The last couple of weeks have been fairly chaotic—much of it the good kind, but also some close calls that could have turned out very differently. Before getting into the meat of this story though, a little catching up first.

The May long weekend saw me taking a last minute trip to the Lake Superior Park interior for four days of paddling and trout fishing. Work had been unusually busy, which both delayed and shortened my spring backcountry trip plans. What’s usually a month of planning for up to ten days in the backcountry was condensed into about two days of rushed planning, packing, and a 9.5-hour drive north to a hastily chosen destination. I forgot some food and gear at home and was very low on sleep, needing to adjust my plans once again at the eleventh hour.

I’ll save the details of this trip for another post, but aside from the horrendous black flies and difficult portages, it was a good time, with some excellent fishing, scenery and solitude.

Green Drake Hatch

Not long after returning from Lake Superior, I was surprised to find out that the Green Drake hatch on the Credit had started extra early this year. It hadn’t even been on my mind, but in retrospect, it makes complete sense with the short (i.e. non-existent) winter we had. This is also why the black flies were so bad on my trip, when I had tripped at the same time last year (further south even) without any bugs.

I spent two nights of the green drake hatch on the river, but only for about an hour before and after dark each night. There were good numbers of drakes, along with a few intermixed grey foxes and a very thick sulphur hatch on the second evening. On both nights, there was a flurry of rising fish, but with my limited time and fly selection (I wasn’t prepared for the hatch to come so early), I failed to bring any large fish to the net. Or, that’s my excuse anyway. I think they were mostly feeding on emerging duns, which I had no suitable presentations for.

Between the two nights, we managed just a few smaller fish. Still, it’s always great to catch the drake hatch, with both the insects and rising fish a wonder to behold. It really gets me fired up to get out there and catch the hatches more often.

Float Trip From Hell

Speaking of drakes, that brings me to last weekend’s events. It was our first float trip of the year on a large southern Ontario river. Running late as usual, I quickly dug my pontoon boat out of winter storage, assembled it and threw it and all my fly fishing gear in the truck before heading out for the roughly 2 hour drive to the river.

After dropping one vehicle off at the take-out point and getting the boats loaded up, we set off from our access point and were instantly reminded of the tranquility that floating down a scenic river in a pontoon boat brings.

We’ve done countless trips in our pontoons and have yet to experience any real mishaps with them. Though, I suppose there was that time I snapped my 6 weight sage rod, after getting it caught up in some weeds while padding a lake a few years ago. But I digress – these drifts are almost always without drama. Still, as innocent and peaceful as they can be, it’s wise to remember that there are still many things that can go wrong – as we were soon to be reminded.

We happily floated down river, stopping to fish some of the nicer pools along the way. Insect activity was fairly low, but it was still early. We saw small numbers of Grey Foxes and Stoneflies, which eventually gave way to a lot of caddis and an absolute smothering of Brown Drakes at the end of the night (more on that later).

Steve (the other Steve I was with, not me) missed a decent fish or two in the first pool. There weren’t any visible rising fish, other than maybe one or two at our last stop for the evening, where we’d fish until just past dark. We split the river here, fishing from opposite banks on a fairly wide section of river with many nice runs and pools in it.

Since the light was fading and there was some fairly turbulent water here, I decided to fish a large stonefly, which we’d seen a few of earlier. I figured, it’d be easier for both me and the fish to see. That turned out to be a good decision, as I hooked into a nice brown within the first couple minutes here. It pulled hard on my 6 weight, leading me to believe it was bigger than it really was. It still turned out to be a nice chunky brown, but not quite the tank I first imagined.

Soon after releasing this fish, I spotted a large beaver swimming upriver towards me. It seemed fairly territorial and had no real fear of me. At one point it disappeared only to re-surface about 6 feet in front of me, without an ounce of hesitation or surprise.

We continued fishing until dark, but insect activity was decreasing rapidly as the temperature plummeted and winds picked up. This is generally the sort of weather that spells the end of good fishing, as it’s usually the warmer evenings that have some hatches going at or slightly after dark. We were sure this wasn’t the case tonight with the change in weather, so headed back to our boats to finish the kilometer or more of river we had left to float, in the dark.

We know this section of river well and we’ve floated it countless times in the dark. The river was higher and more pushy than normal though. We donned our boat lights and started out with an uneventful float. As we approached some slower frog water, we surprisingly started to see a flurry of insect activity. There were lots of caddis, but more surprisingly, there were hordes of giant mayflies, which turned out to be Brown Drakes.

Just like the presence of Green Drakes on the Credit, I wasn’t expecting Brown Drakes so early (or on such a cool evening after dark), but again, all bets are off with this year’s weather patterns. It seems like almost every hatch on the rivers are overlapping at the same time this year. Anyway, there were LOTS of Brown Drakes on the water. If you aren’t familiar with them, they’re also a very large mayfly, close to the size of the Green Drakes (ranging between size 8-10).

Steve and I were like two kids in a candy store as we glanced at the water while slowly continuing to drift downriver, paying little attention to the rest of our surroundings. This is when things started to spiral out of control.

Strike One

We were trying to capture some of the drakes on the water – and as I reached forward while sitting on my pontoon seat, I managed to slip off and plunge into a fairly deep section of river. I went in up to my chest, filling my waist-high Patagonia waders and soaking my wallet and other items in my pockets. I scrambled to get back in the boat as I couldn’t really touch ground.

Thankfully, other than getting soaked and cold, no real harm came of this. I shook it off, gathered my composure and still managed to snag a drake from the surface to observe and photograph.

Strike Two

We sort of laughed off my swim and continued downriver. Not shortly after this though, I heard Steve yelling and turned around to see him trying to save his fly rod that had got caught in a tree while drifting too close to it. That’s no joke in the fast moving waters and in the dark, but thankfully, another disaster was averted as he saved the rod. Once again, a close call, but no harm was done.

Strike Three

After waiting for Steve to free his rod and catch back up, he quickly (and unintentionally) passed me. His pontoon is the frameless type – an Outcast Stealth Pro. Dare I say, that boat is his pride and joy. It’s also very fast compared to my steel-framed Outcast Fish Cat XL-IR. So, he tends to ride ahead of me as a result.

I was putting my phone away at this point, after using it to photograph the above brown drake (yes, it has a decent macro camera!). I’d stashed the phone in my top shirt pocket, then quickly grabbed the oars as the boat was turning sideways through some fairly fast moving water. As I rowed to right the boat, I heard a loud “ka-plunk“. It took me a second to register that sound, then began wondering what it could have been. I looked all around, wondering if perhaps I had something on my lap that fell in. My panic increased as I imagined something important (but still unsure what it could be) falling into the dark depths of the river. As I was looking down, I noticed the zipper of my top shirt pocket unzipped – and EMPTY!!

My heart sank, as I realized that my $1500 phone just sank to the bottom of the river, in the pitch dark! I was at least 50 meters downstream of where it would have fallen in already and I began to frantically back paddle, to no avail. The river was very fast in this spot and there was no way to make upstream progress. Not knowing what else to do as more distance continued to add up between me and the point of entry, I foolishly jumped off my boat – thankfully this time, into water that was shallow enough to stand in. I put my headlamp on high beam and began dragging my pontoon back upstream, in the middle of the river. Deep down I knew that I had almost no hope of finding my phone, which was at least 100 meters or more upstream, in some unknown location at the bottom of the river. I could only hope that the river depth would hold and that the phone would be sitting on the bottom in such a way that my headlamp’s light might reveal its reflection.

Miraculously, for the third time this evening, I was thrown a bone. I managed to walk upstream far enough, get lucky enough to have a near perfect lie of my phone and shine my light in just the right location to see it sitting at the bottom of the river in about three feet of water. I reached down to grab it, submerging the rest of my upper body that hadn’t yet been soaked from the previous dump. The phone (Pixel 7 Pro) is waterproof and other than a warning about water in the USB port, was back in hand, unscathed and working!

Three Strikes and You’re Out?

I thought that’s how the saying goes – three strikes and you’re out. Somehow, we were still going though. We certainly weren’t laughing, but we were floored by how many chances we’d been given thus far. The river seemed to be teaching us some real lessons, that’s for sure.

I could only imagine what Steve was thinking at this point. I’d been screaming, but he was way too far downstream to know what was going on. When I finally caught back up to him and explained the situation, he could only share in the disbelief in how we’d been so unlucky (and lucky) tonight.

We were only a couple bends way from our exit point now, which we managed to carefully float back to without any more mishaps. I was freezing and soaked, but had my phone. Steve had his rod. We were in one piece!

We followed our usual routine from here, which is to first carry my (heavier) boat up to my truck and load it in the back. Then we carried Steve’s lighter boat and loaded it on top of my boat, strapping both boats to the truck with some tie down straps. We’ve done this countless times over the last couple of years and have always felt confident about the setup. It’s only a few short, quiet kilometers of travel back to the start point where Steve’s truck is parked.

However, on this particular night, something felt different. That difference was obviously all of the events that transpired earlier, but it was also fairly windy. It felt like a storm was brewing and there was an ominous feeling in the air. So, I was extra careful and made sure the boats were tied down well and that we definitely had all our gear loaded up. I drove slower than usual this time, trying to keep an eye on the back of the truck, to make sure everything stayed put. Again, I don’t usually have a care in the world when doing this.

It was pitch dark and difficult to see through the back tinted glass. As we drove slowly on the quiet highway back to the access, I thought I heard something from the back. I asked Steve to check if everything looked alright back there. We both looked, but neither of us could really see well enough to verify. I had a bad feeling, so pulled the truck over onto the shoulder. I opened the back sliding window and that bad feeling started to get worse – almost panic again. I quickly got out of the truck to check the truck bed – and Steve’s boat was GONE! It literally was no longer in the back of the truck and we couldn’t see it on the road behind us!

I’m not sure what felt worse for me at this point – seeing my $1500 phone go missing, or seeing Steve’s even more expensive boat disappear from the back of my truck. Both were intense, that’s all I can say, but Steve’s boat probably took the cake. I think we both had visions of a car or truck running it over (which would have been bad for both parties!) or it being completely mangled. I jumped in the truck and quickly made my way back up the road, being careful to not hit it myself! I was pretty far back and we were lucky enough that no vehicles had driven by yet. We spotted the boat sitting almost perfectly on the shoulder of the road, off the road itself – albeit upside down. It looked to be in one piece and upon further inspection, indeed it was. There was a busted GoPro mount and some serious beating done to a Scotty arm mount – which seemed to have absorbed a lot of the impact and lived to tell the tale! One of the front corners of the boat also looked like it hit the road and had a pretty good scuff mark, but nothing through to the inflatable pontoons thankfully.

The strap that I’d tied the boat down with tore right off his boat. I guess a big gust of wind must have lifted the boat like a sail and just snapped it off instantly. Steve was either faking things really well, or just happy to see his boat was not completely trashed. Either way, he was taking it extremely well. We gathered his seat and a couple other things that had gone flying and ended up in the middle of the road. At one point, another truck pulled over after passing by to make sure everything was ok.

This was our fourth mishap of the night and they seemed to be getting progressively worse. Needless to say, we were extremely cautious from this point on. We got ourselves sorted, tied his boat down again (this time much more reliably) and I proceed to crawl the truck back to the access. We unwound and packed everything away before convincing each to be extremely cautious on the long ride home, given all that had unfolded today. Thankfully, we did indeed make it back home safe and sound – me still damp but with my phone – Steve with his boat in one piece but a little more “used”.

They say that the vast majority of car accidents happen within 10 miles of one’s home. I managed to travel 10 hours to the middle of the Lake Superior backcountry, paddle across frigid deep lakes, sleep in a hammock in bear country, portage with 150lb of gear through mud and over hills so large that they could easily be called mountains and come out with far less scrapes than this seemingly routine and simple float down a local southern Ontario river. Other than thanking my lucky stars and being grateful that things turned out the way they did, I’m going to take the lesson mother nature gave us to heart – which is to slow down, think twice (or thrice) and never get too comfortable or complacent.