THE
REEL THING November
2002
October and the first weekend of this month produced some fine fishing
moments for the anglers amongst our club crew.
As usual, Rick Matusiak lead the way with spectacular results fishing
right out in the bay off the mouth of the Beaver River at Thornbury.
Because the dam in the Beaver is being replaced with a new fish ladder
the river level and flow has been affected to the point where the salmon
(earlier) and the trout now, are staging in the lake itself.
The best fishing has been for those who are willing to risk life and
limb by wading out to the tops of their chest waders, jumping when necessary
as waves roll in towards them, and fishing the drop-offs out from the sand
bars formed by the river currents. Jay
Hackney and Paul Kennedy also had success on the bows and salmon there, while
Sharon, Leon and I put in an appearance and practiced our casting strokes.
Scott Owen and I worked the waters off the Bighead River for a couple
of hours and Scott caught his biggest fish ever, a lovely 28” jack Chinnook
salmon. Scott, after tearing up
his Achilles tendon in a fun soccer match, is on vacation with Sheena and his
daughter Sharon visiting relatives in Scotland.
Hans Gulde is also out of the country for a few days in Switzerland
assisting his family there with funeral arrangements.
We would like to welcome a new member, Chris Whyte, about to join our
club, although for one reason or another he has yet to actually appear in our
midst. Hopefully, Chris will soon
be actively pursuing one or more of the disciplines that the rest of us enjoy
participating in from week to week, fly tying, rod building, casting and
fishing, etc.
It has been a short but rewarding mushroom season for our mycologically
interested members with many feeds of these tasty treats being coughed up by
Mother Nature for us to take advantage of.
We have Meadow mushrooms in abundance, along with delicious Coprinus
Atrementarias (C.A.’s), Shaggies and others...........topped off last week
by a find by Leon Schwarz and I of giant Meadows with caps as much as
twenty-four centimetres in diameter.
Leon, Hans and Jim Lloyd have been hard at work passing on their fly
tying skills to some of our newer members and the fruits of their labours are
spectacular! Great work, guys! The bamboo boys have also been hard at work with several new
wands nearing completion. Jay –
a Ganny fly rod, Ray and Paul Becker –
ultra-light spinning rods, Scott – a Broadback fly rod, myself –
another tournament distance fly rod and so on.
I believe Mike Johnson, Robert Beaudoin and one or two others are also
starting work on new sticks of their own.
We haven’t had the pleasure of Paul Quarrington’s company in the
gym for awhile, but he assures us that he will be in attendance for our annual
Christmas kick-off party and competition on Thursday, November 14th.
Paul will probably be bringing his youngest daughter along to test her
hand on the fly casting targets. Speaking
of the Christmas ‘do’, we have been given two lovely prizes of dinners
for two at a couple of Scarborough’s finest restaurants, The
Mandarin and Frankie Tomatos. These
prizes, along with several others, will be won on a lottery
system.......everybody who throws at least one of the casting games throws
their name in a hat and the winners are drawn at the end of the party.
Of course, the club trophy will once again also be up for grabs to the
best of our novice
and ‘B’ casters.
We had an
excellent fall club trout fishing trip to Haliburton, yesterday with ten
lovely trout attacking our lures and flies and seven of them actually landed,
including a wonderful 4 ½ pound rainbow falling to Ray Cockburn’s rapidly
improving angling skills. Ray
also had an excellent summer on the Ganny this year. Paul Becker caught his
best trout ever, a fine nineteen inch splake and Jim Lloyd and I also took
home a nice feed of splake and bows. We
had to break a little shore ice from the edge of the lake to launch our boats,
but that, the snowy day and cold weather didn’t seem to dampen anybody’s
spirits and if the weather permits we may be launching the Jeep into the bush
up there for a repeat performance next week as well.
There are still several folks who haven’t got their club dues in as
of yet, but I would like to specially thank all those who made the effort to
get their dues in early this year to assist us with the club’s expenses,
permits and so on.
I hope that everybody has marked a big circle on their calendars around
Thursday, November 14th, our annual party night at the school.
We will be getting underway at 6:15 that evening as we expect there
will be a fine turnout. There will be snacks and drinks supplied, but if others would
like to bring along any other treats, I’m sure they would be well received
by all of us. This would also be
a fine evening to bring a friend or relative along with you to meet the rest
of us and see what we are all about.
One of our newest members, Robert Beaudoin, is re-working our club
web-page and so far it looks fabulous. However,
moving into new quarters has slowed him down a little and it’s not quite
finished. As soon as it’s
completed, you’ll all be notified, accordingly.
Jaydee (Jim Davidson) is re-cuperating from his knee replacement
surgery and hopefully will be able to make it to the party, but assures us
that he will definitely be mobile for the up and coming ice fishing season. I would like to invite Wil Wegman, one of the most popular
men in our Ministry of Natural Resources department to come out as a guest and
give us a little talk on alternative species to fish for other than the trout
which we all so ardently pursue most of the time.
Wil is a renown expert an Lake Simcoe, small and large-mouth bass,
crappies, lake trout, whitefish, pickerel and perch fishing and I am certain
could give us some exciting tips and information on fishing for these in Lake
Simcoe and elsewhere.........he might even include pike in his discussions.
However, although the Reel Thing is being sent to Mr. Wegman, I won’t
officially invite him until I receive at least a dozen confirmations of
attendance from our folks to assure that his participation is a worthwhile one
for him as well. Please get back
to me as S.A.P. accordingly.
Tight lines and loops to all,
Gord
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