A few weeks ago, I did a short 3-day backcountry trip to the Dunlop Lake area in Algoma. This was a combination of an exploratory, fishing and unwinding trip. Being the second week of July, it wasn’t the ideal time to be trout fishing lakes, especially with a fly rod. We were also still under a fire ban, so there would be no campfires to help ward off the hoards of mosquitoes.
It was another super enjoyable trip. Despite the overall slow fishing, I still managed to get into a couple nice trout. Check out the full trip report below.
While early season started with plenty of water in our rivers thanks to a good snow melt and plenty of rain in April, May and beyond brought some near drought conditions. As a result, most of our rivers in southern Ontario have had some of the lowest water levels I’ve ever seen. Local creeks and even the Credit River have been almost unrecognizable. Ontario was also under a fire ban for most of the summer (which has just recently been lifted). Things seem to be returning to normal now, with some more frequent rains and storms. Hopefully it will top the rivers off to provide some stable late summer and fall fishing opportunities.
That said, there are still plenty of rivers and lakes with more than enough water, even in dry years such as this one – and that’s where I’ve spent most of this season. They aren’t particularly close by for me, so it does mean some extra driving. Sometimes I’ll try to make the most of my trips though and stay a night (or, a week, or more…).
On the longer trips, I’m in the back country with a canoe and tent (or hammock). I’ve got a new trolling setup for the fly rod this year with the new(ish) universal Scotty rod holder, which works well for pretty much any rod type – casting, spinning or fly rod. Of course, I’m not only trolling from the canoe. I’ll also cast (mostly streamers) when I’m not travelling or trying to locate fish – but it’s nice to keep a line in the water even while travelling.
Trolling with a fly rod from a canoe on a back country lake.Continue reading →
Last month, I embarked on my most ambitious solo backcountry trip to date. This time around, I chose a nine day, 30+ portage canoe trip to Ranger Lake and the Algoma Headwaters region in northern Ontario.
Some of the main trip highlights included some beautiful native Brook Trout and Lake Trout, no bugs (still too early for them!), great weather aside from some below freezing overnight lows, a couple injuries, taking a swim in some muck and some seriously challenging (and confusing) portages.
You can read the full trip report on the page linked below:
In May of 2022, I embarked on my first solo backcountry trip, doing the Lake Lavieille / Dickson loop through Algonquin Park. Read the entire trip report on the following page:
When I get an idea in my head, it doesn’t take long before it becomes reality. This was the case again with the backpack I bought yesterday and planned to use for my upcoming Algonquin trip. I purchased a MEC Brio 70L internal-frame hiking pack, along with an assortment of dry sacks for keeping all my gear inside dry. It actually seemed like a great hiking backpack for the price, but after trying it on and doing a bit more research I realized it might not be the best (or even most cost efficient) method of packing gear for a canoeing+portaging trip.
Long story short, I returned the backpack along with most of the dry sacks and purchased a SealLine Pro Pack (pictured below).
You can get a sense of the size of this pack by the full-size guitar sitting next to it. This beast has 115L capacity, which is about 64% more than the previous backpack! On top of that, it’s 100% waterproof, which means it can sit at the bottom of the canoe getting wet, all my gear inside stays dry without the need for additional dry sacks and I don’t end up carrying a soggy backpack around. Finally, the profile of this bag is actually better for portages since it sits lower than a typical large hiking backpack and won’t interfere with a canoe resting on your shoulders.
It worked out that the cost of the SealLine was about the same as the cost of the cheaper Brio backpack with all the required dry sacks. Now all I have to do is find enough stuff to fill it!
It’s been rainy and miserable the last few days, so I haven’t gotten out for any more fishing this week. Instead, I’ve been planning an extended weekend canoe/portage trip!
This is something I’ve always wanted to do: portage into the Algonquin Provincial Park back country. However, I haven’t really been able to find anyone adventurous enough to do it with; and I’m certainly not about to solo a trip like this, at least not for my first few attempts.
Well, I’ve finally found a victim (I mean companion) to endure this experiment with me and we’re planning to do a 3 day trip, leaving Thursday, September 13th. I’ve done some limited camping in Algonquin’s developed campsites in the past, but I’m completely unfamiliar with its interior. Along with Google, the following book has been my main planning reference so far:
