I was hoping to do some stillwater fishing for a change and when I arrived there was only a single person on the water. The winds had picked up again and the sky was still looking grim. By the time I geared up, the sole angler had paddled in and was headed home. He mentioned the fishing was slow and considering the current weather conditions, I was headed out with fairly low expectations. I paddled to the far side of the pond, set the anchor and tied on a tandem rig: a leech pattern and nymph. When I looked up, ready to take my first cast, I realized the wind had dislodged the anchor and pushed me to the opposite side of the pond. This happened twice more in the next few minutes, before my luck changed for the better.

With 3.5 hours left to fish, the skies started to open up and the winds calmed. Fish were starting to become active and it wasn’t long before I hooked into my first Rainbow of the night.

My first Rainbow Trout of the evening, took a good old Pheasant Tail nymph.

I’d forgotten how much of a bend these fish put in a 6 weight rod. This large acrobatic trout put up quite a fight before finally giving in. The action was fairly steady for the rest of the night, with several fish lost and several more caught. Either I was having a really good night, or the fish are bigger this year, because I didn’t catch many fish under 18″.

Another thick bodied rainbow trout that fell victim to the Pheasant Tail.

As the daylight grew shorter, surface activity picked up and despite my success I decided to try my luck with dries.  I noticed a few of these on the water, so I tied on a basic imitation:

Fish seemed to be picking off a bunch of Callibaetis mayflies like this on the surface.

Aside from Rainbows, there are also Brook Trout in this pond which I believe were mainly feeding on the mayflies. After a few minutes and several missed hits on the dry fly, I figured I’d double my chances and change to a Dry Dropper. When fishing dries on stillwater, I tend to have more confidence in something that floats extremely well and lets me twitch it without having to worry about it constantly drowning. I had tied a fairly humongous extended foam bodied mayfly a couple weeks ago and figured it might entice some of the larger rainbows to hit, while targeting the Brookies with a wet fly dropper.

The first Rainbow Trout taken on the indicator portion of my rig: a large foam dry fly.

This worked as planned and several hungry Rainbows made short work of the large dry fly as it twitched on the surface. I snapped the following underwater shot with my new camera as I was releasing one:

Underwater shot taken before releasing a Rainbow Trout.

It was difficult to pull myself off the water as the surface action continued to pick up with the fading light. The Brook Trout were especially active at the end of the night and I hooked a few on the trailing Leadwing Coachman while making my way in. I also managed to lose a couple much larger Brookies as my hook popped out while horsing them in.

One of a few Brookies caught before calling it a night.

Overall, it turned out to be an unexpectedly great few hours on the water.

The post Stillwater Sweetness appeared first on Caffeinated Fly Fisher.

Between the untimely thunderstorms, rain and other life commitments, I haven’t been able to spend much time on the water lately. Two or three hours after work, one or two times a week is about all I’ve managed. Most of my outings have been for Brook Trout and well… there’s not much to see there. Just a bunch of average but equally beautiful fish, as are all southern Ontario Brookies.

An average small stream southern Ontario Brook Trout.

I suppose there’s also that rodent I ran into while fishing for Brookies a couple weeks ago. As I was hunched over tying on a new fly, I noticed out of the corner of my eye a large dark shadow drifting towards me. My obvious initial reaction was “wtf is that!”. As I raised my head to look, I startled the shadow which turned out to be a Beaver, now a foot away from me. With a sense of urgency, it stood up in the shallow water and leapt back upstream, violently splashing its tail and scaring the living crap out of me!

A Beaver, going about its business after we were both startled when it nearly bumped into me.

I’ve been experimenting with different fly patterns again this year, mainly wet flies and soft hackles. A couple years ago I began using them quite a bit, but I was fishing them mainly downstream and across (swinging). This year, I’ve been focusing more on upstream presentations and while I’ve been finding it slightly more difficult, I’ve also found it more reliable in a lot of situations.

A few days ago, I was fishing wets on some pocket water that I frequent. There’s a small plunge pool there that’s moderately difficult to present a fly to, which has eluded me in years past. As inviting and fishy as it looks, I’ve somehow never managed to get a fish (over 6″) out of it. This time around though, I managed to coax a slightly better Brown out of the small pool using a traditional wet fly. I presented the fly with some slack line to the back of the pool and as it sank, a fish with much more attitude than size smashed it. It amazes me how smart these wild trout can be, even at this size. It wasted no time and immediately dashed to the right side of the pool, near the surface where there was a sunken tree branch. It wrapped my leader around the branch and somehow managed to stay hooked long enough for me to stumble over and scoop it out from under the branch, breaking my fly off in the process.

A pretty Brown Trout caught on a March Brown wet fly.

The above picture was taken with my brand new Olympus TG-4 camera. This is my first Steve-proof camera… that is, it’s waterproof, crush proof and impact proof. Ask my wife or any of my co-workers how many times I’ve dropped a phone or camera into the water or sand and you’ll realize how long overdue this purchase was. I’ve only had it out a couple times so far and due to the rain, the water has been too murky to really test out the underwater capabilities. It does however have an absolutely amazing macro mode, called microscope mode. I used it to snap a couple quick bug shots while on the water and I was very impressed with how quickly and easily it focuses. I’ve since picked up a neat LED Light Guide accessory that improves macro shots even more, especially in lower light.

A quick test shot of a Caddis Larva, using the microscope mode of my TG-4.

Another macro test shot, this time of a Little Yellow Stonefly that landed on my jacket.

In addition to the underwater and macro modes, it has a bunch of other neat modes and features, including RAW support and the ability to remote control it with a smartphone. I’m looking forward to messing around with it more on my future excursions.

The post Spring Rains 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.

The post When Matching the Hatch Fails appeared first on Caffeinated Fly Fisher.

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.