I made another quick stop after work last night. Night time action is definitely slowing down a bit, but I land one nice fish before losing my only foam mouse. I guess that’s the motivation I needed to get back to the bench to tie some files.
Another late night Brown Trout, caught on a super simple foam mouse.
I’m supposed to be taking a friend night fishing for the first time Sunday. He has yet to break the 20″ mark for trout, so hopefully we have a good night and get him over that hump.
Fall is still more than a couple weeks away, but you can already feel it fast approaching. We’re now into September, the last month of trout fishing in Southern Ontario. Days are getting shorter, nights are getting cooler and the weather is becoming a lot less predictable.
I figured I would take the opportunity to get out for some night fishing over the Labour Day weekend, while the water is still warm enough. The weather wasn’t exactly ideal, with rain and thunderstorms on and off the entire weekend. I’m no meteorologist or expert when it comes to weather and its effect on fish, but there are a number of theories about how weather and barometric pressure affects fish activity. While it’s convenient to use lousy weather as an excuse for not catching fish, I can only confirm that fishing was indeed difficult.
Driving into some ominous looking clouds
It’s always a great feeling when you succeed in matching the hatch: you determine exactly what the fish are feeding on, manage to find a fly that closely resembles it and start catching fish. Often times this is how fly fishing goes. However, there are times when none of the logical patterns seem to work and instead, a fly that represents nothing the fish are currently feeding on seems to work best. It might be an Elk Hair Caddis when there are no caddis on the water, or it might be an attractor pattern. The Patriot is a good example of the latter on many northern Michigan rivers.
I got out again Friday morning before work. There weren’t many bugs early morning, so I started fishing wet flies. When that was unproductive, I moved on to nymphs and later tried streamers. Fishing was slow, with little more than a couple missed hits on the wet flies.
As the sun came up and the temperature began rising, I started seeing a bunch of these:
Lots of Tricos were hatching an hour or so past sunrise
The title of my last post may have been a bit misleading. It wasn’t to say that the Grand is necessarily fishing poorly at the moment, but rather that it’s been cruel to me lately. Specifically, preventing me from fishing dry flies due to murky water and of course, the evil osprey that stole my fish.
This morning I woke up early again and headed to the river for a few hours before work. I had intentions to fish the Credit, until I read a tweet by Wilson’s, mentioning that the Grand was in excellent shape. It was pretty obvious during my last outing that fishing a dry fly in such murky water was pointless. Rather than sticking to the tried and true nymph, I focused primarily on streamers and soft hackles – and while I hooked into a few fish, it wasn’t really high percentage fishing.
When all else fails on the Grand, fish a Caddis. Better yet, fish a Caddis Pupa. I should probably adopt this strategy more often. If only catching trout on dry flies wasn’t so fun, or if swinging wet flies and streamers wasn’t so easy – then I guess I would. Today though, I was out for revenge and decided to stick to the tried and true. I’ve been trying to get my wife to take up fly tying and conveniently, she recently tied a handful of a very simple caddis pattern for me: Rick’s Caddis, from this book.
The result was somewhat of an improvement over my last trip. I was catching fish all morning and the only time the action let up was when I spooked the pools by landing too many fish in them. I missed quite a few trout due to poor hook sets as I wasn’t expecting so many fish back-to-back. None were exceptionally large, but I’m not complaining – there’s no such thing as a bad trout in my book.
During my time off work last week, I made a couple trips to the upper section of the Grand River. This river has had its share of hard times in the past couple years. Last year it was the abnormally high spring and summer temps, which resulted in nearly unfishable conditions for much of the summer. This year, temperatures have been ideal, but the record rainfalls have had it running extremely high and dirty.
With a break from all the rain and cooler temps of late, I figured the river should be back in tip-top condition. So, last Thursday I set out at sunrise with an arsenal of Tricos, expecting to be tossing tiny dry flies to eager fish. When I arrived, the river flows were as expected, but the water was inexplicably murky – as if a huge rainfall had just gone through. Apparently, the heavy rains in weeks past have caused somewhat of a backup of sediment and algae in Belwood Lake, which is still being released from Shand Dam. The river was definitely more slippery than I’ve ever seen it, so blaming it on algae seems logical. Still, I didn’t travel 45 minutes at 6 am to turn around and drive back home.
Other than the water colour, everything seemed normal. Deer on the river, Cranes and the resident Osprey about and a bit of insect activity, hinting at the likely hatches in the coming hours.
It’s becoming a common occurrence to be greeted by a Deer in the morning
I can’t say I frequent this stretch of river, yet it’s possibly my favourite and most memorable place to spend a day on the water. This is certainly one of the more scenic sections of river in southern Ontario. I rarely see another person here during a full day of fishing, which is likely due to the difficulty accessing it (a very long hike is required) and the fact that so many other more accessible sections of river offer easier and larger trout. For me, it’s a day out to enjoy the scenery and peace and quiet. The fact that I might also catch a few fish is an added bonus.
Scenic pocket water on a southern Ontario river
At least once a year I try to make a trip up to northern Michigan, to fish the Au Sable River and its neighbour the Manistee. This summer has been unusually busy and last weekend was likely the first and last time I will be up there this year. I took Friday off and drove 6 hours after work to get there for Thursday night.
The weekend was a combination of fishing and partying, as it was the big Au Sable Canoe Marathon weekend. Visitors from all across North America come to Grayling for this weekend to watch the race, making it the busiest time of year for both Grayling and the Au Sable River. Because of this, it’s not exactly the ideal time to be fishing the area – at least not the main branch. However, quality fishing can still be had on the Manistee, the North and South branches of the Au Sable and (to my surprise) even on the main branch the very morning after the race.
The warmer days of summer are here and with that comes some excellent night fishing opportunities. I still get funny looks when I mention fishing after dark to my buddies around here. I picked up on this addiction after several years of fishing the Au Sable river in Michigan. My wife and I rent a place on the Holy Waters section of the Au Sable main branch and there are a couple fantastic holes right right next to the property. I’d heard stories of the monster fish that inhabited those holes, but for years I was not able to see or catch them.
I still remember a few relaxing nights on the deck where we would repeatedly hear huge splashes in that hole – a big brown smashing prey no doubt. It was after this that I realized just how aggressive these fish get when the sun goes down. A couple years later I caught my first 20+” fish in that very hole after dark, on a big mouse pattern. I lost it before I was able to get it to the net, but I still consider it my first real night fishing success.
Night fishing is so popular out there that Gates Au Sable Lodge began hosting an annual Midnight Fly Fishing Derby, where pairs of anglers head out for an evening fishing tournament in hopes of landing the biggest fish.
Since then, I’ve been doing a bit of night fishing back home in Southern Ontario. Last weekend was my first real chance this year and it was no let down. I landed an 18-20″ fish and lost 2 other similarly sized fish in the span of about an hour.
18-20″ Brown caught after dark on a Southern Ontario river
The same rules apply here as they do in Michigan… huge browns come out of hiding about half an hour after the sun completely sets. Here’s are a few things that I’ve found increase my odds when fishing at night for big browns.
1. Use big flashy flies.
I have no doubt that casting a standard dry fly or streamer will catch fish. However I’ve found that consistently catching larger fish is both easier and more fun with a large (up to size 2-4) top water fly like a Gurgler or Mouse. With these flies, not only are they easier to see (or feel), but you generally strip them in and don’t have to worry much about getting that perfect drift or presentation. They also disturb the surface enough to attract predatory fish from all around.
2. Use darker colors.
The smaller the fly, the more important this is. When I fish a Gurgler, I don’t bother with darker colors as I prefer fishing a bright/white fly that is easier to see. A size 2 fly is large enough and disturbs the water enough that the fish are going to see and/or hear it regardless. If you’re fishing smaller dry flies however, you want to be using a preferably black fly which creates a more visible silhouette against the night sky. This seemed counter intuitive to me at first since black is much more difficult for the angler to see. However, we’re looking down from above – a completely different viewpoint than the fish. I’ve heard it described as washing your fly if you try to fish a white dry fly at night.
3. Shorten your leader and use larger tippet.
I learned this lesson the hard way, more than once. Since you’re casting (almost) blindly, you will be dealing with line tangles from time to time. Having a shorter leader definitely helps here. On top of that, the fish are not shy at night and there’s no need to keep your 10-12 foot leaders and tiny tippet. In fact, when I know there are big fish around, I have been going down as low as 4-6 foot 2x tippet. When a huge brown smashes a top water fly as you’re stripping it in, especially when you don’t see it happen, it’s easy for them to snap off even 4x tippet (I’ve had this happen).
4. Know the water and get into a favorable casting position.
Don’t try to wade a river like you would during the day. Pick a hole that looks like it holds a lot of fish and stay put. If you really know the river well, you might be able to move carefully between a few holes, but often you can spend a lot of time at a single location at night. If you’re stripping top water flies, cast downstream and strip them back upstream. This is a very forgiving way to cast at night and accuracy is not too important. I’ve also had success dead drifting flies, especially mice, though it requires a bit more practice to get a feel of where your fly is landing when you can barely see.
Unlike many fly fishermen, I’ve never been much of a morning person. It’s not that I don’t enjoy waking up before the birds to a fresh pot of coffee and being the first person on an unspoiled river. If there’s anything in life that can get me out of bed, it’s definitely fishing. However, the convenience and success of evening fishing has stolen the majority of my outings in recent years, not to mention the fact that I’ve always been a bit of a night owl. This season has been somewhat of a departure from my usual fishing schedule. A relatively new neighbour of mine also happens to share a passion for fly fishing, especially on the Grand River. Due to our schedules and family commitments, we decided to start making some early morning trips to the Grand. It’s about a 45 minute drive from our place, so being there before 6 am means waking up at or before 5 am – and if you know me, that’s no small feat.
Admittedly, as great a river as the Grand is, I haven’t fished it too much in the past few years. Most of my time has been spent on other less popular rivers. However, the several trips we’ve made so far this year have reminded of a few things I had forgotten:
Stepping out onto the water at the crack of dawn is a wonderful experience. The crisp morning air, quiet, calm and undisturbed water instantly makes you forget how difficult it was climbing out of bed. With the entire day ahead of you, your sense of urgency is non-existent. Wildlife is abundant and fish are still a bit more careless than they might be after a day of dealing with anglers. On a morning trip last week, we were greeted by a pair of playful deer as we stepped into the river. They remained for several minutes before finally realizing we were there, after which they calmly walked back to the river bank out of sight.
A couple deer playing in the river
After a long cold winter, trout season is finally open in southern Ontario. For a change, most of the rivers and streams are teeming with water this year, due to a good amount of snow melt and rain in early spring. Add to that some absolutely perfect weather for the first week of the season and you couldn’t ask for much more. Well, other than good fishing, I guess…