May 11, 2017

Fishing News

Changes At the Hatchery

So we are down to one hatchery location. This isn’t news but it is relevant. In reaction to, or in anticipation of actions of the newly elected government, the hatcheries has started on some austerity methods.

Those of you who are in the know who might think they are cutting back on

Stocking back country lakes most can’t access
Stocking ‘put and boil in the summer heat’ ponds
Making hybrids that use the same amount of resources but produce less fish

Well you’d be wrong.

Other than a hiring freeze, that seems to date back to well before the election, they are cutting out the rainbow trout (and possibly brown trout) brood stock program. Instead having fish on hand to harvest eggs and milt, they are buying pre-fertilized eggs. The reasons are sound for going in this direction. Apparently hatchery fish take longer to spawn than in the wild. But gone are the days when you could accidentally catch a 24″ trout in an unlikely location. And gone is the security of making your own fish reared in your own water.

Another strange development is the addition of Albino Trout???
I guess they where giving away these fish from the “Trout Lodge” to their new best customers here in Manitoba so all tax payers were paying for was the rearing of eyed eggs to swim and the truck to the stocking locations around the province.

I am not sure the value of these fish beyond that. As one person put it “They look like someone threw a light bulb in the water”. Glow in the dark pink-eyed hatchery fish should prove no match for the loons, mergansers, and other piscivorous species out there let alone the trout that have been in these waters for a few years.

Better to save these fish for the ornamental ponds the were probably designed for.

Your Tax Money.

That stamp on your fishing licence, that became a permanent print on the licence, that was supposed to be only for fish enhancement, is now for fish AND wildlife enhancement. That means the fisher (who out number the hunters) will be footing the bill for all things outdoors and not just fish as intended.

Illegal Stocking

Many years ago and many times since, it has been suggested that some of these aerated lakes with tax payer fish in them, should maybe have a ice fishing ban placed on them. Not all but maybe the ones that had special fish in them that don’t take well in other stocking locations. Two reasons have been given against any such change.

That banning a form of fishing is seen as a form of favoritism to fly fishing. This is bunk, we have bait bans and motor boat bans all over the place based on biological reasons. (Even though keeping the gut hooking, grip and grin, photo op, eyeball freezing ice holes off a couple of sensitive lakes can easily been seen as biological. So we could have ice fishing bans on lakes LIKE EVERY OTHER PROVINCE IN CANADA AND EVERY NATIONAL PARK IN CANADA.
That, if we did ban ice fishing on any lake whatsoever, that some locals would ruin them by illegally stocking them.

Well guess what. Pike, perch and even catfish have been introduce to many of the aerated stocked trout lakes. Some can be blamed on overland flooding but most are a direct result of the so-called “White Pail Biologists”

The worst of both worlds. We could enact a law for fear of someone breaking a different law and sat back while they broke that law anyways.

So we still have no 20th century regulations in place outside of barb-less hooks. and the can and cannot fish regs, designed to be simple. are a joke.

in summary

Complete closure on all fishing except on stocked trout lakes (that now have closed season fish in them) April to mid May.
We can net for suckers during that time but not angle for them
We can angle on lake trout water in the presence of pike, bass and walleye
We can’t angle for pike (like we can across the Ontario border) anywhere
As fly fishers we can only use 2 hooks as each fly counts as 1 lure but we can throw a 3 treble (9 hook) plug.
We have no C&R season for any fish
We have almost no C&R water

Afraid of change much?

Fly Fishing Manitoba

April 30, 2017

Same Secret Creek New Stretch

The other stretch of secret creek is becoming a series of beaver dams. Sure the fish are there but it is more like pond fishing. Very few wading stretches. On top of it the land is flooded so gettin between those ponds is hard to impassable. So I broke out my back roads maps and Google Earth and found a new stretch. Wider, less tangled, no beavers, one dam that you can fish and walk around. Fewer fish but a better fly fishing experience.

Don’t ask where because I will not tell you.

Fly Fishing Manitoba

Brook Trout

Manitoba

September 06, 2016

Back To Basics

Fly Fishing Manitoba

Brook Trout

Manitoba

August 05, 2016

Newfoundland Round Up

So we spent a month in Canada’s most Eastern province. I Have combined all the fly fishing related stuff into one blog post

First off is my First Fish from the salt water a “Conner”

Next is a video of me catching a mackerel on the fly!

Then Just a bunch of brown trout from either the Waterford River in Downtown St. John’s NL or Rennie’s MIll from the north part of St John’s

Rennie’s Mill

Waterford River

Tenkara on the Waterford River

Fly Fishing Manitoba

Brook Trout

Brown Trout

East Coast Canada

May 29, 2016

The New Max Catch $100 2 weight in Action

I keep fishing this tiny brook trout stream with my 4wt and my home built 2 weight. But I wanted a smaller travel rod so I order a 2wt direct from China. I got it for this stream and for my up coming trip to Newfoundland.

Fly Fishing Manitoba

October 18, 2015

Fall on the Whiteshell RIver

I have a bit of a tradition that I keep. The last day trout season in Manitoba (at least for rivers) is the last day of October. The closest trout stream is the Whiteshell river. Sometimes I go before that. Fall is great ther because the fish have been stocked and acclimated and start acting like trout before they move to the lake or get predated upon or killed over winter or whatever happens to them so as there are no fish in the river in spring

Fly Fishing Manitoba

May 03, 2015

Secret Brook Trout Creek

Don’t Ask, because I won’t tell you.

5

Fly Fishing Manitoba

October 13, 2014

Hunt Lake October 13 2014

For whatever reason, I have not been fishing since I have gotten back from the east coast. I fully intended last week but it was way too windy to get my butt blown around a lake (as well as cold and rainy).

But I was also able to entice my wife to come along.

It was a beautiful day with an air temp of 17 and a water temp of maybe 2-3 degrees. There was minimal surface action to be seen I hooked 7 fish in a coupla hours and landed zero my wife (after I told her what fly to use and where to fish it) hooked one fish and landed it.

Splake

Ya a splake. The hatchery fell on hard funding times and, while they would never openly admit that hybrids cost more to raise to swim, during that time of austerity they produced zero.

So 2-3 years after getting the funding back up we are getting hybrids…but why splake especially in the eastern lakes??

Spar look awe some, compete well and grow a decent size in the eastern lakes…haven’t made or stocked any in like 7-10 years.

2007 spar

Tigers cost a lot more to make (or the same amount but you get way less fish as the spin goes) don’t compete well but look amazing and grow decent sizes under the right circumstances.

2009 Tiger (not mine)

But a splake?? I have no idea why these fish make it into the eastern stocking list. Ya they grow a little longer than specks do but they stay skinny and their fall colours?? Well you saw.

2010 splake from Lyon’s Lake

Now I am not against them per say but Hunt lake has been a great little brook trout lake for 10+ years but now it is a hodge podge of brookies with browns to deal with the perch (which seems to have worked) and now these washed out skinny splake.

Now I get the ‘variety for anglers’ bit. Maybe the cottage owners want bigger fish maybe the MNR is treating these lakes like aquariums, but when it was a brookie and perch lake you knew what fish was making those rings and could target them. When the other fish were rainbows then again you could use your brain and deduce what was up. When the other fish became brown you could flog the water hoping to torment one of those retired brooders on their last fin or (like me) ignore them and target the brookies. For me working the stumps and structure for brook trout was like a trip to ‘world class’ Algonquin Park.

If it was up to me I’d leave McHugh for Browns, Lyon’s for bows and Hunt for brooks. I’d stop dropping bows into Bear lake for the pike to feed on as well as knocking off the stocking of lakes no one can get to float planes (that’s how they stock em folks) can get to. If ya want to stock them with something different (assuming they have no reproducing fish) then put in something self sustaining like smallies or lakers and then let it be.

I think I just saved us a million dollars.

Now I am just talking about the eastern region (ya know the one closest to the the largest city). The whole ‘please drop some exotic tigers in our aerated pothole lake so we can have tourism’ thing is outside my interest and is so full of holes I don’t know where to begin…or end.

After she caught her fish she was more than interested in doing something and and the splake thing kinda took the wind out of my sails so we took pictures.

Fly Fishing Manitoba

Brook Trout

Manitoba

June 03, 2014

Still Water Trout Fly Fishing Report

Ok Finally did some Fishing worthy of posting about

Hit my favorite drive to lake and got some fish. Now it is obvious to me I need help with the camera work need to see the scenery along with the fish jumps and splashes.

Anywhoooo 6 fish in 3 hours the biggest a 17″ brown. The air got to +27C and I was catching fish shallow in the mid day that won’t happen again!

No Woolly Buggers were used 😉

Fly Fishing Manitoba

August 22, 2012

Back From New Brunswick Pt. 2

Sorry it took so long to get to the 2nd half of my trip (or at least the fishing part). Nonetheless here it is.

I have only been out fly rodding twice since I got back. Basically I was spoiled in NB. Not by big fish or numbers but by accessibility. Now east coast fishing and accessibility may not seem to go hand in hand what with 15 different licenses and heavy restrictions on where you can fish (right down to particular pools). No, the access I am talking about is being able to drive 20 minutes or 2 hours or more and everything in between to get to one’s fishing.

Around here you need about an hour to get anywhere, 2 hours to get anywhere decent in terms of an outdoor environment and 3,4,5 etc. hours to get someplace that has it all (scenery, numbers or sized fish etc.)

Fishing the Fredericton area reminded me of fishing in southern Ontario. I could fish in town for trout, salmon bass or pike (depending on the season) OR I could drive any variety of distance to achieve a different goal.

So with all that water around me my favorite thing to do in NB was to fish the (unnamed) creek (trib of the Rusagonis) behind my Brother and Sister in laws place after dinner.

It has trout, salmon parr, bass and fall fish (locally called ‘creek chub’ and treated with utter disdain).

Here are some fish. Not big but on a 4wt in VERY skinny water stalking, hooking and landing was still a challenge.