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!

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Not too long ago, I was out on the Credit for the last couple hours of daylight. The weather was decent and I had hoped to have a run-in with either some Isonychia or some leftover Hexagenia. I encountered a decent hatch of the latter on some Brook Trout water a few days prior, but hadn’t had the luxury of fishing them to Browns yet this year.

A Hexagenia Atrocaudata spinner from a few days prior.

The second half of the season has been far less rewarding than the first half on the bug front, most likely due to the extreme drought and heat. This outing was met with much of the same – a few tiny Blue Winged Olives and the very odd Isonychia fluttering about. I fished upstream without much success, using the only Isonychia I had on-hand: an experiment I tied in a hurry just before leaving. I had the misfortune of catching a couple small Atlantics on it, followed by a slightly more rewarding small Brown Trout.

A small, lonely Isonychia Dun on a mostly bug-free evening.

A simple Isonychia, tied in a hurry with whatever materials I had lying around.

As I approached a nice bend in the river that I hadn’t fished yet this year, I recalled the Pike I had caught in the same spot a couple years prior. It was memorable back then, due to the fact that it was the first Pike I’d actually caught on the Credit and it escaped my buddy’s net before we could remove it. I promptly returned a day or two later and fished it out of there. Ever since that, I’ve associated this pool with the Pike and I believe it explained my previous lackluster fishing there. At any rate, I was excited to see if any nice Browns had moved in since.

I was almost instantly rewarded with a nice fish in the lower section of the pool. It eagerly rose to my Isonychia and gave me high hopes that an even larger fish might be lurking in the deeper section of the pool.

A nice Credit River Brown Trout taken on an Isonychia.

After releasing the fish, I carefully made my way along the edge of the river to a spot above the pool. I fished a couple pockets upstream for a few minutes to rest the pool before getting back into position. Even in the low water, the middle of the pool was deep and dark. My faith in the ability of the Isonychia to bring up a large fish dwindled, especially given the lack of bugs on the water. So, I did what any greedy fly fisherman hoping to catch a big trout would do… I tied on a large articulated streamer: a version of Kelly Galloup’s Sex Dungeon.

I covered the hole carefully, adjusting my retrieves and anticipating the strike of a large trout. Several passes through the fishiest section of the pool (a seam along the deepest section, between a large rock and a back eddy) failed to produce a fish. I rarely expect to catch a fish using these methods, but for some reason I was genuinely perplexed this time. I felt there had to be at least a couple big trout down there that hadn’t been fished to in a while.

At the rear of the back eddy, the water crawled to a stop and it appeared to be quite shallow. Having not covered that water yet, I decided to give it a try. On the first cast, in between strips, I felt something nick my fly. Unsure whether it was a fish or a rock, I stripped again and realized there was no longer any weight at the end of my line. My streamer was gone and all that was left was the cut end of my 2X tippet.

I honestly wasn’t sure what happened… I had barely felt anything, but I was mid-strip when it happened. In the back of my mind I thought Pike, but it seemed like a long shot since I had previously removed a Pike from the same hole and had just caught a nice Brown beforehand. Also, as lucky as I might be, I had yet to have a Pike cut my tippet on the Credit. The few that I caught in the past were all successfully hooked on 4X-0X tippet, with no incidents. So instead, I leaned towards the idea of having cut my line on something under the water, such as a sharp rock or pipe. Or perhaps I was simply careless when I tied on my streamer. Just in case, I cut off my 2X, went down to 0X then tied on another S. Dungeon.

Only a few casts later and I was met with the same fate, in the same spot. Again I barely felt a nick of the line before it was cut. This time however, the cut was not so clean and I was left with a much more jagged end to my tippet. There was no longer any question… this was the work of Jaws and my best guess was that it was very large and very hungry.

Having lost my last articulated streamer and not having any Pike leader material on hand, I remained determined to rid the Credit of the fish. Once again, I cut off more tippet (leaving essentially the butt section of my leader) and tied on a large lead-eyed bugger. As I mentioned, I was lucky enough to have never been broke off by a Pike on the Credit before, so I was highly confident that if I could hook it one more time, odds were with me that I would land it. Except, I did hook into it one more time – and I didn’t land it…

After losing a solid hour’s worth of tied flies, most of my leader and my entire ego, I started walking back to my truck with my tail between my legs. I’d given up for the time being, but I would be back with a vengeance the following night.

The next day was Monday, the Civic Holiday in Canada. Nothing was open and I was still without any Pike leaders or wire bite. After asking around and being unable to locate any, I began scavenging for something (anything) that I could use as a poor man’s Pike leader. I needed to re-tie a few streamers and that’s when it hit me. The flexible wire I use to tie articulated streamers would work just fine. I got to work, tying a couple leaders as well as a couple S. Dungeons to go with them.

A homemade Pike leader and a freshly tied Sex Dungeon, ready for revenge.

I arrived at the pool around 6:30 pm. Given the the fact that the Pike had broken off three large streamers the night before, I fully accepted the possibility that it may have completely inhaled at least a couple of those – rendering it either dead, or with a serious lack of appetite. I expected it to come easy, but it took a solid 45 minutes of casting before I finally hooked into a Pike in the same spot I’d been broken off the previous night. My Macgyver’d leader held up perfectly and I succeeded in landing the fish this time.

Vengeance: Yet another trout-eating Pike.

The only problem, or so I felt… this fish was considerably smaller than what I had imagined. I looked for hook marks or any other visible sign of being hooked three times last night, but couldn’t find any. That said, I was using barbless hooks and its entirely possible that they slid out or didn’t hook it in the first place. Or maybe there’s another, bigger Pike, still camping that poor hole. Whatever the case, I’ve decided that this pool will henceforth be known as Pike Pool (not to be confused with the similar sounding Pipe  Pool, as it is referred to by some regulars).

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