Manitoba Archives - Page 6 of 7 - Fly Fishing Manitoba

April 27, 2015

A Bad Day Fishing is Better Than a Good Day a Work…SAYS WHO?

So the weather was fine, the ice was off most of the lakes and I wanted to go fishing. I had to play in the morning and I had to/honoured to/get to teach a casting seminar at Cabela’s till 3pm. So my options were a little short. Stocked trout is the only option this time of year so I decided to hit a place called Reynolds Ponds. The ponds are a series of large reclaimed gravel/limestone pits that have been filled in by the aquifer. Being spring feed and deep they winter most of their fish but they are also stocked yearly. There is great shore access and back casting room. The ponds are both small enough to let you cover a lot of water from shore they are also big enough to accommodate, canoes, kayaks, float tubes, pontoons, and row boats. It is well back of the highway, so quite secluded.

Visually it is only a few docks, benches and manicured landscaping away from the facilities at any high priced private fly fishing facility that I have been at or read about in North America or Europe

Sounds like heaven?
But instead of looking like this…

…it looks like this

Not even close.

I could have spent the day shooting pics of piles of crap people could manage to bring there but not manage to bring out. Most of it with bullet holes in it.

Now it is not a private for fee fishing area so I would be out of my mind to expect it to be anything like one, but with a little effort this resource just out side of the city could be a real gem for locals and visitors.

The local fly fishing association has spent a decent amount of time and public money to develop a province wide trout map and, more relevantly, spent good money on a few failed attempts to have fish in a pond in Birds Hill Provincial park.

Birds Hill 34 minutes from Winnipeg, Reynolds Ponds are 45 minutes.

On this particular day I also had the misfortune of having squatter/campers on the side one of the ponds. They had been there a while and, as of 7pm Sunday night, show no signs of leaving.

They played their music loud making relaxing a challenge and dropped the f bomb with the full force of their lungs and frequently enough that the lone family with kids left.

I did manage a fish. It happen while the squatters where playing Bryan Adam’s “Summer of 69”

On top of that I had two different dogs off leash bark growl charge me one from the squatters and one from other people with no sense about public spaces
A bad day fishing is better than a good day at work?? I wish I was at work

Now some carefully shot/cropped photos of this place and you get what I may be imagining for the place.

Fly Fishing Manitoba

Manitoba

trout

March 29, 2015

Fariford River Freeze Off

Our annual event. Cold weather not bad fish caught tradition upheld!

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

April 06, 2014

Fairford River Freeze Off

Manitoba is covered by 6 months of winter most years. Spring is this ethereal thing that looks and feels more like well more winter. Nonetheless afew of us hardy souls head out to the only open water in the province…the Fairford River!

The water is clear, clean and wade-able. So why don’t I fish it more ofte? Because it is 2-3 hours of the most boring and somewhat dangerous driving in the province.

We hit it the last Sunday in March which coincides with the end of the regular fishing season, Spring Break and the warmest part of the late winter.

Fly Fishing Manitoba

June 10, 2013

Yet another Lyon’s Lake Manitoba Still Water Fly Fishing Trip

The fish were not large but the sights and sounds are what it is all about for me

Fly Fishing Manitoba

Brown Trout

Manitoba

trout

March 26, 2012

Fairford River Freeze Off

Now leading up to this day we had temps in the high 20’s but any other year fishing at the end of March and having a day time high of -1 with no wind would be considered a blessing.

So the Fairford River Freeze Off was on even if only 2 participants from Fly Fishing Manitoba were there.

It was -5 on the wake up in the ‘Peg and 5 degrees cooler at our destination.

At Ashern there was icicles on the trees and signs.

Fly Fishing Manitoba

October 04, 2011

Fall Fly Fishing in Manitoba

Many of us outdoor types pine away for spring during winter. As fishers we pine through early spring till things warm up and ‘get good’ later spring and early summer. Then we all lament when it is too hot to fish or morally drag fish up from the deep and wait for fall.

Fall is a magical time for no other reason than we know know most fish get more active. Sunday the 2nd of October was such a day for me.

Hunt Lake is one of many Manitoba lakes that are

a.stocked with trout and

b. an easy launch.

It is also one of the few trout lakes under 2 hours from the city. Like Lyons Lake from my last report, it is a beautiful shield lake with rocks and tree and trees and rocks (as well as cliffs and creeks and wildlife coming to the shore). Unlike Lyons, Hunt has a few small cottages on it (Lucky Ducks!) but it seems none of them fish. It is one of many lakes that does not allow power boats which is nice for those of us seeking quiet fishing without unscheduled surfing trips in our floats tubes and pontoons.

The water was 14-12° C and the air got to 20° I’d say perfect. The fish seemed to be in one small area of a predictable part of the lake. The predictable part was the western end of the lake (due to the easterly wind) but it was only one bay and only the shady part that seem to hold active fish. The winning setup was an un-named panfish fly (pictured) that, because of the foam always floats, on a medium length leader with a sink tip. the fly stays suspended above the sink tip and ‘swims’ down on retrieves. Very similar to a common water boatman setup.

Fly Fishing Manitoba

August 03, 2011

A Sunny Day on Secret Creek

Don’t ask, because I won’t tell.

Fly Fishing Manitoba

Manitoba

trout

July 19, 2010

Slightly Busy Guiding Month

I had a couple of Fly Fishing clients this month. One was a Dell computers employee from Texas. His thing was to fly fish where ever his company sent him.