Archive for the ‘Fishing With Colin’ Category

Colin arrived from Ottawa yesterday to carry on our years long tradition of spending Opening Day together. We had made arrangements with my friend Dave Moore to head to the Grand and show him a few of the access points as he’d never fished there before, meeting here first at about 7AM.

I was so excited with anticipation that I couldn’t really sleep. A few rum and cokes – and finally at 6AM, had an hour long “nap.” The day started out grey, windy and cold – and continued that way. I don’t think the temperature got above 8C where we were. The cold weather must have made the fish very lethargic as not one was seen during the hours Colin and I fished with Dave.

We threw everything but dries at the flies – there didn’t seem to be any point to dries as even with some minor hatches going on – there were absolutely no rises whatsoever. Not a hit all day – and not one fish seen being caught by any of the other anglers nearby.

About 3:30PM, shivering and Colin especially cold due to a leaky wader, Colin and I decided to call it a day with the idea that we’ll be heading out again tomorrow. Dave decided that he’d head up to Meaford to try the harbour area for rainbows using worms. He just called to gloat that he caught a 5 1/2 pound rainbow – and not only that, the temperature was warmer than where we had been fishing earlier! That was unexpected! Usually, Meaford is at least a couple or three degrees cooler than the Orangeville-Elora-Fergus areas.

Regardless of the disappointing action, it was still great to get out on the river though and start the bad casting habits all over again. I was quite impressed with how well Colin, my 15 year old, did – remembering all the good habits he had been taught in the early season of last year by Ian James.

Well, here’s to better luck tomorrow!

Well, summer with Colin was going great until I got a crazy insane flu or cold virus. I seldom get sick, but when I do, it’s a doozy.  This time was no exception, and for the first time in about a decade, I was laid up for about two weeks.  By the time I had regained my energy, the heat and humidity took hold, with temperatures heading up above 45C with the humidex taken into consideration.

A couple of nights, the temperature didn’t even drop below 35C.  At night! As much as I love fishing, that’s just too hot to do anything.

We did manage a couple of short trips – one of which saw me skunked for the first time this year, not counting when I competed in the Fly Fishing Championships.

One evening, Colin and I decided to try a different section of the Grand River, above Lake Bellwood.  I drove along a bunch of gravel roads, and I am not even sure I could get back to the place if I tried.  There was a well worn path down the bank of the river, and later we discovered that a half hour walk downstream would have gotten us to a stretch of the river where some nice smallmouth bass hang out.   We didn’t walk too far, but in the hour and half of fishing that we did, I caught a bunch of baby smallmouth bass on the Quinchat’s Glimmer as well as Hare’s Ear Nymphs.

Another evening, we had time to spend about 45 minutes before it got dark below Shand Damn.  There were small fish rising, and I had about 20 fish rise to my “Tap Dance Caddis” but no hook ups at all.  A frustrating 45 minutes indeed! Colin had one fish on, using The Grand River Fly, but lost it before he could bring it to hand.

Milder weather has finally moved in, so I’ll likely be doing some fishing again this week. And just in time for that, my new William Joseph “Coastal” Chest Pack arrived in the mail today.  I am totally impressed with the products William Joseph produces!  As some readers will know, I reviewed the William Joseph waders here.  After I spend some time with this chest pack, I’ll write a review of this product – initial inspection says… “Impressive!!”

I also picked up the “hydration bladder” which fits nicely into the back of the chest pack – and holds 3 litres of water. I like to have lots of water with me when I’m fishing, but bottled water is awkward no matter what one is wearing.  This water bladder is going to be awesome.

More soon!

Earlier in the afternoon, I showed Colin how to tie up the Grand River fly, and we tied up some before we headed out for the river.  After grabbing a bite to eat, we were on the river at about 5 PM with Colin deciding he was most definitely going to give his newly tied fly a go.  I decided to try a different dry pattern.  We also took along our “talkie talkies” so we could split up and still be able to communicate without having to holler at each other.

I waded downstream while Colin decided to try the riffle at the top of the pool – the riffle that everyone says doesn’t hold much fish, but the same riffle that Colin caught a trout the other day.  It wasn’t five minutes when I hear Colin, “Dad, I’ve got a fish on.”

“What?? Already?”

“Yup, can you come up and help me?”  Colin is still a bit uncomfortable with removing the hook.  So I up I go, and sure enough, Colin has a nice fourteen incher – on the Grand River fly.  And here’s the interesting thing, which I think is funny – he tied the CDC too tight – almost as if it were a wing case.

I had been fishing the Tap Dance Caddis, but was getting no rises – but then, for some reason today, the Grand was kind of dirty to fish. The water was clear, but all kinds of algae floating down and it reminded me of the first time I fished the Conestoga as I was having to do the same thing – every second cast, clean algae off my fly.  Even drys that were sitting high on the water.

Next thing, I hear Colin again.  “Another one, Dad.  Ha ha.”  Yeah, getting his digs in already. He’s 2 up on me already to my zip.   He’s not too far away from where I’m fishing this time, so he wades down the few yards so I can help him release the brown.  As I look at the water, I’m seeing a monster fish – but Colin’s rod tip isn’t bent over that much! But there’s this massive huge fish right at the end of his line!  Or was it?

Actually, Colin had another nice 14 incher on the end of the line – the huge monster fish – I swear this thing was over 24 inches, was following the fish Colin had on! As soon as I reached down, it took off.

We get the fish nicely released, and I decide I had better give this Grand River fly a try.  A couple of casts later, I’ve got a nice 14 incher in my hand.  I’m thinking to myself, “this could be a great night – especially if the fish above 12″ are all coming out to play.”

I had several more rises to the fly, but it was so frustrating cleaning off the algae all the time – and my fly started to fall apart.  If you’re going to use the Grand River fly, best to tie up a bunch of them before you go out.  Anyhow, my fly ended up a bit shredded and there were less trout rising, I was into some deeper water, so I thought I’d experiment and try out an olive coloured leech.

“Whooo hooo!”  Fish on, third cast! Nice fish – biggest of the afternoon so far – but lost him in rough riffle water. A few more casts, and another fourteen incher! This was looking like it might be a great evening.

Except, it seemed my fly spent more time out of the water than in the water, with all the galdarn algae cleaning I had to do.  It was a real pain.  And the leech was picking up more algae than the dries were, so I went back to an elk hair caddis.   Had some fish rise to it – it is so much fun when you’re wearing polarized glasses and can see the fish flash and turn, look at the fly, and often – go for it. I had a bunch of takes, but nothing solid.

Colin decided his feet were sore, and he needed to go back to the van for some reason.  That’s when I discovered Italy had won the World Cup.  Using the handy dandy two way radios, Colin made the announcement to me while he listened to the news on the car radio.  I kept fishing, found some other water that I had not fished before – real tough fast stuff, hard to keep dry flies floating kind of water – but had a dozen takes – and lost another real nice fish before Colin returned to the water.

By this time, it was getting on past 9PM, and the daylight was waning.  And what do I hear crackling over our two-ways?  “Dad, I have another fish.”

So, up I go – sure enough, there’s Colin, using the same Grand River fly, fishing that bit of shallow riffle water, and he’s got a trout.  This one was smaller than the earlier fish – but still, for Colin, well, that was all it took for him to rub it in – he caught more fish, and on a fly that “could have been better,” and of course, I feigned impertinent jealousy, all in good fun.  This time, Colin managed to remove the hook, revive the fish and release it all on his own.  I had a few more casts myself – just to try to at least match him in the fish count, but in the end, Colin won tonight’s “Dad/Son” fishing competition.

Not sure what he wins yet.  But whatever, it was a lot of fun to spend the time with my son on the river, and in fact, I’m glad for him.