Cody309
Well-Known Member
There’s no other way to start this post, than saying “what a day!â€.
On Monday morning, I get a text message from Alex politely “informing†me that he had planned to spend Tuesday steelheading, just for my information. Originally, I was supposed to wrap up a couple of items at the office, but after mulling over my schedule, I figured I could work a little late to finish the tasks at work, and take Tuesday as a vacation day to start my Holidays a day early.
Strangely enough, that evening, I get a message from a friend from a fishing forum (OFF), who was in town from Alaska. He is most commonly known as “AKnook†– even after finding out his actual name, it was impossible to call him by it, as I’ve been referring to him as “AK†for quite some time. Basically, AK was asking what was going on, and if we would have any chance to connect and wet a line. Impeccable timing, my friend! So, I picked him up the following morning, and we set off to meet Alex.
It was great to finally meet face to face, and hear AK’s wild stories of the promised land up North. He, Alex, and myself traded stories while hiking to our first spot on the river.
The steelhead run has been, well, lackluster to say the least. Definitely not the greatest run in history, that’s for sure. However, that doesn’t stop us from wading the river, taking in the scenery, and hoping to catch the glimpse of a green silhouette hugging bottom in one of the many pools along the way.
We started at essentially the half-way point on the creek, and started by wading all the way down stream. We did catch a glimpse of two steelhead, however they were extremely spooked, and I’m guessing they had been harassed earlier in the day, and wanted nothing to do with us. We kept trudging along, and came upon many pools holding little shakers. Small, but very pretty!
We even managed to get AK onto his first Ontario (mini) trout! No tank steelhead, but fun nonetheless! He ended up dancing with a couple little chrome bullets, and I was happy that we didn’t walk away skunked.
The fish of the day, however, came to Alex around midday. We were drifting some nymphs through a pool that held, what seemed like, a large abundance of small chrome trout. As we were laughing to ourselves and having some fun, we didn’t expect to see any other fish throughout the day. That quickly changed when Alex changed to a white stone fly nymph because, and I quote, “I have a strangely good feeling about this flyâ€. A few drifts in, he raises his rod tip, and immediately we are blessed with a flash of gold.
We noticed that the nymph was lodged, rather precariously, in the lower lip of the brown, and Alex fought the fish quite gingerly, in order to prevent any chance of breaking off.
A few minutes later, and we were admiring one of the most gorgeous trout the three of us had ever seen. Although AK didn’t catch this one, he was quite pleased to witness his first Ontario brown in person.
We are all brown trout fanatics (who isn’t, really?!), so I took the opportunity while Alex revived this majestic buck to snap some photos.
On Monday morning, I get a text message from Alex politely “informing†me that he had planned to spend Tuesday steelheading, just for my information. Originally, I was supposed to wrap up a couple of items at the office, but after mulling over my schedule, I figured I could work a little late to finish the tasks at work, and take Tuesday as a vacation day to start my Holidays a day early.
Strangely enough, that evening, I get a message from a friend from a fishing forum (OFF), who was in town from Alaska. He is most commonly known as “AKnook†– even after finding out his actual name, it was impossible to call him by it, as I’ve been referring to him as “AK†for quite some time. Basically, AK was asking what was going on, and if we would have any chance to connect and wet a line. Impeccable timing, my friend! So, I picked him up the following morning, and we set off to meet Alex.
It was great to finally meet face to face, and hear AK’s wild stories of the promised land up North. He, Alex, and myself traded stories while hiking to our first spot on the river.
The steelhead run has been, well, lackluster to say the least. Definitely not the greatest run in history, that’s for sure. However, that doesn’t stop us from wading the river, taking in the scenery, and hoping to catch the glimpse of a green silhouette hugging bottom in one of the many pools along the way.
We started at essentially the half-way point on the creek, and started by wading all the way down stream. We did catch a glimpse of two steelhead, however they were extremely spooked, and I’m guessing they had been harassed earlier in the day, and wanted nothing to do with us. We kept trudging along, and came upon many pools holding little shakers. Small, but very pretty!
We even managed to get AK onto his first Ontario (mini) trout! No tank steelhead, but fun nonetheless! He ended up dancing with a couple little chrome bullets, and I was happy that we didn’t walk away skunked.
The fish of the day, however, came to Alex around midday. We were drifting some nymphs through a pool that held, what seemed like, a large abundance of small chrome trout. As we were laughing to ourselves and having some fun, we didn’t expect to see any other fish throughout the day. That quickly changed when Alex changed to a white stone fly nymph because, and I quote, “I have a strangely good feeling about this flyâ€. A few drifts in, he raises his rod tip, and immediately we are blessed with a flash of gold.
We noticed that the nymph was lodged, rather precariously, in the lower lip of the brown, and Alex fought the fish quite gingerly, in order to prevent any chance of breaking off.
A few minutes later, and we were admiring one of the most gorgeous trout the three of us had ever seen. Although AK didn’t catch this one, he was quite pleased to witness his first Ontario brown in person.
We are all brown trout fanatics (who isn’t, really?!), so I took the opportunity while Alex revived this majestic buck to snap some photos.
