much fishing to be had in the next week or so.  Hopefully we get some rain by then to normalize the river conditions a bit.

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