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

The post 2012 Trout Closing Weekend appeared first on Caffeinated Fly Fisher.

September 2012: Big Crow
A 5 day trip to Big Crow Lake in the Algonquin backcountry

The post Big Crow: There and Back Again appeared first on Caffeinated Fly Fisher.

Grayling is a fly fishing paradise.  I won’t go into detail on why this is such a great fly fishing town, but suffice it to say that it’s surrounded by several blue ribbon trout rivers, it’s host to river stretches with nicknames like the “Holy Water”, it’s got more fly shops than most towns have gas stations and it’s the birthplace of Trout Unlimited… you get the idea.

I made an effort not to spend too much time on the water this trip, since my wife doesn’t fish and we had other things planned for the week.  Most of the time I didn’t stray too far from the place we were staying.  Located on the Holy Water, one of (if not the) best stretches of trout water on the entire Au Sable, it’s just too convenient.

The main hatches for the week included Tricos in the mornings, terrestrials (mostly ants) in the afternoons and some sporadic BWO hatches in the evenings.  No overly large trout were had during this trip, but a nice assortment of brown, rainbow and brook trout were caught.  That’s one of the things I love about the Au Sable in this stretch… all three trout species are very plentiful and on any given day it’s entirely possible to hook up with trophy sizes in all of these fish.

Au Sable Brown Trout

Au Sable Brook Trout

Au Sable Rainbow Trout

And then there’s the night fishing…

This is somewhat of a craze in the area.  So much so that Gates Au Sable Lodge, a local lodge and fly shop in the area, hosted a midnight derby this year.  It just so happened that this was prime night fishing time on the Au Sable. I’d done a bit of night fishing in the past on this river, with one unforgettable night where I was stalked by an angry Bobcat on shore for about 30 minutes.  This year though, I wanted to target BIG browns… something I hadn’t previously focused on while night fishing.  A bit of poking around revealed a couple flies that have landed numerous trophy browns after dark on this river:  Gartside Gurglers and Mice.  Unfortunately, I didn’t bring exactly the materials needed to tie these, but I did manage to tie a couple make-shift versions:

A quick and dirty Gurgler tie for some night fishing.

A simple variation on a foam mouse that I was quite happy with.

I spent two nights tossing big flies like this blindly in the dark.  Both of the above patterns worked quite well, but sadly I didn’t land the monster I was after.  I had several vicious hits on the gurgler, but missed all of them.  As for the mouse pattern above, I tied this only for the second night, which I fished for a total of about 10 minutes before hooking up with a big brown which somehow managed to snap it off with 4x tippet!  That was a sad time indeed as I felt I might have caught my new record brown trout.  I must say though, from the few minutes I fished this, I absolutely loved it.  It pushes water amazingly… which is good for getting the attention of those big predatory browns at night.  It’s very simple to tie as well, so I might just post some tying instructions for it later.

I also spent a few hours at Wakeley Lake, a non-motorized, catch-and-release only lake that is only accessible via a 1/4 mile hike.  Because of the restrictions and the fact that it’s not easily accessible to more casual anglers, it’s a super lake to fly fish from either a float tube, pontoon boat or canoe.  I brought my float tube and in the few hours I spent there, I hooked up with a bunch of decent pike and bass.

Wakeley Lake Bass

Wakeley Lake Northern Pike

Another Wakeley Lake Pike

Oh and lastly (and perhaps least importantly), they have lots of big ugly spiders in Grayling.  Maybe only slightly more than I’m used to in the GTA, but for some reason they tend to sneak up on me more up there.  This one crawled out of my waders onto my arm when I put them on one morning, after leaving them outside to dry overnight.

This spider surprised me by crawling out of my waders onto my arm one morning…

The post Au Sable River Trip appeared first on Caffeinated Fly Fisher.