Still, on the upper Credit River, solid numbers of both large and small trout were being caught throughout the season. Cool evenings and the many cold springs that feed the Credit kept temperatures safe for much of the season. Of course, in extremely low, clear water with little bug activity, fishing becomes difficult during daylight hours. More often than not, the fish are completely inactive – hiding in undercut banks, vegetation and under logs, waiting for the cover of dark. This is especially true for Brown Trout and it happens to be ideal conditions for night fishing.

Fishing past dark on a brighter than normal evening, thanks to a near-full harvest moon.

For the most part, my night fishing has become less intentional than in years past. Aside from a few planned late-night outings with friends, most of my night fishing has simply been the result of fishing a couple hours before dark, then refusing to leave after that magic half-hour window when the action just starts to pick up. Some years are better than others and I can recall a couple seasons ago spending a significant amount of time fishing past dark with little to no results. This has been no such year.

A large Brown Trout caught after dark on the closing day of trout season.

The above fish was a fitting close to the 2016 trout season, caught shortly past dark in a pool that an hour earlier failed to show any sign of life. I’d spent at least 30 minutes fishing the pool before dark, with a variety of flies at different depths, using both floating and sinking lines. On the way back to my truck, I stopped at the pool again and hooked into this brute almost immediately. This was probably my largest fish of the season – too large to fit in my net. I estimated it to be about 24 inches.

I’ve probably caught more large Browns this season than I have in the previous few years combined, despite spending less time fishing at night. I attribute this to the increased confidence of knowing where big trout live, a better understanding of how they behave, and as usual, an ounce of luck. After a small bout of success when I first began night fishing a few years ago, I naively made the assumption that simply showing up past dark with big flies would put me into big fish. I won’t lie, it definitely helps stack the odds in your favor, but there are lots of other things that have to go right for you to hook into a big wily Brown Trout at night.

This became all too clear to me this season, after taking some friends out past dark a handful of times in an attempt to get them into some big fish. At first, I’d take them to my favorite holes and give them absolute guarantees that they would hook into some 20+ inch fish. When we left empty-handed, I’d blame it on timing or simple bad luck. However, when our next few outings produced the same results (yet I consistently caught fish by myself in-between our trips), I began questioning the real reasons for our lack of success.

I suppose it’s possible that they just didn’t have the skills required to catch those fish. But I was there telling them what to use, when and where to cast and how to retrieve. So if that were the case, I guess that’d make me a pretty bad guide. I do believe that they contributed to the difficulty, but not due to any lack of skill. When we fished together, I also did significantly worse, usually leaving with at most a single fish.

A hard-earned Brown Trout caught after a couple hours of night fishing with my friend Ryan.

Something that too many anglers take for granted is the need for extreme stealth when in the presence of big trout. When Ryan and I were out fishing past dark, we may not have realized it, but together we were making our presence all too known to those smart old browns. They may become voracious feeding machines at night, but they still have all the built-in defense mechanisms that granted them the long life they now have. Two silhouettes instead of one, the increased noise from our chitter-chatter, a few extra false casts and splashes on the water and extra light from two peoples’ headlamps while tying on new flies or navigating in the dark… these all create significant disadvantages.

To increase my chances of success, I make sure to arrive quietly and take some time to let the pool settle before attempting to fish (in case my arrival alerted any fish). My first casts, especially when the sun hasn’t completely set or when the moon is bright, are from behind cover or at the very least on my knees. I prefer a few extra false casts over letting the fly hit the water and then lifting it up to cast again due to a short cast. In fact, one of the worst mistakes I see is making a cast that is too short, then picking it back up immediately to fix the cast. You’re far better simply fishing out the short cast than trying to fix it after it lands. Also, keeping the lights off for as long as possible and ensuring they are pointed away from the water for the few times you may need to change a fly is paramount. The last point also helps your eyes to adjust to the darkness, greatly increasing your ability to cast accurately.

Put all these things together, along with a good selection of flies that will bring out the worst in big trout and you have a recipe for getting into some truly huge fish. Below are a few more of the fish that I got into after dark this season:

I’ve mentioned it before, but photographing fish in the dark is also a challenge. Having a friend makes this easier, but even then, the camera and lighting need to be setup properly and ready to go when you need them. It’s very difficult to fuss around with this stuff in the dark, not to mention after landing a fish. The absolute worst thing you can do is spend time messing around with cameras at the expense of a quick release. Below is just one of many examples I have of what happens when your setup isn’t perfect.

Yikes… an example of how to take a really bad fish photo at night!

Most of my night shots are still quite poor, but I’m slowly figuring things out. When I plan to take photos fishing alone, I now have a mini-tripod setup next to me ready to go with a custom timer of about 5 seconds. To snap a photo, all I need to do is turn it on and press a button, without having to take the fish out of the water. Even then though, forgetting to turn off the flash or a headlamp often results in disaster.

I suppose I should mention one last fish that I caught at night this season. This one was actually caught on the same night as my previous post (Pike Pool). As mentioned there, I’d been hunting a Pike that broke me off three times the day prior. I eventually caught the fish before moving to a different pool to cast for browns after dark. In between two big browns from the slideshow above, I was broke off yet again by what seemed to be another Pike. I put my wire leader on, cast to the same spot and pulled my second Pike of the evening out of the Credit.

The second Pike caught on the same night; and my third Pike caught on the Credit this year.

The post The Night Bite appeared first on Caffeinated Fly Fisher.

It’s the Bass that have always occupied most of my time here. My parents live on a canal that has proven to be one of the better Largemouth Bass spots (that I know about) on this river and I’ve spent countless hours fishing for them. Historically this has been with spinning gear, but more recently with a fly rod.

Last weekend I was down at my parents place and we headed out in the boat Sunday morning for some fishing. I was casting red and white buggers on my six weight with sink tips and it turns out the bass were into the flies moreso than my dad and brother’s lures and bait (I’m not bragging dad, really!). I landed a few smallies, with one particularly large fish surprising me when it smashed my fly as it hit the water just in front of a weed bed.

A nice Detroit River Smallmouth Bass caught on the fly

I certainly appreciate the local trout rivers that I now have access to living near the GTA, but I also miss the great fishing, boating and ease of access to rivers and lakes in the Windsor area.

The post Detroit River Bass appeared first on Caffeinated Fly Fisher.

This is the time of year where our fly boxes need to be the most diverse. Depending on the time of day, river and hatches, you might be casting streamers, nymphs, wet flies, emergers, tiny dries, large dries, or even huge topwater patterns. Consequently, I’ve been hitting the tying bench a lot lately, trying to cover all my bases. In what has been an increasing trend of mine, I’ve concentrated more on sub-surface patterns this season to up my odds when fish are either not rising, or when they’re rising but refusing dry flies. Below are some flies I’ve been tying and fishing on some of my local waters.

Grand River

If you fish the Grand River, you know how frustrating it can be if you rely on dry flies to match the hatch. Although I don’t spend as much time on the Grand as I do other rivers, I’ve come to realize that it’s a largely sub surface and emerger river. In response to this, I tied a bunch of the following emerger patters in various sizes, mainly for caddis and blue winged olive hatches. I’m sure that by simply swapping out different colors and materials, these could be used to imitate a much wider variety of caddis and mayflies.

Caddis or BWO emerger, loosely based off a Snowshoe Emerger pattern

A variation of the above fly, tied with slightly different materials and colors

A sparkle caddis pupa emerger, which (in various styles) has done well on the Grand

Caddis pupa nymph: one of the simplest, yet most effective sub-surface flies on the Grand

As a reminder of just how versatile you need to be, I set out to the Grand River last Saturday with a friend and a bunch of the above flies. The weather was perfect, flows were low and there had been no rain for many days prior. Our expectations were high: clear conditions, lots of bugs and rising trout. We spent a total of about 12 hours on the water that day and what we were met with instead was very murky, low-visibility water and not a single witnessed fish rise for the entire day (on the upper and mid stretches). We fished during one of the thickest caddis hatches I’d seen in quite some time, with loads of large caddis floating down the river and fluttering helplessly on the surface – yet we didn’t see a single fish come up. It wasn’t until we drove several kilometers downstream to the lower river (which usually has less visibility than the upper) that the water cleared up and we got into some rising fish. I later learned that the water clarity issues were caused by the first big algae bloom of the year.

Credit River

I was on the Credit after work a couple weeks ago and managed to hit a smorgasbord of hatch activity, with Sulphurs, Isonychia and Caddis all in good numbers. Despite the impressive hatches, fish activity was surprisingly average that evening. I saw and caught a few small fish that were rising, but nothing out of the ordinary. The point is, it takes more than nice weather and lots of bugs to reliably bring up larger trout. I’ve fished many smaller hatches on the Credit in the recent past, with much more (and bigger) fish. I specifically remember an evening a couple years ago at the busiest access point on the river (normally the least-productive fishing) where an Isonychia hatch brought numerous 12-16″ browns to the surface in a feeding frenzy.

For the Credit, I find matching the hatch is generally less of a factor than the Grand. More important on the Credit is presentation and stealth. This isn’t surprising considering the greater angling pressure on the Grand and much smaller, technical water of the Credit. If you’re fishing dry flies, you can usually pick a common food source such as an Isonychia, Stonefly or simply use an attractor. Personally, I like bushy dry flies here, unless there’s a prolific hatch going on: a Stimulator or Humpy are two of my favorites. My only gripe with the humpy is that it can be annoyingly difficult to tie.

Stimulator: One of my favorite and most productive dry flies for the Credit River

Bead Head Soft Hackle Pheasant Tail: One of my favorite sub-surface flies, especially for pocket water and small streams

A simple Isonychia Parachute pattern, effective for imitating this abundant mayfly

A Sulphur soft hackle, effective when sulphurs are out or as a searching pattern

Gurgler: One of my go-to night patterns that I tie in various styles and colors

If I had to fish the Credit with only two flies, the Stimulator and Bead Head Soft Hackle Pheasant Tail would probably be my choices. As mentioned though, I think fly choice is more a matter of personal preference here. I have no doubt that a good Isonychia nymph or simple Walt’s Worm would do equally as well (if not better).

Stillwaters

My experience with stillwater fly fishing is laregly limitted to local stocked water, with the exception of some native brookies and warm water species. Still, I’ve done some experimenting and found a few options that work well for me. I highly recommend checking out the various videos and articles by fellow Canadians Phil Rowley and Brian Chan, who are highly regarded as experts in this area. They’ll tell you that fly selection is much less important than tactics and this has definitely held true for me. Still, its nice to have a few patterns that have proven to be effective.

Slow retrieved nymphs and chironomids are known to be some of the most productive flies, but I’ve found more actively retrieved streamers to be a good all around choice as well – not just for trout, but also for bass and other species.

Redneck Bugger (as I call it): A crystal bugger with a red hackle neck

CB Stocker: Another simple and effective streamer for trout

The above streamers are easy to tie and have worked well for me for both stocked rainbows and smallmouth bass (for the latter, especially the bugger). On days when fish are rising and sometimes even when there are no visible rises, such as warm days when the water is extremely calm, I’ve had a lot of success with a Stimulator. This versatile fly (shown above) can represent a host of different insects: from stoneflies to caddis to hoppers. It also floats extremely well and can be twitched on the surface to entice a strike.

I dont know if it’s just me though, but it seems that irregardlesss of preparations and fly boxes full of favourite patterns, more often than not I end up on the river feeling as though I’m missing some critical fly. This keeps my vise busy and shopping cart full with new tying materials.

The post Preparations 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.

1. Steelhead and salmon fishing in any river within an hour drive in any direction of my house is generally a shoulder to shoulder meatfest.  Not my idea of fun, at all.
2. Warm water fishing with a fly rod has often seemed impractical, or inaccessible, due to the difficulty getting into a river or lake without some sort of boat (most are not wadeable and/or have zero room for back casting).

Well, I’m happy to say that I’m a reformed warm water fly fishing enthusiast. This happened gradually over the past couple of years. The main triggers included a new float tube which made a bunch of new water accessible, as well as discovering a couple nice wadeable stretches of rivers I didn’t previously know existed.  Of course, the hot weather this summer helped push me over the edge a bit too.

First Carp on a Fly Rod

The net result was lots of fun warm water fishing this year.  In fact, I caught three species for the very first time on a fly rod this year: smallmouth bass, pike and carp.  Previous years had me dabbling with largemouth bass and panfish.

One of many smallmouth bass taken on the fly this summer.

Next year I’m planning to add a pontoon boat to my ever-growing inventory, so hopefully that will make things even more interesting!

The post When It’s Too Hot For Trout appeared first on Caffeinated Fly Fisher.