Unlike the rivers, this season has started off pretty slow for me (due the the winding down part mentioned above). In the time I have found to get out, I’ve stuck close to home – repeating my tradition of avoiding the more overcrowded rivers in favor of small stream brookies.

Fishing small streamers for brookies on a frigid opening day.

Opening day was cold and mostly unproductive, at least for the first couple of hours. We didn’t get out until late afternoon and opted to fish some familiar brookie water, which showed some signs of other anglers having fished it before us. It was cold enough to warrant gloves and toques and we were rewarded with only a couple small brookies.

First brookie of the year. Sometimes you have to take what you can get.

With little to show for our efforts, we got back in the truck and headed to another spot that we frequent less (and seems to receive less fishing pressure as well). The stream here was in excellent condition due to the higher than normal spring water levels and the brookies were more cooperative. We hooked into a few good fish before the day was over… Ryan in particular landed a couple nice brookies in some of the better holes, all of which were quite fond of a tiny black bugger.

A nice small stream Brookie Ryan hooked on opening day.

Fast forward a couple weeks and the weather has taken a turn for the better, with just enough rain and temperatures high enough to kick-start some bug activity. I made a last minute decision to hit up another brookie stream for a couple hours after work, for no other reason than to wind down from a busy day. It turned out to be a wise decision, as I was met with near ideal conditions: perfect water levels and clarity, a flurry of Hendrickson spinners and a lot of hungry brook trout!

Lots of Hendrickson activity had the brookies eager to eat.

I fished the same water a week earlier and had left fairly disappointed – having caught only a single wild brookie and an ugly stocked trout that seemed to have somehow survived the winter. It’s water that typically fished well regardless of conditions and I wondered if the health of the stream had deteriorated.

My worries were put to rest on this day however, with nearly two dozen wild brookies caught in the span of an hour and a half. I fished a beaten up Hendrickson from last year, with a yellow egg sac to match the naturals. It was good enough to fool them, as I quickly hooked into my nicest brookie of the season so far.

An excellent small stream brookie, unusually chunky and colorful for this time of year.

In addition to the bigger brookies, I was happy to have also caught a number of tiny overzealous brookies. Along with the many I caught, I missed countless others that thrashed carelessly at my fly – which was far too large for them to take on. Seeing these fish in such numbers is a great sign that the stream is still in very good health.

One of many small brookies learning valuable life lessons via catch and release.

As the evening progressed and the sunlight dwindled, I switched out my now beaten up and difficult to see Hendrickson for a bushier Red Humpy. I tend to have a lot of luck with this fly, especially during Hendrickson or Isonychia hatches. It has brought up some large brook and brown trout for me, when other flies were less productive. To be honest, it probably has a lot more to do with confidence than it does the fly.

A pretty brook trout (aren’t they all?) taken on a Red Humpy later in the evening.

One more good sized brookie that went bonkers for a Red Humpy.

It’s nice to see bug season in full swing now. With the long weekend approaching (and some free time to spare), I’ll likely get out a couple times for Brookies in the coming days. I’ll also finally be spending some much-needed time chasing Brown Trout as well.

The post Early Season Brookies appeared first on Caffeinated Fly Fisher.

Now, on to the good stuff. As is customary, I spent the end of the season targeting Brook Trout on small rivers and streams. Even if our Brown Trout rivers had been fishing well (or, at all…), I’d still choose to target Brookies at this time of year. The waters they inhabit are scenic, have very little fishing pressure and the fish are in full pre-spawn colors at this time of year.

A nice, colourful native Brookie from closing day

I would say this was one of the better years I’ve had for Brookies in the last decade. Not necessarily in fish size (although, several in the 12″ range were caught), but in numbers. In fact, until yesterday, I was convinced that Brookies in the area were on the rebound and that the overall health of the systems that contain them were improving. Then I realized, other than a few outings to new rivers for other species, I’d been forced to fish almost exclusively Brook Trout this year due to the aforementioned demise of the Brown Trout. In doing so, I discovered more new water that holds Brookies and I fished for them much harder than in the past.

In reality, these rivers are still only a fraction as healthy as they once were, even the few hidden gems that seem much more productive than the rest. It’s not all negative of course: thankfully we’re still able to find and fish for these excellent fish and for that I’m thankful. It does brings up an interesting argument against removing resident Brown Trout from local rivers though, as it gives anglers no other option but to target the more fragile Brook Trout.

Some small, well populated Brookie water

For some reason, the last hours of trout season always seem to spoil me. I don’t know if it’s the weather, the moon, my state of mind, or luck – but it always treats me better than most other days of the year, leaving me hopelessly awaiting the next time I can get back out and fish for resident trout (i.e. 7 months). This year, in the last few hours of trout fishing, I easily landed two dozen Brook Trout in water that, while productive, almost never provides success on that level. Most of the fish were an average 8″ or so, but colourful and always fun on light fly gear.

A near limitless number Brookies like this were caught in the final hours of trout season

Some bigger Brookies were caught too – those are some mean teeth for a pretty Brook Trout!

It usually happens that, when I’m having the most success on a river, I’ve just tied up a fresh batch of flies that I feel good about. I know other people experience this too – as you fill your fly box with a bunch of good looking new ties (sometimes even brand new patterns you’ve never fished), you just get the feeling they’re going to produce. I fished only two flies on Wednesday: my old time go-to attractor, the Red Humpy and a first for me, a Thunder Creek Streamer.

The Red Humpy, for some reason, has always been a go-to fly of mine on local rivers when nothing else seems to be happening. I hadn’t actually fished one for the entire season, due to a combination of having no stock (and being too lazy to tie some) and more of a focus on fishing naturals and wet flies this year. I tied four on Tuesday evening and when I tied the first one on Wednesday afternoon, it didn’t get removed until a couple dozen fish later and near night time. Maybe any other fly would have also done the trick, I guess I’ll never know. It certainly put a bit of confidence back in that fly for me though!

When temps dropped and as the sun began to set, the dry fly action finally slowed up. I had recently re-watched an old video of the late Ian Colin James fishing Thunder Creek style streamers in low clear water on the Grand. I’d never used these flies before, but I liked the look of them as far as streamers go (I’m not usually a very big streamer fan). Anyway, I tied a couple the night before and decided to give it a whirl after the Red Humpy. Of course, it worked like a charm and was actually very fun to fish. I cast it upstream and twitched it very fast downstream, eliciting strikes on nearly every cast. I’m sure it won’t work for shit when I tie it on next year, but I’ll certainly be thinking about it.

Brookies of all sizes liked this little Thunder Creek Streamer

Now, it’s great that I was catching all these Brook Trout and in all honesty, I’d be perfectly happy if that was it. However, to make things even more interesting, I ended up with a Trout Trifecta. In the midst of the insanity that was non stop Brookie action, a surprise rainbow decided to show up. Quite rare for the water I was fishing, although known to exist. I believe they’re left over from a short time when rainbows were planted here years ago.

This surprise Rainbow Trout chipped in to help me achieve the venerable Trout Trifecta

In fairness, the Brown Trout part of my trout trifecta was not taken in the same water. Instead, I stopped off at the newly unproductive upper Credit River on the way home to throw some mouse patterns after dark. Yes, the Credit is fishing horribly for Brown Trout this year thanks to the river being taken over by a gazillion stocked Atlantic Salmon juvies and who knows what else (reports of some shady removals of Browns from certain sections of the river, etc).  However, there are still some big browns to be had and there’s no better time to find them than after dark. Figuring it may well be the last time I ever set eyes on on a treasured wild Credit River brown, I had to at least give it a go.

The temperature had dropped substantially by the time I got on the river. Definitely not ideal for night fishing, however the sky was clear and it was just days after the Super Blood Moon, so perhaps there was hope. Add to this my luck for the previous couple hours and I was pretty confident a big brown would find its way to my net.

Without exaggeration, I tied on a #2 mouse pattern when I arrived, waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, then got into position to begin fishing. I placed my first cast to the back of the pool and bam! With a huge splash I set the hook and the fight was on. As I turned on my headlamp to shed some light on things, I saw a huge brown bolt downstream. It was in the general vicinity of my fly line and it’s pretty easy to be a bit disoriented in the dark, so I thought it was actually the fish I had hooked until it continued downstream and out of sight. Turns out, it was another huge brown in the same pool that I spooked by turning on the headlamp. My catch was no slouch, but it also wasn’t quite the hog I watched swim away while fighting it.

A big Credit River brown, my last resident trout of 2015 – hopefully not my last Credit brown.

A productive 4 hours of fishing and as usual, enough to keep me dreaming of next year’s trout season. In the meantime, I still have some Steelhead, Bass and stillwater Trout to look forward to.

The post 2015 Trout Season Closer appeared first on Caffeinated Fly Fisher.

I’ve been itching to break out the 3 weight on my local stream this year, but early spring steelhead makes it too risky until they drop back out to the lake. With everyone awake early, the sun shining through the bedroom blinds and birds chirping, it seemed like a good morning to sneak out for a couple hours before work.

I love small streams and all the perks and challenges that come with them: solitude, stalking wary fish, light gear and technical casting. Sure, fish size generally correlates to stream size, but when you’re casting a 2-3 weight rod with 6-8x tippet on a small stream, an 8 inch trout can be just as exciting (or more so) than a 12 inch trout on a larger river.

A wider-than-average stretch of the stream I fished Wednesday morning

I had a quick breakfast, geared up at the house and arrived at my destination a short drive later. I decided to try out a new path to the stream and while it was fairly well marked at the beginning, it had all but disappeared by the time it reached the river. I considered marking the exit of the path so I could easily find my way back when I was finished, but it seemed to be in a recognizable enough location, so I decided that wasn’t necessary.

The path to the water was fairly visible here, but would not be so easy to find on the way back

I started out with a sparsely tied Partridge soft hackle in red and was immediately into small Rainbows. Some fish were small enough that they still had visible parr marks, though many were a bit larger. Atlantic juveniles are also known to be in this stream and I still have a hard time differentiating them from small rainbows at times. If I’m wrong in any of my identifications here, please comment and correct me!

First of many fish caught on a red partridge soft hackle

Since the fish seemed eager to take my flies, I also tried a couple different dry flies with moderate success: a Patriot and Red Humpy. In case you’re wondering, the tape on my finger is due to a likely (still unverified) broken finger from volleyball last week.

A tiny Rainbow Trout with visible fading parr marks, caught on a Patriot

As I worked upstream, I came across some nicer looking pools and decided to go back to sub-surface pattern to try and get into some better fish. One of my favourite ultra-versatile flies has to be the Bead Head Pheasant Tail Soft Hackle (or any similar bead head soft hackle). The easiest way to fish these is to swing them, but you can also dead drift them like you would a standard nymph. The bead head is enough to get it down and the partridge collar gives it some nice action in the water compared to a standard Pheasant Tail. It proved once again to be an excellent producer as I landed many more fish on it, including a couple unexpected browns.

A couple Brown Trout took my Pheasant Tail Soft Hackle while upstream nymphing

From the same pool the two browns were caught in, I also landed a few more rainbows, including a couple like the one below which I am not quite sure about.

Rainbow or Atlantic? I still have a hard time differentiating when they are small like this.

Another fish like above, a bit less silver.

Still pulling fish out of the same pool, a decent strike led me to give a solid yank upwards to set the hook, when my pheasant tail shot up into a tree branch several feet above my head. I couldn’t manage to pull it free and lost the last bead head soft hackle in my fly box. Part of the joys of fishing small streams.

I tied on a small Hares Ear to continue where I left off and after a couple more small fish, I was completely surprised by hooking into an 18-20″ steelhead! With a 3 weight rod and 6x tippet, while it may have been possible to land, as soon as I got him on the reel he tore upstream and snapped me off. An exciting way to end things for sure!

When I began heading back, I came to the unfortunate realization that I failed to memorize what the entry point of the path looked like. I retraced my steps a few times, walked in the direction of where I thought the path should be, but couldn’t find it. What ensued was about 30 minutes of bush-whacking my way through fairly dense forest trying to find my car in 20+ degree weather with a sweatshirt on. Needless to say, I took a much needed shower before heading to work. Never a dull moment.

The post Sneaking Out appeared first on Caffeinated Fly Fisher.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is my favourite time of year to fish. The scenery is at its peak with the fall colours and fish are becoming more aggressive as they beef up for the coming spawning and winter seasons.

I love fishing small, quiet water like this during the fall

Like so many others, I went on somewhat of a fly fishing binge the last several days of the season. I used up my last vacation day on Friday and spent most of 3 full days on the water. I suppose I can’t really blame others for having the same idea as me, but it always shocks me to see just how many fisherman decide to dust off their gear for these final days of the season. Why not just visit the river once or twice during the rest of the season and get the same amount of (much more peaceful) fishing in? I rarely see another fisherman in most of the water I fish, yet that same water is full on closing weekend.

For the most part, I spent my last few days fishing small rivers and streams, often spending as much time hiking into locations as I did fishing. Sure, it would be nice to toss big flies at some of the best holes in hopes of enticing the largest fish in the river, but I value scenery and peace and quiet more than the size of fish. So, while the majority of fly fishermen spent their time battling it out on more popular beats, or fished shoulder-to-shoulder for the largest of Southern Ontario’s salmon and trout, I headed far upstream to stalk the smallest of our native trout: Brook Trout.

I don’t target brookies very often, partly because of their smaller size and partly because they’re more susceptible to angling pressure than other fish. However, early spring and fall are great times to fish them and what they lack in size they more than make up for in beauty and feistiness.

One of the many colourful Brook Trout caught last weekend

Brookies are often willing to eat just about anything they can (or can’t) fit in their mouth!

My friend Ryan and I spent Thursday and Friday almost exclusively fishing for brookies. I took him to a couple locations, one of which very rarely sees any fishing pressure. It was the first time he’d really spent time targeting brook trout and we both had an absolute blast. The first hour saw us land easily 10+ fish, many out of a single nice run. I left the majority of the run to Ryan and he took several 8″+ brookies, small browns and rainbows out of it. As he was setting up I cast a humpy into the tail end of the run and kicked things off with this nice looking fish:

First Brook Trout of closing weekend

Friday morning and early afternoon were less productive than Thursday as we fished some more difficult water – several miles of it I might add. I’d never walked this entire stretch of river before, though I knew of a few holes on it that were usually productive. They lived up to their expectations and most of our fish were caught from them. We waded downstream and without knowing much of the water, we stumbled across (and spooked) a few unexpected nice holes. I have a feeling they would fish very well in the future, if approached carefully.

Later Friday afternoon, when Ryan had to head home, I decided to drive back to the location we fished on Thursday. The weather was absolutely perfect, there were some nice hatches of Blue Winged Olives and Isonychia and the fishing was even better than the day before. Despite the hatching insects, the money fly was a size 12 Stimulator. One particular small pool yielded well over a dozen brook trout in 30 minutes! I’ve never pulled so many fish out of a single hole… it was surreal!

A small pool here (hard to see in this picture) produced well over a dozen fish

Here are a few of the nice looking fish that came to my net Friday evening:

The remainder of the weekend was filled with brown trout fishing. Saturday evening was the only time I spent on a more popular stretch of water and although I know the fishing can be good there, I regretted it afterwards. I shared the river with several other anglers and fished pools that had been largely overfished that day and more recently had an absolutely massive streamer ripped through them by a fisherman ahead of me.

Sunday I drove to a more remote stretch of river, where very long hikes and difficult to navigate terrain ensured I would be the only angler on the river for the day. It’s not really big fish water, for the most part. Narrow, fast moving water, a few scattered pools and lots of riffles. I made my decision to fish this water minutes before leaving the house and my fly inventory was somewhat lacking for this type of fishing. What I really wanted to do was swing soft hackles, so I quickly browsed some fly patterns to find something quick and easy to tie. I settled on a bead head soft hackle pheasant tail. I tied 2 of them, hoped they would last the better part of the day and left for the river.

Two hours later, after finding a parking spot and completing a long hike, I sat down on a rock in the middle of the river and tied a new leader from scratch (more on this later). I put on one of my two pheasant tail soft hackles and began carefully working productive looking water. Either my choice of fly was good, or the fish were just not picky. Whatever the reason, fishing was excellent. I caught a few browns from the first small run.

Pockets of water like the one in the upper-middle area of this photo produced lots of fish

As expected, the fish weren’t big, but it was very rewarding and often technical fishing.

Lots of small browns like this in riffles and pockets behind rocks

I worked my way downstream for a few hours until I eventually lost my only two soft hackles. By this time, it was about 6:45 and the sun was beginning to set. I was moving into an area with some slower moving water and I knew of a couple deeper pools up ahead, so I decided to tie on a streamer to try my chances at landing my last big fish of the year.

I swung and stripped my streamer through the occasional fishy looking water. Not paying much attention (I was looking forward a a certain pool down river), a 16-18″ brown with a big yellow belly leaped out at my streamer as I raised it at the end of a drift. Due to a poor hookset, he was only on for a couple seconds before escaping back to structure he came from.

A bit discouraged, I continued heading towards the final pool of the night. When I arrived, it seemed to have changed since I’d last been there. Structure had shifted, it looked smaller and there was some debris that looked as though it was carefully placed to snag flies. Still, it looked fishy enough, if not somewhat tricky to pull a big fish out of. I stripped my streamer through the pool many times without any sign of fish. After several casts, I got hung up on some underwater structure. Not wanting to wade in and spook the pool, I broke it off. After re-tying my tippet, I stood around for a bit wondering if I should tie on another fly or call it quits. It was almost dark now and I had a very long hike back.

As I was staring at my fly box, I heard a MASSIVE splash. I looked up and saw a big wake of water at the back of the pool. Startled, I wondered if that could possibly be a fish. The splash was so big, I didn’t think it could possibly be a brown. I knew beavers frequent this area, so perhaps that was the cause? I’ve fished after dark many times in the past and I’ve heard my share of large browns smashing the surface, but they have never sounded remotely as big as this. My next thought was clear: Gurgler, size 2! Let’s do this, one last shot at a trophy fish for 2013!

I cut off my smaller tippet, tied my size 2 Gurgler to some 2X and began stripping and popping it through the pool. After dozens of casts and no sign of the big fish, I again stopped to think. Suddenly, another huge splash and this time I saw it! It was now dark and although I couldn’t get a good look at it, I could easily tell this was a BIG brown.

With the reduced visibility at this time of night, I decided to cut off all my tippet and only use a few feet of leader, tying my Gurgler directly to the thick mono on the mid section of my leader. I continued casting and stripping, but after many more attempts the fish was still refusing. I assumed that I must have spooked it by now, since a size 2 fly on such a short, thick leader isn’t exactly a delicate presentation. The brown gave one more big splash, letting me know it still wasn’t done feeding. Half a dozen casts later, it slammed my Gurgler!

Now’s where this starts sounding like your typical fish story. The sad part is, a fish story and a broken leader is all I have to show for what was the most chaotic and mind blowing battle I’ve ever had with a fish. There was no knot in the leader where it broke (though it may appear so). The line is curled at the break purely from the tension it took to pull and snap mono this thick.

Broken .014″ mono, snapped by the biggest brown I’ve ever hooked into

Suffice it to say, this was easily the largest brown I’ve ever experienced, by a pretty big margin. I’ve caught several 20″+ fish in the past (~3-4lb), but none have compared to the weight and power of this fish. My best guess is that this fish was well over 6lb, possibly over 7lb. Other than the odd brookie and very small resident rainbow, there are basically no other fish species in this part of the river, so it most certainly was a brown.

Wild head shakes and thrashing ensued as it tried to shake the hook free. For a few minutes he ran to an undercut bank and was nearly unmovable. I tried to disorient him by applying pressure in different directions, but pulling too hard felt almost as though my 4wt Hardy Zenith was going to snap. It moved back and forth along the bank, staying as deep as possible. I was afraid it was going to run into some nearby structure that would surely put a quick end to the fight.

I turned my headlamp on full brightness and walked a bit closer, prompting the fish to bolt to the other side of the pool where it proceed to wrap itself around an underwater log. My heart was racing: I wanted to land this fish so bad and I was afraid I may have lost it. I quickly waded over to the log and tried to free the line. I reached underwater and grabbed the line and all the sudden he darted out from under the log back to the undercut bank: he was still on!

At this point, a good 10 minutes (or so it felt) into fighting the fish, there was still no sign of fatigue. It was pulling harder than before and moving closer to some underwater structure. Again, afraid it would run into this structure, I applied enough pressure to keep him in the pool. And then… snap!

My leader came flying back at me, a foot shorter, with a section of the mono snapped clean. I couldn’t believe it… my heart sank. I felt like an idiot for applying so much pressure, but it seemed like I had little choice. I’d just lost the fish of a lifetime and to make matters worse, my size 2 Gurgler was broke off in this trophy brown’s mouth, with a foot of mono attached to it. Thankfully I was using a barbless hook, but it doesn’t make me rest much easier. I can only hope it will work itself free and that the fish will go back to regular feeding (and perhaps give me a second chance next year).

I was both an extremely exhilarating and disappointing finish to the 2013 season. I stood still in the river for a good 15 minutes pondering what had just happened. All I had to look forward to was a 45 minute hike back to my car in the pitch dark and 7 months of trout-less days. It was certainly a memorable end to the trout season.

In addition to losing that fish, I also managed to lose my $200 pair of Smith Polarchromic sunglasses. My buddy lost his $100 landing net and tore a large hole in the neoprene socks of his breathable waders. Good times.

The post 2013 Trout Closing Weekend appeared first on Caffeinated Fly Fisher.

I got out again Friday morning before work. There weren’t many bugs early morning, so I started fishing wet flies. When that was unproductive, I moved on to nymphs and later tried streamers. Fishing was slow, with little more than a couple missed hits on the wet flies.

As the sun came up and the temperature began rising, I started seeing a bunch of these:

Lots of Tricos were hatching an hour or so past sunrise

The water was very clear, but I wasn’t really seeing any rises. Since the sub-surface patterns weren’t doing particularly well for me, I figured I may as well try some Trico dry flies. A couple refusals (from some very small fish) was about all the action I had with these. Despite the hatches, fish simply weren’t feeding on Tricos, at least not on the surface.

I went back to wet flies, again with no real success. Mind you, my supply of wets was less than ideal, with only a couple unweighted patterns tied on standard dry fly hooks. I don’t think I was getting the fly down far enough. I could have added some weight to my line, but I just didn’t have much confidence in these flies.

There was still no surface activity, but I decided to tie on another (larger) dry fly: one of my historically most successful attractor patterns for this river, a Red Humpy. I had only one left and on top of being a pretty bad tie, it was also quite beat up. A few casts in and I caught my first fish of the morning: a tiny brown trout. Shortly after, I caught a couple more small browns.

The first few fish were all 6″ or less, so assuming that my Humpy was only managing to fool the young dumb fish, I switched back to a Trico. I figured, maybe the dry fly action was just now picking up and matching the hatch would get me into some better fish now. Well, it didn’t… the Trico continued to be ineffective.

Before switching back to my Humpy, I tried a few other flies to rule out the possibility of the Humpy not being the reason for my previous luck: a Stimulator, Caddis, BWO and a Partidge and Red.  I caught nothing on these flies, but after tying the Humpy back on, I was into more fish almost immediately.

As I waded downstream (further from the access point), the fish began increasing in size. A couple more 6″ fish, then some in the 8-10″ range.

I started to catch some better fish as I moved further downstream

It was getting late and the sun was now high in the sky. I was pretty happy with the outcome of the morning and the fact that I managed to figure things out and land a few decent trout. I started to wade a bit more quickly down river towards the next exit point, still drifting my fly through some of the better looking water. That’s when this good looking brown trout gulped up my Humpy:

A nice brown trout caught mid day on a Red Humpy.

I caught this fish midstream in some pretty shallow riffles, full sun and no cover nearby. Needless to say, I was not expecting it! I had 6x tippet on and he got into some pretty fast water, but I managed to get him to the net to wrap up another great trip.

So, why a Red Humpy? I remember my reason for deciding to start tying and fishing it on this river many years ago. My dad’s friend PJ introduced me to the Humpy and I liked how durable the fly was and how well it floated. My theory was that since the Isonychia Bicolor (Slate/Mahogany Dun) is so common on the this river almost all season long, a Humpy tied in red around size 12 might work as a rough imitation. I can’t really say whether this is the key to its success here, but I guess it’s a theory. Or, it might simply come down confidence. Everyone has their favourite go-to fly for a particular river and for me, this is it.

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My camera has been acting up every since I dropped it last year, especially when trying to use macro mode or taking pictures in low light. Excuses aside, here are a couple pics:

Tried to capture the thick hendrickson hatch coming off

Hendrickson Mayfly

Most of the Hendricksons had the typical yellow egg sac, though it fell off the one above before I snapped the picture. Apparently I haven’t fished this hatch in a while, because my supply of Hendrickson flies was abysmal – I only had a few spinner imitations which were too small. So instead, I tied on my goto Red Humpy and managed to hook up with a few small browns. Nothing spectacular, but it was a start.

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My wife graciously agreed to let me spend way too much time on the water this past weekend, to finish off the trout season. I took Friday off work and managed to get out for three consecutive days, all of which were spent on different sections of my favourite local river. By the way, you’ll notice that I rarely mention river names or locations. This is on purpose, in an effort to avoid random lazy people from typing a couple words into Google and going away with sensitive and hard earned fishing locations. If you really want to know where I fish… well, I probably won’t tell you unless you’re family or friend  But, you’re more than welcome to ask.

Anyway, on with the report!

Friday, September 28th

Friday was supposed to be a full day of fishing, but I slept in a bit more than I would have liked and as usual, I needed to do some last-minute fly tying to top up my box. The main ties included a bunch of Red Humpy dry flies (which are always productive on this river), as well as a number of Simulators and a couple Gartside Gurglers for a bit of night fishing.

Lots of Stimulators in sizes 12-14 would be the main go-to fly during the days

Gartside Gurgler (size 6) for hopefully enticing some hungry Browns at night

I ended up leaving later Friday afternoon and headed to a favourite stretch of river, where I would wade for a few hours and eventually settle into a nice piece of water for some night fishing. This area is very picturesque to begin with, but add to it fall colours and it’s paradise. Driving up was definitely enough to put me in the mood:

Fall colours on the way to the river

The river was virtually empty, as usual. I saw one other angler at the access point and he was headed down another section than I was. I had the river basically all to myself for the remainder of the day.

I fished upstream for a few hours. The day fishing wasn’t overly productive, but it was decent. A number of small browns were caught in the 8-10 inch range. After a while, all the brown trout in this size start looking identical to each other, so I’ve basically stopped taking photos of them. I did manage to hook into a nicer (14-16″) brown that was holding in a small piece of slow moving water behind a fallen tree. It was a somewhat tricky spot to cast to with faster moving water beside and below it, but with a single drag-free cast, he slammed my Red Humpy. Unfortunately, one leap and a headshake later and my barbless hook came loose.

A nice brown was hooked and then lost in the little holding area behind this fallen tree

A couple more small fish were caught (and a couple lost) before dark began to set in. I equipped a headlamp, made my way to the spot I would settle into for a couple hours of night fishing, then waited for it to get dark enough for the big browns to come out. I was stripping Gurglers and foam mice. About an hour of fishing and I had a few mediocre splashes by some bantam weight browns – but they all either missing their target, or change their minds at the last moment. Then I changed two things:

1. Changed from a size 6 Gurgler to a size 2.
2. Started stripping faster.

The first cast that combined these two changes resulted in a tremendous take. I had him on for line for about 15 seconds, then my hook popped out… again a barbless hook, but I have a feeling I simply didn’t set the hook hard enough this time.

I thought I had the fish on long enough to spook the pool, but a couple casts later proved me wrong. I made sure to set the hook this time and it seemed like I was in for a good fight. This was a much bigger fish than the last one, likely 20″+. Unfortunately, my clumsiness would be my downfall yet again. I had too much line out and as I fumbled around in the dark trying to get the line out from under my feet and onto my reel, he leapt with a fierce head shake and snapped off my 4x tippet

Again, I quickly learned from my mistakes and decided to make two final changes:

1. Changed from 4x tippet to 3x flourocarbon tippet: These big trout, in this light, are obviously not too picky about tippet size, or fly size for that matter. In fact, I’m sure I could get away with 2x.
2. Made sure not to trim my knots too close (I had a feeling this caused my leader to tippet knot to break).

I missed a bunch more fish that night, or more likely, they missed (or dodged) my fly. I did manage to hook into and land one good fish, though not as large as the one lost before it.

Decent brown trout landed after several botched hook-ups before it

Saturday, September 29th

On Saturday, I decided to hunt Brook Trout as my trip the week prior served to wet my appetite with some nice looking brookies in full fall colours. I managed to get out at a much more respectable time (before noon), although I would have to skip the night fishing due to some unexpected rain and lack of proper rain gear.

Fishing was unexpectedly tough and I had to really work for the fish. I don’t mind though, as time on the water is rewarding even without catching fish. In fact, I probably walked more than I fished on Saturday, deciding to venture further downstream than I ever have in the past, where there are no access points and very infrequently fished water. This part of the river is slightly smaller than the brown trout water and is also a bit prettier.

Narrow stretch of brookie water

Brookie water: a bend in the river with some nice holding areas for trout

In total just a handful of fish were caught, mostly on Stimulators and a few on an Isonychia nymph – most were in the 7-8″ range. I actually experimented with a size 6 Gurgler for a couple minutes just before leaving… it was still light out and I had absolutely no expectation for it to work, especially on this brook trout water where the average fish size is much smaller. I was shocked however when a nice brookie slashed at my Gurgler only a few casts in! Not sure exactly how big it was, but by the size of the splash and sound it made, I’m guessing it was well over 12″. Fish missing this fly seems to be an extremely common occurrence, that’s for sure…

Several Brook Trout like this in the 8″ range were caught Saturday

Another brookie: small, but always fun on a light rod

Sunday, September 30th

Truthfully, I wasn’t supposed to fish on Sunday. My wife had planned to go to a cooking show in Toronto and I was staying home to spend some well deserved time with the kids. I was completely fine with this, especially since I was able to put in so many hours the previous two days and the forecast was originally showing rain Sunday.

The plan was for my wife to be gone most of the day – coming home at dinner time or later. So, I was surprised when she opened the door at 3:00 pm, which was much earlier than we had expected her back. At this point I had spent several hours with the kids and was feeling a little less guilty about my fishing the previous two days, so I got the idea in my head that I might get a chance to sneak out for one final try at evening fishing. Surprisingly, my amazingly understanding wife was OK with this.

Even better, the weatherman lied, again… it was sunny with a few clouds all day. Although I had clearance to leave, I wasn’t in much of a rush and decided to spend 2.5 more hours at home with the kids. Finally, when playtime was done and everyone was heading inside for the night, I left for a few more hours of alone time on my favourite river.

Last wade down the river for 2012

By the time I arrived, suited up and walked in, it was about 6:30 pm – so I had under 1 hour before dark. Needless to say, I spent only a short amount of time casting some dry flies in some runs and riffles, where I had a few rises from some browns. But it was the night fishing I was really here for – I felt like I had finally put the pieces together Friday night and was ready to land some big browns.

While the theme of fish slashing at my fly and missing definitely kept up, I managed to lose a single fish and land two others that I hooked into. They were both caught on a size 2 Gurgler and one of the fish was most likely my largest Brown to date. I haven’t figured out exactly how big he was yet, but it should be easy when I get around to it since I have a shot of him next to my fly rod. He was definitely over 20″ and in fact, he was much too big for my net, so I had to land him by hand.

A respectable smaller brown trout landed Sunday night.

Big brown trout: last fish of trout season 2012 and probably my new record trout!

Releasing the big fish of the night.

2012 definitely went out on a positive note and left me itching for 2013, which is 7 long months away… One last shot of the hero Gurgler that took so much abuse over the last few days and lived to tell the tale.

The hero Gurgler that was chewed on by many a trout this past weekend

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