It’s been a year of mixed results. I had been out a few times with moderate success, averaging about 6 – 7 fish per outing, just enough to stay respectable. I had also managed to turn fly fishing into a contact sport, having torn my calf during an outing earlier in the season, and falling into a small gully on my last excursion, injuring my foot on the other leg. Both of the injuries required a little time away from the rivers, but neither was serious.
After my latest trip, I drove home deep in thought about what I was doing, and the results I kept getting. I like to fish the same rivers, and even the same locations on those rivers quite often, so it was no revelation to reflect on the fact that I keep getting the same results; a steady catch of nice little trout, with the occasional large one every now and then. This should be enough to justify my approach and keep me happy but it was not, and I was very quickly approaching a crisis. I just wasn’t satisfied with the results.
I felt that I was in a rut of my own creation, and if I wanted to break out of it the best way would be to change the routine and maybe explore new rivers or new areas. When I arrived home I said as much to my wife, and had the firm intention of not going back to the usual, comfortable routine. In fact I had the intention of not going out again for a few weeks.
Then, last Sunday I found myself with nothing planned, and some time available, so I decided to go out. Since I had not planned the outing, I fell back into the routine and headed to a favourite location on the Credit River. However, my expectations were just that I would have a few quiet hours on the water, not that it would turn out to be anything special.
After arriving at the river and getting outfitted, I hiked into the bush for approximately half a mile. It was a glorious day, and I though it would be great to start far upstream and work back downriver, with the expectation that I would just be happy to enjoy the time outdoors.
Once I entered the river, I noticed a lot of activity on the surface. Fish were definitely rising, which raised expectations a little, and I was thinking that this could be a lot of fun, even if the end product were the usual fare.
However even with all the activity going on I didn’t get much action at first, but I thought it might just take a change of fly to get something going. Before I could make the change though, I started to see some reaction, and fish began targeting my fly. The first few strikes were missed, but it wasn’t long before my rod bent quite suddenly, and a few moments later I had a nice sized rainbow in the net. That was quickly followed by an even larger brook trout, and this proved to be just the beginning of what I was going to experience.
I was casting a small dry fly, representative of a basic isonychia mayfly, and both rainbows and brook trout were hammering it. I fished it for about an hour, until it was so beaten up that I felt it was time for a change. This isn’t something I would usually do unless I lost the fly, but by this time I had landed over a dozen very good, fat trout. These fish were larger than usual, and were prolifically abundant, so I had no problem switching to a small elk hair caddis, knowing I had other little iso’s in my fly box if the action took a turn for the worse.
Again, it started slowly, and I thought about going back to a different fly pattern or tying another iso on the line to get back to the original successes, but then they warmed up to the caddis, and began hitting it with a vengeance. At one stretch, I caught half a dozen fish on successive casts. Unbelievable!
During all of this activity, at one point I noticed something in the water coming towards me. For about 1/100th of a second I though it was a log, but logs don’t float upstream; it was a beaver, well over 4 feet long. It swam past me where I was standing, less than a foot away, and didn’t even take notice of me, although it knew I was there. About an hour later it swam back the other way; I didn’t notice it until it was passing me, as it came from behind this time, again, a foot away from me. Huge animal, and I’m so glad it isn’t aggressive, I wouldn’t stand a chance. What a rush it is though, I could’ve touched it as it went past.
An hour or so later, I heard a bit of a noise up on the bank, and when I looked over there was a porcupine slowly making its way through the brush. Another large animal, though not as big as the beaver. I was surprised to see this in the daytime, but it didn’t seem perturbed by my presence and wandered away very nonchalantly. Amazing.
All this time I was wading up and down the river, catching trout after trout. After a few hours I moved downstream with the intent of going home. I moved onto the bank, and then decided to make a few casts into a very inaccessible pool. Again I pulled out several fish, although not with the same frequency as before. While I was standing on the bank, a pine marten ran up to within 5 feet of me, then disappeared into a thicket. About ten minutes later, it came out of the thicket, even closer, and made its way back the way it had come from. Wow.
As much as I didn’t want to leave, it was getting late and I had been on the water for about 6 hours. In that time, I lost count of the fish I caught, but I estimate it was between 35 – 40, with more than 30 of them in the 8 -10 inch range, and all very fat.
It was by far the most interesting day I’ve had while fishing; I’ve seen herons fly overhead within 15 feet of me, and eagles fly overhead just a little higher, and those were awesome days, but I didn’t catch a lot of fish on those outings. This day, everything came together and nature smiled.
I didn’t have to go to a new river to rekindle my confidence and love of this sport, I just had to be in the right place. The more I think of it, any time that I’m on a river with a fly rod in my hand, I’m in the right place.
Come Fly With Me 