MJL

Great site TJ...Jeff has those St. Lawrence carp dialed in and there's very few people I know who are experienced in carp fishing as he is. I've been fortunate enough to stay at Jeff's place last August and fish with him in one tournament...We'll be fishing together hopefully this September in one tournament down in NY.

Hey Laz

From what information I could gather on brown trout, in many cases, it’s almost impossible to tell whether or not they are/will become resident fish or migratory fish. Some strains of brown trout are more ‘known’ for being migratory and others show limited migratory behaviour. Fish of the same strain and genetics can be resident or migratory. No one really knows what triggers them to migrate. The resident fish of the upper Grand were originally stocked with the babies of migratory fish from the Ganny.

Judging by your pic, your brown looks to be of wild origin…The blue spot on the cheek could possibly indicate that…If it’s from the river where I think it’s from, they don’t stock it with browns and there are much bigger browns to be had in there…

I’m hoping to get one of those Measure Nets myself…I hear they float and work pretty well as holding pens while I fiddle around with the manual settings on my camera.LOL

Great report Nancy...Congrats on catching your first jumbo goldfish

Looks like fun times

I haven't tried the insect defend patches but in my experience, taking vitamin B1 supplements and eating a large intake of garlic anything didn't help me much...The mozzies still eat me alive.

 

I've also ordered myself some Permethrin, not available for sale in Canada, to treat clothing against bugs. It's the same stuff used in the Insect Clothing sold stateside. From what I've researched, it looks to work extremely well.

Permethrin is a super potent bug killer (pretty much whatever lands on you is dead). From what my sister tells me, it can last upwards of 6wks on clothing - With washing

My sister uses it in the hospital to treat scabies and super tough-to-kill body lice.

MJL..... u are an incredible guy... I just "might" introduce you to my eldest daughter someday...

 

I've never been described by any of my ex's as being an "incredible" person...

I've been told I am incredible at doing various other things...

(Like guiding them for steelhead )

To the original topic...If there's a lesson to be learned, it's "Don't be like Mike"

Gorgeous fish all around. Well done!

Fantastic bug shots too...Saving them to my hard drive in the hopes that they will come in handy in the near future

 

@ Mike:

 

He's definitely in the same camp you were then

I can tell you from personal experience, it’s not a pretty life path he’s headed towards

Why?

A. A never ending string of broken relationships with the ladies because: when the river’s right…The river’s right…

(if you had to talk about your feelings to a woman VS jetting out to a pea green river, which one would you choose?)

B. He’ll be suffering from poor nutrition and diet because granola bars are the most significant food group in his vest...There really isn’t enough time to eat or buy groceries.

C. He’ll be thinking of fishing over school (or dare I say skipping school to fish – see further down)

D. He’ll develop poor communication skills with people in general who don’t fish because everything else doesn’t matter

E. He’ll spend every dime on tackle his parents won’t even know about

F. He will develop poor fashion sense because the clothing recommended by ‘hip’ metro-sexuals aren’t made of technical fabrics like gore-tex, cool-max, polar fleece or polypropylene

On the bright side, he’ll be getting plenty of vitamin D and exercise. When he does say he’s going out with the guys to fish, he really does mean it…He certainly won’t have enough $ for drugs – Fishing is his drug.

I tell you it’s still not a pretty picture…Rivers + big fish (particularly beautiful, hard pulling fish) screw kids up…BAD!

Age 5 - Introduction to fishing rivers

Age 15 – Throughout puberty, I was apparently grabbing the wrong rod and tail…

Age 19 – First year university - What luck, the Toronto Star just had to be there… (relates to postulate c above )

Age 25 – Fishing far off rivers without a penny in his pocket. Well not quite but close.LOL

Buy the kid a guitar before he gets into steelhead!

If anything, no fishing for anything over pan-sized till he's 25

Eastern Ontario has some awesome bass fishing, as well as lake trout and musky.

And Carp!

Nice browns Steelyhunter

 

are browns like this around the river mouths all year or just in the spring? I was curious to know.

 

thanks!

 

-12 Volt

Sweet brownie…Welcome aboard

Migratory browns sometimes cruise around rivermouths and piers looking for food throughout the year (other than the times where they're staging before the spawn in the fall). If you can time it right, you can get a whack of them in June/July/August if the conditions are right. When they were heavily stocked a while back in my local spots, it wasn’t uncommon to get a dozen or more fish like yours off the rocks or pier in the summer with nobody around. You’d see them busting baitfish near the surface and just about any minnow-bait, spinner or spoon would get them. Browns stay closer to shore out in Lake O than the other migratory salmonids and can tolerate warmer temps. I used to know 1 guy who launched out of Ashbridges bay who specifically targeted them out in the lake not too far out from shore in summer. Personally speaking, I haven’t caught a migratory brown like that for quite some time around my local piers and rivers. Congrats!

Welcome aboard

I can't stop looking at those pretty candy apple red spots...Gorgeous fish Dave!

My next attempt will be a river that has more depth and a larger population of Browns.

I couldn't find a hole deeper then 30 inches where I was fishing but I only had 2 hours of exploration.

Actually from what I learned this past weekend, 12 inches (or less) of water will hold surprisingly large fish provided there's a slight undercut or some over hanging wood or shrubs...My friend and I spooked fish in places where we never would've thought they'd be...We probably blew our big chance at getting the 4-5lb fish we were trying for after we almost stepped on it heading upstream We saw it cruise around our legs and head downstream to another woody snag.

Fish the wood and donate some tackle to the brown trout gods

I can’t help you much on mentoring young children…I don’t have any myself and my cousins with kids don’t trust ‘uncle-Mikey’ much after all the stories he’s told them about his fishing trips. I can only offer my own experiences as an obsessed fisherman.

I was probably 6-7 or so when I began wet-wading the streams during summer…They definitely weren’t the coldwater trout streams though and much of the time, it was during low water. It was warm enough not to get super cold in just old running shoes. I didn’t start crossing prime steelhead rivers till I was older. Mind you I was always one of the smaller kids in the class.

Books, especially ones with pictures are awesome for kids to have. Content should be Pictures > Text. The biggest thing that screwed me for life (Beyond the playschool fishing rod I got at age 2) was a book my parents got me for Christmas called “Freshwater Game fish of North America”…Full of pictures of the most beautiful specimens of each species I could ever hope to catch with only a small caption at the bottom of each page…The Alaskan leopard rainbow pics did it for me . I was 3-4 at the time.

For me, obtaining bait was probably just as fun to do as a kid than actually fishing…Running through fields with double sided sticky taped wrapped around my pants to catch grasshoppers and crickets…Picking worms off the sidewalk and the driveway…Collecting slugs in the morning before we went from the wall of our house, etc

As a kid, I was almost always in the zone when I was fishing. I could fish 8-10hrs straight without stopping for a sandwich or a bathroom break…As an adult 12-20hrs is normal . Most other kids I’ve known or the neighbourhood kids I’ve taken out myself couldn’t do that…It’s best to bring along a Frisbee or a football (or baseball + gloves) to toss around during the non-peak times (usually around lunch time anyway). I see a lot of parents forcing their kids to fish when the bite’s tough or if the weather conditions are bad, which IMO isn’t the right thing to do (even if you did drive an hour and a half from home).

I did a lot of lawn target casting while growing up – For me it was a game (I still do target casting with the fly rod). I usually did it when my dad was mowing the lawn or washing the car. Every chance I had to play with my fishing rod, I did…Neighbours gave me weird looks but eventually accepted it as normal. Now, my neighbours no longer call the cops when they see some dude with a headlamp snooping around the lawn and sidewalks during a rain (true story).

Looking back I can’t say that my dad was perfect all the time with me. He kept everything simple and fun for the most part – If the bite was slow for the both of us, we’d hop into the car and head to other local areas or scout out new areas for next time. He let me pick out the local spots I wanted to go to, the bait I wanted to use and the fish I wanted to target – He picked how long we’d fish till and the weather we’d fish in (which was always pleasant). Nowadays I’m the one doing much of the guiding and tackle supplying.

Can't help you much with the Cambridge area or camping ideas.

You should be fishing NOW! It'll be absolutely PRIME when you get there

That’s awesome Laz…That spot looks great

I hate fishing around chubs too (I probably hate fishing around rainbow smolts more though). However some of the bigger brookies and resident browns I’ve caught have come from streams that are infested with chubs, dace and/or shiners – You might catch fewer brookies or browns in a stretch but what you do catch is generally larger on average (relatively speaking). I have better success using spinners and micro spoons in streams with chub than ones that are devoid of them. In the streams without chub, I find the fish key in primarily on bugs or crustaceans a lot more and they are generally pickier on what they want to eat – Especially as the season progresses.

i've heard that now from a couple people! i just havent gotten around to tying any yet , its pretty much a weighted woolley bugger kind of idea no?

If anything it would be like a mix between a zonker and a clouser I guess…It’s pretty basic as far as flies go...I’d tie the dumbbell eyes on just for weight and then tie in the bunny strip…If the bunny strip was fat enough, I’d split it down the middle for a bit to clear the hook bend…Kinda resembles a crayfish scooting along the bottom.

I’ve also had luck using woolly buggers with bead chain eyes, small clouser minnows and shrimp patterns mostly designed for saltwater use…Around my local swims, anything black, brown or olive worked best. My friends who occasionally fish the grand use various nymph patterns...Carp each just about anything they can get in their mouth.

You know what I realized? I didn't lose ANY tackle on the outing! Not even a hook!

That’s because you crossed the river to get it spooking all of the fish

I probed the log jams to their fullest extent...GO FOR THE GLORY!

Great report Mike.

That is a lot of nice Browns man. I cant imagine the footwork you put in! Nicely done.

Great Browns man! I've recently discovered myself (with a little guidance) just how much bushwacking is needed to find some sweet spots.

The footwork and bushwhacking is all part of the fun…Except for the poison ivy…I accidentally tripped into some of that which was downright scary...I vividly remember thinking "things are going to get worse before they get better"

Thanks guys for the comments…Those browns fought surprisingly well…A good number of them pulled drag and most tried to swim towards just about anything wood. A few jumped almost as high as my head – Pretty amazing to see. I’ve never seen browns do anything like that before…I wish the lake run browns would do that.

Nice!

When did you catch that Steelhead?

Hey Laz...I got that one last Sunday (May 30)...That particular river is notorious for having steelhead in it going into June (and massive swarms of bugs!). I also got another smaller one just before it. Both times when they hit, I thought I finally hooked into the brown I was looking for

Nice report Mike, you can keep going after them trout and leave the carp alone.

 

Seriously though, it's heating up. Went down to the Hammy today and topped my PB by....1-lb lol.

The fortune cookie said I shouldn’t fish for anything else until I landed a 10lb resident brown…

I think next weekend I’ll be breaking out the carp gear…After I catch my 10lb brown sometime this week

Congrats on the PB

Cool mod Alpha...Lets see some pics of the green machine in action

My dad and I are also thinking of ways to modify our canoe (also green...But mostly light green from where I scraped the paint off on rocks.LOL). We're mostly thinking of different ways to stick a trolling motor on it seeing as it isn't a square-back canoe.

My condolences to you and your family Fisherman.

Will be hugging my mum a little more often.

Nice catches Splash...Good on you for showing the kids the awesomeness of the carp

I've done similar things driving 2-3hrs in search of carp only to get into a bunch 15mins from home on the way back.

Nicely done Bondar...Carp on the fly is mad fun...I haven't done it for a few years but I had some of the most fun I ever had doing it. One of my most successful patterns for carp was a 2 inch black or olive rabbit strip with dumbbell eyes tied to a hook.

Congrats

…It comes quite easily with some extraordinary finds

In the brush-lined stream there's something I seek

Ice cold water flows down the creek

My nuts are cold, the waders leak

I see a shadow, my interest peaks

Quiet, silent and stone-like still

Beneath the surface a spotted thrill

It lies awaiting for its belly to fill

A beautiful predator with a license to kill

Wading the stream I tread with care

I tie on a streamer of feathers and hair

Squinting my eyes to cut out the glare

Casting the fly, I give it a prayer

My fly swings down, the trout gave a look

"Holy dude! it actually took!"

I lifted the rod and set the hook

Just like I read in Craig Ritchie's book

This is the place that makes my heart-beat race

Down into rapids and I hastily give chase

Horsing the trout so I can see its face

Slipping and falling without much grace

Into the net I try to pop out the fly

Locked in its mouth I give it a pry

It bit my finger! It wasn't shy

Beautiful spots, seemingly painted with dye

Around the bend was this bright, spotted thing

This is the thing that makes my heartbeat sing

Baring the brunt of a nettle's sting

I'm glad that my hook didn't fail to cling

Switching to spinners and a variety of spoons

The vibration of metal seductively croons

Flashes of copper and thumping tunes

Victory is sweet in the bright afternoon

It's getting dark, I'm tempted to stay?

Some amazing fun I had today

The bugs are out, I'm mosquito prey

I'll make my return at the first light of day

Some more – From this Saturday…Ironically FrozenFire and I (both into photography) forgot our cameras at home…Some pics taken with a camera phone.

Double header brookie action

I must admit that I've become obsessed with brown trout reading every journal, diary, book, message board post, stocking record, topographic map, hydrographic map, road map, top secret hand-drawn map I could get my hands on and following every lead graciously sent to me via PM …I also will shamefully admit I bought a steak dinner (…and dessert) for one of the old timers I met at the tackle shop and picked his brain on catching monster browns …I guess there's no cure for STI (Salmo-Trutta-Itis)

I think I just screwed myself for life

All smiles

Great report KF...Must be totally awesome to get to fish with your brother. Do you fish together often?

Love the markings on that pike. Thanks for sharing

Also need to guard against receiving too little sun. It's hard to believe, but I had a vitamin D defiency. It can be serious. A daily dose of D-3 has me put me where I belong.

Yes…Vitamin D is required to process calcium in your body and it may significantly reduce your risk of cancer. Not even vitamin D enriched foods and drinks have the same potency as just going outside. My doctor recommended 15mins of sun exposure before and/or after the peak times (like 11am-4pm when the sun is at it’s brightest).