Spring has sprung: Canada trip part 1

    It took quite a bit of work to coordinate 4 guys into 3.5 days of fishing together on some of the prettiest rivers of Ontario. But when passion is involved, things happen. Friday afternoon I was treating patients at my busy clinic and Saturday morning found me chasing wild trout in the wilderness of Canada. Tungsten beads and fishing equipment stuffed into my carry-on luggage raised an eyebrow at the airport check in scan but I made it to Detroit on schedule for the pickup.

  Signs of spring everywhere, although winter was still showing its presence. First river looked absolutely amazing and was a disappointment not to have even one strike between the 4 of us in a couple of hours of fishing. The view compensated for it though, one of the prettiest rivers I ever saw.

 

Candy was in the river, but the fish were nowhere to be found.

 

 

 

 Then change of location, off to another gem of a river. This one reminded me of some of our romanian rivers, long time ago, before "green" energy fever hit them.

    Only the little ones stayed for the photo ( the biggest one got away) but Sotto managed to scoop a couple of feisty browns from their hiding places.

Dangerous living, those boulders were not there last fall:






The second day brought some meat in front of my camera. In the afternoon we finally hit the jackpot. It started slowly but then the hell broke loose.

 

 Or should I call it heaven?...

Then in the end, Sotto hit the prettiest rainbow of the day:

 And the fish we caught continued to grow through that night, beer after beer.

 Here's his side of the story

 

Awesome first 2 days, we are heading north for part 2, stay tuned...

MARCH MADNESS

     I was able to head down to the Farmington River in Connecticut a couple of weekends ago and since I decided that this year I will do things a little different, I fished mostly sections previously unexplored. This way I discovered some incredible dry fly pools that I cannot wait to fish during an early summer hatch. Winter was still an important part of the story.

   I was using some new barbless hooks and I have to say they didn't disappoint me during this early test. A few fish fell for the goodies despite the brutal wind and bitter cold.

Hopefully no more pictures with snow and ice in my posts until November!

Extra layer

There is something extraordinarily beautiful about winter in New Hampshire. It's too complex to be squeezed in a few words. But you see it all around, in the white/blue contrast, the calmness of the falling snow or in the intricate ice designs.

 

I didn't like it in my first years here. The commute was hard, scraping ice from the windshield in bitter wind was not my favorite thing to do and ice fishing did not appeal to me. But I gradually got used to it and actually started to like it. And in the past few years another dimension was added: fly fishing can be great, even in the middle of a snowstorm. 

Even cleaning the ice off the guides or the line has its own charm. In Arizona you just dip the rod in the water. Here is repetitive manual work.

We are still under winter weather here in new Hampshire, but it doesn't feel like before. There are no long winter nights spent tying flies and dreaming about the sunny days with abundant hatches that are so far apart. Fly fishing does not die in the winter. You just need add an extra layer...

GO WEST!!!!!

I gave up. I ended up going to one of the places you need to fish before you die: Lees Ferry in Glen  Canyon National Recreation Area. I don't know if this is going to bring me closer to dying, but sure got me closer to Fly Fishermen's Heaven. I'm usually quite reluctant to go in famous places because I don't like crowds. I go fishing to find peace not to bump into other people. This winter I had the opportunity to spend some time in mid and southern Utah and since the temperatures didn't even get close to allowing the water to exist in the liquid state (new personal record: -22 deg Fahrenheit, roughly -30 Celsius), I went south, looking for warmer waters in northern Arizona.

 

 On one side of the Glen Canyon Dam is Lake Powell, the second biggest man made reservoir in the US. Below the dam, the bottom release and the lack of major, potential muddy tributaries allows for a section of clear, cool water, perfect for the rainbow trout. The 16 miles of river between the dam and Lee's Ferry are a fisherman's dream destination. This is the home of the Horseshoe Bend, one of the most spectacular pieces of art that Mother Nature has created, but this is also the home of thousands of hungry, feisty rainbow trout. Just a couple of years ago I was up on the edge, looking at the river and thinking; "I'll be back!"

You need a boat to get access to these waters since the canyon walls makes it impossible to wade for more than a few hundred feet. As a first timer a guide was a must and I did not regret it. I met Natalie and we were on fish within 30 minutes.

 

 

The technique they use at this time of the year is called "dry dropper". Basically a big, highly flotant dry fly serving as a strike indicator for a smaller nymph, usually a midge or a scud attached to the bend of the hook. This technique requires excellent line control/mending because the aim is to create a dead drift. The advantage is that you can cover a lot of water like this, just by feeding more line out. Disadvantage: quite a bit of delay in setting the hook, especially for someone used to fish without a strike indicator. However, with a few well targeted cues, the strike/fish on ration improved dramatically and I started to feel at ease with this technique. I spent the first half of the day fishing this technique and switch for a few hours in the afternoon to a more European nymphing technique, not without success (including a double). 

 

One regret: I left my fly box at the hotel and I couldn't use the special candy I tied for the Colorado rainbows. But I did catch fish on some huge prince nymphs and the classic Lee's Ferry scud  (which you can see in some of the pictures).

The fish were not big but good healthy 14-18 inch wild beasts. You need to work to find what they like and once hooked they don't give up easily. Very similar in aspect and behavior to the wild rainbows I stalked in some of the Vermont rivers.

 

 The sun doesn't spend too much time in the canyon, but for some reason, that day it moved even faster. As I told one my friends, that was the shortest 8 hour fishing day of my life.

We closed the day with a few attempts to capture the sunset and the Colorado River in low light from Navajo Bridge, as it enters the Grand Canyon.