Scenic pocket water on a southern Ontario river

Downstream of a large waterfall, the river narrows, speeds up and is dominated by large boulders. Cliffs tower over both sides of the river and up above the cliffs there are trails with the odd tourist – though you wouldn’t know it. This area is no secret and the small amount of traffic can be directly related to the previously mentioned lack of access.

Wading can be tricky in some of the faster water

Fly fishing here is technical, with lots of leg work and stealth required. The fish in this area aren’t large on average, but what they lack in size they make up for in feistiness. There’s something about them: they’re completely different than the same fish you catch a couple miles up or downstream. Perhaps it’s the higher oxygen levels in the water, or simply the fact that these fish see less flies than in other parts of the river.

This type of water is the perfect place to swing a wet fly. Of course, nymphing and (at times) dry flies also work, but my interest in tying and fishing soft hackles and classic wet flies has peaked recently. So, that’s what I did – I tied a few simple partridge soft hackles, in yellow and red and swung them behind boulders and through some of the more productive looking riffles and runs. River features are generally miniature-sized in water like this, with short drifts required. A few longer stretches of productive water like the one below allow for longer drifts and the opportunity to take several fish.

A rare stretch of productive water amidst the otherwise broken up pocket water

In the span of a few hours, I walked several kilometres and landed about 8-10 brookies and browns. As expected, none of these were very big, but each fish caught felt like an accomplishment.

A small feisty brown trout, about average for this water

Overall a great day and I think the only improvement that could have been made is with my gear. When you’re in the middle of nowhere fishing for several hours, it’s pretty important to bring some water and food. Somehow, I’ve managed to survive this long on half to full day trips with simply a pair of waders and standard fishing vest – packing food and water wherever I could stuff it. This isn’t very practical or comfortable though and I think the next time I venture out I’ll be equipped with a new Fishpond pack/vest. Perhaps overkill for every day outings, but I think it will be invaluable for those (frequent) days with long hikes and a full day of fishing.

One last creepy closing note: I ran into another giant spider on this trip, which I have yet to identify. I think it may be another Fishing Spider, similar to the one I spotted a couple years ago on the same river. You can get a sense of its size from the leaves next to it. Yummy!

Large spider, which I believe to be a fishing spider

The post Pocket Water appeared first on Caffeinated Fly Fisher.

I’ve grown to appreciate the nymph and streamer for what they are and I certainly fish them more now than I did in the past: but still, I don’t enjoy them as much as I do fishing closer to the surface. Most trout fisherman generally consider these 3 types of flies: dries, nymphs and streamers. There’s also the more recent hybrid emerger, which is fished just under the surface flim, but these are what you’ll find predominantly in most fly shops and fly boxes. Yet, the sport of fly fishing grew up exclusively on another type of fly, one that is largely ignored by most anglers today: the wet fly.

I’m not stating anything ground breaking here. This subject has been brought up by lots of others, on the internet, in books and elsewhere. Speaking of which, I just received a copy of a new book, which is why this subject is fresh on my mind:

Wet Flies by Dave Hughes

This is a ~200 page hardcover book with a nice blend of stories, techniques and wet fly recipies. I’m only a little ways into the book, but so far it’s a great read.

Last season I had a bit of a revelation, which is why I ordered this book and began tying and fishing more wet flies as the season progressed. On many of the rivers I fish, dry fly action is often limited to very specific times of day (if you’re lucky). Streamers are not the most effective in certain water or during the warmer days of summer and as mentioned, I’d just rather not tie on a nymph unless I must.

I happened to get lazy last season and let my fly box run near empty. While out on the river for an afternoon, I lost a couple flies in some tight tree cover and a few more flies were starting to look pretty beat up. As I searched my pathetic looking fly box for another fly to tie on, a royal coachman wet fly turned out to be the best looking fly in my box. This fly was given to me by my father-in-law years before as a nice gesture, inside one of those bargain fly combo containers. I’d never really used them, but since I was so low on flies I decided to bring them along just in case.

I was fishing downstream of a waterfall, in a narrow section of pocket water with very large boulders. I dangled my fly over a boulder into a small pool and to my surprise, I immediately pulled a trout out of it. I worked my way downstream and caught several more fish on that royal coachman wet, followed by a good number of fish on a black gnat wet (after the coachman had taken a good beating). It didn’t take me long to realize that I had been missing out on a really fun and effective way to catch trout, for far too long.

Long story short, I’ve made sure to carry wet flies with me on every outing since and my interest in fishing them has been growing. To me, they are the ultimate versatile fly. You can catch fish on them almost any time, regardless of where the fish are feeding and certainly when there are no fish rising. An added bonus is that fishing wet flies is a good option for young fly fisherman just getting introduced to the sport (i.e. my kids), since the “perfect drift” is not quite as important with them as it is with dry flies or nymphs.

I’m looking forward to reading the rest of this book and building my collection of wet flies up for the coming trout season, which is less than two months away now in southern Ontario!

The post Wet Flies appeared first on Caffeinated Fly Fisher.