THE
REEL THING October
2002
Lots
to talk about in this edition of the Reel Thing.
Rick Matusiak, Paul Kennedy, Jay Hackney and I had a fabulous trip to
the Broadback River to start things off.
This was my 24th trip to this superb River and one of the
best ever. We caught between 35
and 40 speckled trout with ten of them topping the 21” mark.
We refer to those as mounties.....they weigh in upwards of 4 1/2 lbs. The largest, this year was a 27” brookie that Paul caught
which would have tipped the scales at close to eight pounds if it had been
kept. I was lucky enough to have
also caught a 27” brookie, also released and weighing in a little less than
Paul’s brute. Paul was actually
the star of the trip catching four or five mounties while Jay, on his first
trip into those storied waters with us was right behind him with several
beauties of his own, including a 22 inch male brought back for his wall and
the biggest taken on a fly on this trip, another 21 inch mountie.
We feasted on specks and pickerel on almost every evening of the eight
day trip.
While
we were in Quebec Paul Becker and his missus were on a two week camping and
canoe trip in the British Columbia interior.
Both enjoyed the trip although they report that it rained almost every
day. Paul was able to put his new
fly casting skills to work with interesting results, but no big fish.
I should have a full report on his trip for the next bulletin.
Ray Cockburn and his son Andrew had a couple of fine outing to the
Ganny with Ray taking browns up to 16” on one occasion and giving way to his
son on another when Andrew took a 12”, 14” and 16” brown while the old
man was skunked. Ray also had a
couple of go’s at the Ganny fishing with Paul Becker and both caught their
fair share of trout, but on the last weekend of the season, this morning, Ray
caught a 15” and an 18” brown to wind up their Ganny efforts.
While they were working over one stretch of that wondrous water, Jim
Lloyd and I were hammering another stretch a few miles away.
Jim caught 12 and 14 inch browns and an assortment of small ‘bows and
I took one for the pan that stretched the tape to just over nineteen inches. Jim hooked and after a great battle, landed a fresh-run 29
inch, ten pound chinook salmon, his best ever.
Paul Kennedy, not to be outdone by Jim’s big salmon hooked over a
half a dozen at the mouth of the Beaver River yesterday, finally taming a 30
inch twelve pounder.
Here
are a couple of other fishing reports for your perusal.
It’s great to get these reports in so that we all can share and enjoy
the fun and excitement of your trips and catches.
This
from Jay Hackney:
Heh
Gord:
I fished the Red River section
this morning, but accessed from the Loyalist Road and fished downstream quite
a long way i.e. from 6 am to noon. I got many tiddlers and one nice 15"
brown. I did not see any 'bows. I did get another very nice
15-18" fish to hit my EGB, but I couldn't hook him and had to watch him
retreat under a large fallen tree with numerous branches protruding from
it. He sat there sulking as I dropped the EGB and then a Vibrax close in
under the cover trying to tempt him out. He wouldn't budge. I had
two other rather nice fish go for the bait, but they never bit, and retreated
to deep cover thereafter. These
fish certainly keep themselves very well hidden. I find it
remarkable how deep and difficult is the cover they hide in. They
certainly make it interesting.
Regards,
Jay
From Paul Becker:
Hi
Gord,
I
read your Ganny excerpt today while rebooting my PC; g.d. Windows operating
system. I particularly enjoyed the section near the end in respect to “Why
not just go Bass or Pickerel fishing?” as it described yesterday’s outing
with my brother-in-law Marshall who lives in Belleville.
Karen (my wife) and her brother (Marshall) share the same birthday.
Marshall and his wife Mary had invited us to Belleville for a celebratory
dinner on Saturday and had suggested that we stay over so that Marshall could
take me fishing. Marshall is a keen outdoors person and an avid angler, and
with the Bay of Quinte on his doorstep, has the 150 HP bass boat with the
electric trolling motor, etc. You really do have to sit on your hat, or lose
it.
To
give you the background for our fishing on Sunday, this weekend was the final
event of the season for a bass fishing derby that our nephew was competing in.
Graeme and his partner had done pretty well this year and were lying 1st
for the weekend after Saturday’s fishing and had caught the biggest fish as
well. Graeme was pretty excited on Saturday night. So there we were Sunday
morning, up at 5 AM to put lunch together, hook the boat trailer up and down
to the Bay. We went down to the Belleville launch ramp to watch the
competitors race off. It was foggy and calm so we launched the boat and went
down the shoreline casting into the weedbeds, etc. I started with a bass bug
on my Ganny fly rod but soon got fed up with the weeds fouling my supposedly
weed free lure. I switched to my lightweight spinning rod and a #2 Vibrax;
worse still. Then Marshall set me up with a “Bass Buster” jig rig: a
device with a small spinner above a jig with an inverted hook and baited it
with a plastic grub with a fluttery tail.
Fewer
weeds but I still had to haul the jig out of the weed beds as I got used to
throwing the mass of metal and plastic. Lots of weeds; after one cast, a
middling sized pike suddenly appeared to following my lure in but then I
realized that it had my lure in its jaws. It had attacked the jig as I
retrieved through the weeds. As inexperienced as I am, I failed to boat the
thing but it was still that life force on the other end of the line, as Q put
it. Marshall caught and released a couple of bass. While we were doing this, the fog lifted, the bass boats
raced off at high speed to get to favoured sites before the competition. And
we motored (“sit on your hat”) over to Cow Island where we crept around
the shoreline casting jigs near the edges of the weed beds. Did I mention that
the Bay of Quinte has weeds?
I
was getting better at throwing the jig and not catching the weeds as
frequently. I had learned from Marshall how to hold the rod tip high and then
drop it so the lure would fall down the edge of the weed bed. At the end of
the island, I cast the jig and I just caught the edge of the weed bed. I
started to work the lure back to the boat. It was really snagged this time but
I realized that my line was moving down as well as towards the boat.
“Marshall:
I’ve got something.” Holy cow! It was as if it was caught on a log except
that this log was moving to deeper water. “Take it easy. Keep the tension on
the line”, Marshall coached me as I brought a large pickerel to the boat and
he netted it a few minutes later.
“We
will have a few good meals of this”, I said. “Afraid not”, he said after
he measured and weighed the fish in at 22 inches and 4 pounds. “There is a
slot limit of 19 to 25 inches in the Bay”. Nuts! Big fish of the day and I
couldn’t even keep it. But I do have a photograph of it. Marshall did catch
a slightly larger slot limit pickerel later in the day as well as a few bass
and another small pickerel. So, my apologies for the lack of a pickerel dinner
for you and Sheila. Marshall says we will go again. I did have a good time but
I have to say that a peaceful day on the water without scads of people and
powerboats is more enjoyable.
Bye
now,
Paul
Thanks
for the stories, guys, now I have another one to put a wrap on this fishin’
stuff. Jim Lloyd and I tackled
the toughest stretch of the Ganny a week ago, the Hepburn Stretch.
Over the last couple of years, I’ve had two nasty incidents there,
one when fishing with Roger Cannon, where I badly stretched a hamstring that
took months to heal when I tripped over an unseen log beneath six feet tall,
grass, ostrich ferns, goldenrod and vines and another while working the river
with Paul Kennedy last April when a branch gave way that I was hanging on to
while backing along the stream-bank about four feet above the water.
The
branch broke and I plunged backwards into the water, fortunately although it
was icy cold and the air temperature below zero, the water was deep, otherwise
I could have broken my neck, back shoulder or something.
Instead I damn near froze before I got back the 3 or 4 miles to our car
and nursed a sore shoulder the rest of the summer. Obviously fishing this stretch of the Ganny is quite a
challenge for all of us, nevertheless Jim and I decided to test ourselves on
it last week.
I’m
pleased to report here that I was able to survive this last encounter with the
Hepburn stretch. But for Jim, it
was a different matter. It was
his turn to do a number on the river........and did he ever!
Not
far from where I performed my back-flip into the icy spring flow in April, Jim
was attempting to negotiate a similar high bank around an awkward placed tree
stump. He, too, while leaning
over the river, used another large log for his support and balance.
Fortunately for him his feet were firmly planted which is seldom the
case in these situations, because the log broke the instant he leaned on it
and he was faced with an instantaneous decision.
Either fall straight down into the river while protecting his face with
one hand and his nether region with the other and pray that there were no
beaver sharpened stakes waiting beneath to impale him, or attempt to leap
across over the nasties below to the other side of the stream where the water
was shallow and the landing if he was successful would be comparatively gentle
– on a muddy bank.
While
I stood a few feet away from him, surrounded by six feet of grassy cover, I
was able to witness a feat of athletic endeavour that I doubt has ever before
been achieved. Without pausing,
when the log broke Jim didn’t simply jump, he launched himself across the
water and landed on all fours on the opposite streambank with nothing bruised
but his ego. He even held on to
his rod throughout the episode. I
swear that as he passed over the middle of the stream, his flight was in a
higher plane than when he pushed off. He
looked like he had been shot out of one of those circus cannons.
With that kind of athletic and acrobatic ability, I suggested
afterwards that he hire himself out to the Cirque de Soleil.
Anyhow,
the rod building and fly tying fraternity are going great guns and there
should be a half dozen or so new bamboo wands being waved around in the club
by next spring. Jim and Hans are
leading the way with instruction in the fur & feather department while
Leon Schwartz assures me that he will be back shortly performing the same
functions in our shop.
Jim
Davidson (Jaydee) had his left knee completely re-built a week ago and is
recuperating for the next month and a half at which time they’ll be
re-working his left knee. Sure
put a damper on his fishing and golfing, but Jaydee promises that he’ll be a
new man and in a go position for the opening of the ice fishing trout season
on January 1st. However,
Jim Lloyd says if Jaydee is not in a position to operate his own skidoo,
we’ll tow the big guy into the lake strapped
on a tobogggan.
Other
miseries: Scott Owen, scheduled
to take his wife, Sheena and daughter Sarah, to visit relatives in Scotland on
October 23rd was working hard to complete his own bamboo fly rod to
take with him to impress the folks over ‘ome, but that one is shelved.
They will still be going, but no fly rod and barely mobile.
Big Scott tore apart his achilles tendon playing soccer last week (should
have stuck to fishing the Hepburn stretch of the Ganny, Scott).
He will be many months on the mend with that one.
Scott was kicking around going to San Francisco next year to compete in
the National Championships, but that also seems rather far out for him now.
Jay Hackney, perhaps our fasted rising, skill-wise that is, caster is
also contemplating trying his hand at the Golden Gate club in California.
Rick
Matusiak and I got hit with nasty bouts of Giardiasis, A.K.A. Beaver Fever,
from drinking the water on the Broadback.
Rick, probably because his immune system was down from all his recent
operations got by far the worst of it and even had to be hospitalised and on
intravenous for awhile, whereas I had to suffer through a few days of extreme
abdominal cramps. Paul and Jay,
the other two fellows on the trip apparently were lucky enough to have avoided
it.
I
think that is enough for this edition of our club bulletin.......easily the
longest I’ve ever had the pleasure of assembling in our eighteen year
history.
Gord
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