Posts Tagged ‘Smallmouth Bass’

First, I think Ian James is onto something.

Second, had a great evening on the Grand River near Fergus this evening. This was a portion of the river I had never fished before, so it took me a few minutes of reconnasaince to figure out where I wanted to place myself in the river. There were a few folks fishing upstream of where I had entered, and one fellow about 150 yards downstream. I decided to fish some nice riffle water, with some deeper pools through it, along with some still water within casting distance across.

It was a beautiful evening, part cloud, part sun and mild temperatures – but interestingly, there were no hatches of anything going on to speak of. I think the whole evening I saw a total of ten fish rising – so I decided to tie on a wet fly pattern. Now, once again, because of the upcoming Canadian Fly Fishing Championships, upon agreement with my teammates, I’m not at liberty to say what patterns I used until after the competition has been completed. But I must have been lucky in my hunch this evening, as I stuck with one pattern just about the entire time, and was quite successful.

In fact, I caught my first fish on the fourth cast. A nice 12 incher. I lost a few more, caught a few more – and ended up bringing about a dozen browns to hand on the one fly – the largest being about 16 inches, and the smallest, 10 inches.

I also had one monster on that broke my 4 lb. test leader. This guy was BIG. My TCO rod was bent right over, and line was slipping through my fingers as I fought it. Then all of a sudden, Snap! Sheesh.

No idea what the fish was – it could have been a big brown, but I was told there are also some carp in that area – but with the particular pattern I was fishing, I doubt it was a carp. It could have been a big bass though as later on, I did hook a smallmouth but lost it. As I was bringing it in, it did a nice little tail dance for me on top of the water, and it was a green smallie, no doubt, about 14 inches or so. After the tail dance, it dove to the bottom and shook the fly.

I decided to wade a little further downstream and have a chat with the angler who was fishing a pool about 75 yards away. Turns out his name is Josh Rienhardt, visiting Ontario from West Texas. A fine fly angler he is too. I had some time to admire his casting skills before chatting with him. Josh shared some of his experiences over the past few days with me, and I shared some stuff, under the threat of disembowlment if he let out what I was using to anyone who might be competing in the championships this weekend. It was nice to meet him, and talk about fly fishing in general, and our own favorite waters specifically. Hope to see you again on the river sometime, Josh!
Just before dark, I decided to switch flies, just to experiment and test something out, and sure enough, two more nice browns, both about 12 inches were caught and released. I wanted to fish longer, but by this time, the sun had completely gone down below the horizon and I was in darkness. As I waded back to the path along the side of the river, a favorite sight of mine – fireflies! I love seeing fireflies at night, and there were hundreds of them, flashing their little bums green.

Did you know that fireflies flash their bums with that little light because they are looking to attract a mate? I sometimes wonder what it would be like if humans, when they were ummm… aroused, had their bums flash…

Might make things easier at the singles bars, huh? Well, I’d prefer to be fly fishing myself than hangin’ out at the singles’s bars anyhow. And now, I’m going to tie up some more flies and hopefully convince some of my team members to give them a try during the competition. I think they might be surprised!

Recently, the Canadian Fly Fishing Championships included parts of the Conestoga River in the venue for the competition next weekend.  I’ve never fished any part of the Conestoga before, although I’ve often crossed the upper portion of the river, where it’s a mostly slow and meandering bit of water.  In fact, if you drive along Hwy 9 from west of Arthur to east of Arthur, Ontario, you cross the Conestoga several times.

In spring, you’d think that this part of the river might be quite a productive water to fish but in summer, parts of it are all but dried up.  The winter snow melt in the spring can bring the water levels up very high, but once the snow has all melted and the summer heat and sun emerge, it’s nothing more than a ditch, it seems.

It is suspected that at least one part of the Conestoga that will be fished next weekend during the competition will be through the village of Alan Park.  Alan Park is about 18 miles as the crow flies southerly of Arthur, and is relatively close to St. Jacobs, heart of Mennonite country in Ontario.

As I drove out from Elora and through Elmira to meet teammates Ernie Kalwa and Arron Varga, i came across more and more horse drawn carriages – the transportation of many Mennonites in this area, driving along the highways.  I should note that “Mennonite Country” in South-Western Ontario takes in quite a large area, and the reason St. Jacob’s is often thought of the “heart” is because of it’s well known Mennonite Farmer’s market.  Heading north, and espectially north-west of Arthur, into Mount Forest, and beyond to Huron County, one will come across the horse drawn vehicles of the Mennonites, many of which still adhere to their old customs of wearing black suits for men and black dresses for women.

I finally found the place Ernie had arranged to meet me, and parked beside the river. After walking across an overgrown field, I came to the river and saw my teammates upstream.  They had been fishing for about an hour and between the two of them had apparently brought a few brown trout to hand. But there had been no action for awhile.

The pool they had discovered looked quite promising and I had a lot of confidence when I first cast my fly into it. I had believed that there may be larger fish here, including smallmouth bass and pike, so I had brought along the Bloke 9′ 7 wt. rod.  It turned out it was probably a little too heavy for what we were fishing, but the rod was still quite nice to fish with. It was the first time I had spent more than a few minutes fishing the rod.

My confidence was slowly eroded as cast after cast, trying different flies and depths were all for nought. Ernie and Arron moved on downstream to try out some other parts of the water while I continued fishing this pool.  After awhile, a small hatch of something or other began, and I could see the swirls of small fish sipping on the surface. I tried a few different dries, floating them right over the noses of the fish that were rising – and notta.  It was frustrating, but at the same time, I was determined to not give up – but in the end, darkness made it impossible to continue as I couldn’t even see well enough to tie on any new flies.

Just before leaving, Ernie walked on back up to where I was and reported that he had a few strikes downstream, but nothing that he could write home about.  For the final few minutes before nightfall, we both tried enticing whatever it was that was sipping at the surface, but to no avail.

So, skunked in Mennonite Country I was.  I think it’s only the second time this year that I’ve been skunked while fly fishing.  But, at least I did get to spend more time with the Bloke rod, and of course in the company of a couple of other anglers who love fly fishing as well.

I decided to head out this afternoon to the Grand River near Inverhaugh – first to meet with Ian James to pick up a pair of waders he’d like a second opinion on, and then of course, to wet some flies.  Had an enjoyable and funny chat with Ian before he had to scoot off, and then it was time to get my waders wet.

Bright sunny day, no cloud cover, and warm.  Fished some nymphs for a while, but there was no action, except for a couple of guys standing on the bridge above me, yapping. I don’t mind folks talking to me when I’m fishing, but sometimes when they don’t stop, it becomes annoying.   Buddy on the bridge was, I guess, trying to be helpful, giving me advice on what flies I should be using and what size – he was critical of the fact I was using a size 12 nymph and told me I should be using a size 18 or 20.

Ohh… kayy.. anyhow, he kept on about this, and I decided that indeed, it was time for a change of flies.  Just to try to ignore him, I tied on something completely different – my “weird” fly I wrote about the other day.  Would you believe the second cast, I brought a lovely 14″ brown to hand?  I could hardly believe it myself.  Seems Buddy On The Bridge didn’t want to believe it either, and shortly thereafter, tranquility and peace resumed.

There were a couple of anglers further down the river, and I  have no idea what sucess if any, they were having – and it was nice to simply stand in the river, and work on some accuracy while the fishing was slow.  Although the 14 incher took that fly on the second cast, there was nothing after that.

Then, a mayfly hatch started, just as a father and son team walked down to the river.  It was nice to see this kid, probably about 12 years old with a fly rod in hand.  It was also nice to see a whole lot of fish rising, too.  The kid did pretty good – he had a fish on his first cast and I was happy for him as he excitedly called to his dad.  His dad seemed doubtful – “Oh, it’s probably just a chub, right?” he asked his son.
“No, dad, I don’t think so – come look.”

Dad took his time and the kid played the fish, but sure enough Dad pronounced that the kid had caught a nice little brown trout on that first cast.  I thought to myself, so what if it was “just a chub” anyhow?  The kid  hooked and caught a fish on his first cast, for goodness sake.

I tied on an imitation that I had in my fly box, and had several fish strike at it through it’s drift, but no solid hook-ups.  It was fun though – the fact I could fool the fish even if they didn’t completely take is always a good feeling for me.

At the end of one drift, I was just about to lift the line off the water when, “splash,” and fish on.  Nothing big, but still, fiesty – and it turned out to be a smallmouth bass about 6 inches.  That was cool.  The bass was released, and I contined fishing for another half an hour, caught another 2 brown trout, around 8″ both.

Then, the Dad from the Son and Dad team mentioned above decided to wade right into the pool!  He’s standing in water above his knee deep, casting to the rocks in water that’s about ankle deep.   But by that time, the hatch had died off anyway, and I figured it was a good time to go stretch my legs, rehydrate, and pack up.

It was a good afternoon though, even with the distractions.