canoe fishing the grand

[sash]

headed to brant conservation with my cousin for the weekend, unfortunately i had to work on monday and had to pay for 3 days at the campsite beacause they thought it was a long weekend...i could have taken my chances without a reservation but i wanted a campsite by the river for when my trip was done.

arrived friday night set up camp had dinner and a fire and went to bed, woke to rain in the morning and decided to do the shorter trip we planned for sunday, we put in the river about 100 m from our campsite and did one lift over before we were paddling down the grand to the cockshutt bridge access where we had already parked our vehicle.

upon the way we stopped at the bottom of the swifts to try our luck, 2 rockbass(probably the same one twice) a couple more catfish, man is it hard keeping the milk on the hook, and a couple of smaller bass kept us entertained, also a bigger fish had my cousins lure and spooled him pretty quick before it got off. we thought it might be a pike. we arrived at our take out and loaded the canoe for sundays adventure just as the sun came out, back to the campsite for a great dinner compliments of my cousin. after we fished the bottom of wilkes dam and i had my first carp beat me and my med light rod up for a bit before it spit me as my cousin cont'd to play with some bass. we headed to bed so we could get an early start on our next trip down the grand.

we woke up left the park and put in at glen morriss(forbes street access with parking lot) there were many people getting there canoes ready as well as grand experiences had a school or tour getting ready. we launched and found oursleves dealing with rapids and swifts as the rods stayed put, we decided to fish for a bit and caught some cats again as the bass eluded us, before we knew it we were portaging around the dam in paris and next thing u know we landed the canoe at a restaurant overlooking the grand and had lunch, as we were sitting there some of the people we passed some tips on how to to get down the rapids passed us and gave us a big wave, i think they were really happy to be going down the rapids straight instead of sideways. we even tried to go up the river at one point when we saw a family flip there canoe as they saw us busting our a@@ to help them they screamed they were fine and we headed back down. after lunch a quick stop for some cold beverages at the lcbo in town.(what an awesome route an lcbo right on it.) back in the canoe and finished the trip off, after paris the river stayed smooth except for 1 rapid which u could avoid, we didn't fish this section as we were running short on time but this section is known as exceptional waters no live/organic bait all catch and release no barbs. we landed the canoe loaded up stopped for dinner and headed home another great route. if u like rapids glen morris to paris is for u if u want more fishing and less rapids paris to brant is good, each trip is about 2-3 hrs without fishing and u can do them both in one day linked together like we did.

 

wondering if anybody has any experience fishing in brant park, and has anybody caught carp in the ponds there?

[Mike Pike]

What a terrific report al lee! Sounds like you guys had a nice journey and a few fish to boot!

 

Ya, I've canoed that Cambridge to Paris stretch a few times. It has the greatest change in elevation on the Grand so guess what.. fast water! A fun paddle for sure but you do tend to blow through some nice fishable water! lol

 

Thanks for that report and congratulations on managing to stay dry!