I’ve had mixed feeling about this season so far. I’ve been out several times since the end of April, usually hitting a river twice a week and have had my usual rate of success, catching 4 or 5 one day, 9 or 10 the next, but it just wasn’t the same feeling whenever I went out.
I had been fishing locally and it felt as if I was just going through the motions, everything was too familiar and routine. I even considered taking several weeks off so that I could feel the desire build again. This is an existential crisis for a fly fisherman. We live to get out on the water, and here I was with ample time on my hands, surrounded by some wonderful rivers and I just didn’t feel like fishing.
However, that feeling left within a few days when I decided to change things up a little. First I would hit a few local streams in the backwoods, where I had to hike quite a way to get to the river, instead of going where the access was easy. One of these trips required difficult climbing in a ravine, the other required a trek through truly wild backwoods where no trails existed. Both efforts produced results, not only in the catch, but more importantly in the psyche. After each, I felt that this was a rekindling of my desire. After all, these types of excursions require true dedication, since neither of the trips was easy walking and they both took a lot out of me, but they were worth it if only for the renewal of my appreciation of this sport.
I then decided it was time for a little road trip, so I headed up to a favourite river of mine, the Saugeen. It is about 100 miles north, but it takes about 2 hours to get there because much of the driving is through rural areas with numerous small towns. When I arrived I saw that the water was low, and this didn’t bode well. I worked the river for about four hours, working upstream as I went, but I didn’t even see a fish. I didn’t even work the river back downstream to the car, as it just wasn’t meant to be. I tried another area a few miles away, but as I expected when seeing the water, this day was a bust before it began.
A week later I took another trip, a little further north to a different river, the Mad River. Normally I wouldn’t have gone north again so soon, but it was the end of May and this river is smaller and would only be viable for another few weeks so if I wanted to go it was either now or wait until next year.
The area was beautiful, and the river looked very promising. As it turned out it was a long drive of 2 1/2 hours for a walk in the river, as I only caught half a dozen trout. I did see two big trout though, and I tried every trick to entice them to no avail. Finally, I walked upstream of them and tried a little grasshopper fly, drifting it just over them. This produced an immediate result, and it was hit hard. Unfortunately, the fish that hit it was an ambitious little trout, and once it was thrashing on the line the other two beauties decided to disappear. But I now know a spot where the big guys like to hang out, so next year I’ll try again. A little disappointing, but not a bad day considering. Still, that feeling that I was in a slump was beginning to return, and I decided to take a little time away from the river.
I passed about a week and a half by cleaning my equipment, tying flies and even reorganizing and expanding my fly tying desk. Mundane things, but necessary work to keep everything in shape, especially since our club outing was coming up and I had been looking forward to that since March.
The day of the outing was a beautiful day. A little breezy, but sunny with the perfect temperature. We all met near a little outfitting shop on the Grand River, had a bit of a chat and formed a little plan of action. Due to the numbers we couldn’t all go to the same place on the river, but that was fine because there are numerous access points in the area and we teamed up to head out accordingly.
My partner was an experience angler that I had fished with many times, and we headed out to a spot where coincidentally I had caught my first brown trout on the Grand a few years before. Alas, neither of us caught one there this time, and after a few hours of catching small unwanted fish (chub) we decided to move to another location.
The new location was absolutely gorgeous, but to get to it we both had to do a little mountain climbing, descending about 40 feet, not quite but almost vertically, into a gorge. Again, we worked the area for a couple of hours but neither of us even had a strike. As beautiful as it was, it was time for another plan of attack so we climbed back up the side of the gorge to try another location.
Just a little food for thought. When you’re outfitted to fly fish, you are usually wearing waders, wading boots, a pack or vest filled with accessories such as extra lines/leaders and fly boxes, and of course a net that is tethered to you via a magnetic system with an umbilical cord. All of this weighs between 25 – 35 pounds. Think about climbing an escarpment with this added weight while holding an instrument that can cost upwards of $1000, a finely engineered graphite (carbon fibre) wand that is powerful, but is so delicate that if you accidentally slap it against a branch or a rock it will snap like a dry twig. But, if there is a possibility of fish in the water then climb we must. Just a typical day in the life of a fly angler, lol.
After our climb, and a little moment to rest and laugh at ourselves, we chose another location a few miles away to try and salvage our day. When we got to our location we saw a couple of others in the area we wanted to try first, but this location had a few areas within short walking distance so we headed downstream to another stretch of river.
When we arrived we saw that there were a few fish rising to the surface, and this encouraged us, since both of us prefer dry fly fishing and as any fly angler will tell you it is the best feeling when you can entice a fish to rise and take your fly.
Within minutes, I had landed the first trout of the day. I followed it up with another two within 20 minutes, and my partner had begun to catch them as well. We both changed our flies a few times, catching a fish with each change, but we hadn’t hit on whatever it was they were sipping from the surface. We were having some success, but they still weren’t hitting as they should, given the numbers that we could see rising. At this point, he had caught 8 fish and I had caught 7, all very fat, healthy brown trout, but this wasn’t good enough.
We took a few minutes to meet in the river and discuss what we were seeing, and noticed a few tiny little gnats flying about us. He didn’t have any gnats in his fly box, so I gave him a few of mine. We tied them on and went back to the river. We didn’t have much time left to fish, as we were due to meet the others for dinner in less than an hour.
All of a sudden I started getting hits with every other cast. He was having much the same success as before, but I was starting to pull in fish. He called over to ask what I was doing, and I told him I was skating the fly across the surface. Skating is when you tug the line a little, causing your fly to simulate the actions of a small fly skating across the surface of the river. I’ve used it to great success on a number of occasions, as it mimics the natural movement of many hatching flies.
The time to meet for dinner was upon us, so we decided to pack it up. I told him I’d take one more cast and meet him on the bank, and sure enough, another beautiful brown trout was added to the tally.
As we walked to our cars, he was a little amazed at how rapidly I caught the fish, and we compared our tallies. Him, 10. Me, 16.
We were the last two to arrive at the restaurant, and when we sat down the others were discussing their results. It turned out than nobody had caught any fish other than those previously mentioned small unwanted chub. Then they got to us and my fishing buddy described our day. Everyone was commiserating with us until he got to our tallies for the last location, and described how everything turned for us with the gnats, especially with my technique and the results it produced. At that point, we were the envy of the table. All the time he was talking, I was just sitting back enjoying a very fine pint of Murphy’s Irish Stout, with an all knowing smile on my face; the real reason I started to ‘skate’ my fly was because I was having trouble seeing it in the fading light! As soon as I started doing it, the fish began to hit, so naturally, I kept doing it. They were all duly impressed that I used the technique to get something where they did not, and what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them, lol.
We sat there talking about the day and all other things, and as the night went on, it was evident that a Grand day was had by all. Mine was just a little bit grander than the others, a precious day on one of the crown jewels of Ontario’s trout rivers. Finally, the feeling I’d been waiting for all season had returned.
Come Fly With Me 