THE
REEL THING October
2003
We are already a month into our fall & winter season in the club,
with rod building and casting evenings well underway. Our first fly tying
night will be next Tuesday, October 7th, with our second night in
the gym the following week, Thursday the 16th. Hopefully we will
experience good attendance for these evenings. If you are unable to attend for
one reason or another, a call or e.mail note would be appreciated.
We must take this opportunity to welcome our newest member, Harold
Higdon, who joined the club on his first visit to the gym to toss a few flies
with the rest of us. Harold appears to be a quick learner and should be giving
some of our hot-shots a run for the money by the time our first tourney rolls
around during the Christmas ‘do’.
Not a great deal to report on the fishing front this month, but I
should mention that the club’s most avid angler, Sharon McIntyre, who when
she realised that her favourite trout streams were about to be closed to her
assaults with the September 30th season closures, fished every
piece of water within fifty miles of the city in September. She caught a
number of trout to go with some jumbo Lake Simcoe perch when she gave the
streams a rest one day, but her best story took place on Duffins Creek while
looking for a steelie. I think
her report to me on that outing went something like this,
“You won’t believe what happened to me this morning, Gord! I was
fishing Duffins hoping for a rainbow and just having missed one moments
earlier was kind of jumpy for what happened next. I hate to tell you this but
I was fishing with a worm and float and had just tossed the rig out again when
there was a furious splash beneath an overhanging willow tree branch that had
looked like a good spot to me. Then I immediately saw a huge snake that had
leapt out of the tree about to grab my worm that hadn’t sunk beneath the
surface yet. I screamed, threw the rod down on the ground behind me, jumped
back, picked it up then quickly reeled in and got the Hell out of there.”
Great
story, Sharon! Thanks. Ray Cockburn and Paul Kennedy have been working the
Ganny over pretty good recently with excellent results on the browns along
with a few ‘bows. I think Ray is leading that contest with fifteen and
sixteen-inchers to his credit in September. The Ganny was kind to me, too, in
September producing browns up to 20 inches. Haven’t heard from Rick lately
about his exploits, but he is probably having a heyday on the Georgian Bay
streams he frequents for steelies – that is when he can force himself to
break away from ogling the bath-tub size pond in his back yard resplendent
with three or four brookies and a brown that are all over twenty inches and
approximately four pounds. If you haven’t had the pleasure of seeing this
remarkable Rick Matusiak project you should contact him soon and arrange a
visit as the trout will soon be spawning and Rick’s threatening to turn them
all loose – no he won’t say where. Sorry.
We managed to drag Paul Kennedy away from his time consuming current
project (he and Tressa bought a lovely, older house and are quite busy fixing
it up in their spare moments) for a day of fishing the Bighead and Beaver
River area. Nothing to bring home but mushrooms and puffballs, but we both had
momentary thrills with big ‘bows. Mine was knocked off by a careless toss of
another fisherman’s rig on top of the taut line while I was playing the
big steelie. Paul’s was on for two or three seconds before it jumped and
returned the lure to him.
I have heard little from the troops about the proposed Thanksgiving
weekend trip so that one will be history if we do not have some positive
response in the next few days. However, several folks have already begun
making plans for an assault on Beanpole and Limit Lakes before freeze-up, so
if you’re interested in participating on these with us, please let Jim or me
know as S.A.P.
Earlier I mentioned that Paul and I scored a few baskets of delicious
fungi on the way home from Georgian Bay last Sunday. Although there have been
very slim pickin’s on the fungal front in the past couple of months, they
are now popping up all over the place. Sheila and I are enjoying the fruits of
these labours almost daily now. There are still a number of folks who have yet
to get their dues in. With the increased operating costs facing us this year
it would be appreciated if this oversight can be attended to as S.A.P.
On
behalf of the rest of the folks in our club I would like to offer any of the
other casters in our area who may, or may not have a place to practice now for
one reason or another and that includes any and all existing clubs in and
around Toronto the opportunity to work out with us as our guests in our
facility several times this winter at no charge to them at all. We know that
they would do the same for us if the situation were reversed.
Gord
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