Pine River Manitoba July 5th & 6th
We went to what is called the Clearwater Creek Crossing on the Pine River. It was easier getting in this year because it was a very low rain and so it was no dicey bits. I mean it’s a it’s not a proper road and you do have to drive slow especially if you don’t have a high clearance vehicle like I don’t. Three fish were caught in three hours and the water is kind of low and again it wasn’t as good as it was three years ago but better than the last time when the bugs sent me scrambling Here’s a picture of me wearing the outfit that allowed me to fish there long enough to catch actual fish!
Found Large Prints Looks like wolf over a bear print.
The next day we explored Old Crossing and Lovers Leap. Beautiful but low water no trout.
A little bit of video. Again my new method is to only hit the record button when I have a fish on because that’s what you guys want to see but if I forget to turn it off after a fish then the next time somebody gets a fish I end up turning it off.
So it’s a short video you can see two small fish caught and you can see one fish hooked by my partner but then I turned it off so we don’t see him land it. I think it was a nice fish I don’t remember.
And then a bit of video footage from the lower section that we were exploring that had no fish I did catch a chub there but you know anyways. We know the place better we’ll explore it more next year hopefully the water’s higher.
Robert Burton
info@flyfishingmanitoba.com
204-770-0846 (Texting only)
Something Other Than Trout
It is not at all unusual in the world of fly fishing to target bass but there was a time when targeting anything but trout was seen as a little bit weird. Smallmouth were given the name of Red Eye Green trout, Warm Water Trout, Spiny Trout and a bunch of other names.
If You Aren’t Targeting Bass With Your Fly Rod, You Are Missing Out
Anyways, anybody worth their salt knows fishing for trout is not the beginning and end of fly fishing. I’m not a meteorologist but I do watch radar and I tried to find a place that wasn’t going to be raining and basically it rained everywhere in driving distance of Winnipeg except at the Manigotagan on this June day. It was definitely clouded over and we did hit the rain on the way back.
Multi Fly Rod Fishing for Multi Species
I was doing some different things on this day.
I was trying out a brand new rod that I got at the Fly Fishing Banquet
It’s a rod that had never been fished! From around the 50s era and, without going into people’s names or anything like that, it turns out it was a rod that was given to a bar owner somewhere in Minnesota, in a working class town to pay off a bar tab. Magically it had been in the hands of a few people including a fisherman and it never got fished. So as the person who owned the rod was in a personal care home and they did not donated it to the club to be auctioned of and not fished, I want to make sure that it saw some fish and didn’t become a museum piece.
So I got a bass on the on the first cast.
Then I can proceed to catch a bunch of bass and some really good ones in the 16 range and the rod balance was good. I might want to get a heavier reel to balance it out but for the most part a match catch reel that was a little bit oversized for it worked out great. I also tried my tenkara rod that day I was able to hook more fish than usual with it because there’s something about the drift in a tenkara rod that just is more enticing. Landing fish with the tenkara is very very hard as you can’t reel it up and the rod has a lot of spring to it and with that current coming off the of woods Falls think I only I don’t think I managed to land a single fish but I had a lot of fun hooking them and then getting off.
Here are some pictures and video from that day.
The fishing was so good why not go back the next week?
I have figured out that this spot is very much a springtime into summer fishing location. We have been there late winter, barely spring, and has been poor and we’ve been there in the fall a couple of times and it’s surprisingly poor considering there’s so many small mouth bass. But spring into summer it is wicked good so you got to strike while the iron’s hot and that’s what we did one only a week later.
It was a brighter day but the fishing was still great! I use the seven weight bamboo again and my Tenkara
As I type this post It is January the 22nd The high today is supposed to be like -29° C if you buy into the whole “feels like” thing, the wind chill supposedly makes it feel like -44° So I’m enjoying looking open water, sunshine, and fish on a day like today.
BTW, the winning fly here and basically for the season is one I developed. A mostly white Muddler in the rolled muddler variation we have deemed “Rage Bait” a name sort of of our time but also a reaction to how trout and bass hit this thing.
Robert Burton
info@flyfishingmanitoba.com
204-770-0846 (Texting only)
Rivers Finally Become Fishable
The month of May at us going to the same secret trout stream that well I don’t keep it a state secret I don’t post it on the Internet because we know what Internet does to fishing spots. So we went on the 9th and the 25th. On the 9th when I caught 19 fish. The fish were stacked up in the pools and not in the rapids. The water was quite cool and there would be 20 to 60 fish in each pool. Which was amazing that we only managed 19 for the day but was really good to see is a lot of fish in a lot of places as opposed to the main spots as usual. Travelling from spot to spot, we probably scared as many fish as we saw.
The next time
The second time we went it was fished till sunset and and drove out in the dark. The air temperature was 21 to 12 and we got so many on rolled muddlers and nymphs and a few on drive flies just for the fun of it! and he has you know it’s late at night but you got fish until sunset more often that’s for sure!
And Again
We were going to fish a different area and then we saw so many birds of prey that we decided to fish the main trout section. Now you may say what does that have to do with anything but, over the years we have found that when the solunar cycle is at a certain way the birds of the prey and the animal activity of predators goes up and it does seem to correlate to fish activity and it turned out to be the right idea. We went straight to our favorite pool got fish but we found fish in all sorts of places and were able to catch them in pools that haven’t had fish in for quite a number of years. Hard to fish pools and in some pools that we only find available and active later season so it was actually very hard to leave the fishing was so good we caught like 60 fish between us.
Oh Heck Why Not Go Again and Make a Weekend of It?
Left straight from work on Saturday and got to start fishing around 4 in the afternoon until sunset. Stayed overnight in a motel in the area and went back on the river by eight in the next morning got off about 11 to drive home as I had a gig that evening. We found a Beaver Dam down way downstream and it was full of fish. We really only got to look at a little bit because of the long walk back And it looks like there’s more of a below that and so we’ll be looking at that later on this year. Both look extremely fishable as opposed to you know Beaver dams where it’s so mushy on the outsides of it that you can’t get at it except by standing on the dam and tangling your line up in all the sticks! When we went back the next day we just basically fished some of the closer spots to where we park.
The winning fly for that day though was a tie that I had made over the winter that I thought might be good for a bass and it’s basically a rolled muddler done in all white so white rolled feathers, crystal flash and white deer hair for a body and based on the way the fish hit it it has been named Rage Bait.
Having Too Much Fun Fishing to Take too Many Photos
I promise, the next installment will not be brook trout from a Creek I can’t tell you about.
A Fly Fishing Season Start Unlike Other Places
Well most places have their seasons start early like ours does the target species is usually trout. Now our trout season, at least in streams, doesn’t start until the middle of April. But it might as well be April Fool’s Day because most of our trout are stocked fish in lakes and this far north, are still ice covered The middle of April most of our rivers are unfishable. If we’re lucky it’s thawed but they’re just running high and brown but typically they’re still very very low with lots of water locked in the in the hills and valleys around the handful of trout rivers we do have.
So our start of the season tends to be the Fairford River in Fairford Manitoba
Because of the drop, from the control structure, it is water that is open all year round but it’s pretty hard to stand in when it’s minus anything. Sometimes we get up there earlier in the year, if we have a mild spell that gets it close to above or below freezing. So spring break is our official start to our fly fishing season and we are just waiting for the ice come to come off of lakes from that point forward.
Back in the old days
We used to find giant schools of Tulabi, better known as Lake Cisco, in recent years those numbers have dropped way down but our experience of fishing this water has enabled us to find other target species that happened to be there feeding on the tulabi, like pike and walleye. But on really warm years, as the climate is circular, we’ve been able to get carp as well! This year was mostly just the Lake Cisco but I did catch like my biggest one ever close to 14 inches. We were there for 4 hours ’cause we still don’t have the good light and it’s still bloody cold but it was a good time.
We got lucky with a high of +4° C that day The fish were caught on a Bucktail streamer with holographic black collar. Only three fish caught but they were good ones. and by good I mean these fish actually put a bend in a 10′ 8 weight.
After that much fishing that much cold, it was time for a high calorie high protein meal before the trip home.
July Fly Fishing North/Central Manitoba
July has us doing a second (annual?) trip to Cranberry Portage Manitoba. Like last year, first stop is the Pine River, just north of Dauphin Manitoba.
I am pretty good with the bugs in the province, but it was a record year and I was ill prepared. One, no amount of bug spray or pipe smoking stopped the onslaught and two, the road was in too rough a shape to hazard bottoming out the SUV again!
Next year I am definitely bring a bug net to wear and possibly renting a more robust vehicle!
Barbe Lake Manitoba
The next day we only ventured to the 1st crossing on the Pine. it has been good in some years but the last 2 no fish to even scare.
the next day we made our way up to Cranberry Portage and our first day fishing was good old Barbe Lake.
Webster Lake Manitoba
The next day I went and got skunked at Webster Lake I actually got one small fish near the end the lake was quite weedy and hard to fish The other guys went to Amphipod Lake and did quite well actually.
Amphipod Lake
At the insistence of the other guys in the party, I went to Amphipod Lake. The always generous Stu lent me his float tube because my fish cat is just too much boat to try and drag into a portage so that’s what we did and I had a great day and got a bunch of really big fish here are the video and photos.
Language Warning
Sorry, but the first two fish got off way too easily and a little frustrating so I admit to possibly swearing.
Webster Lake Manitoba
A lovely lake that reportedly was stocked with a rainbow trout and has fished fairly well but by the time I got to it was very very weedy had a large populations of loons working the shallows. I got like one small trout kind of in the middle of the day
Beautiful lake probably better there to get earlier in the season or maybe not in the middle of a heat wave.
Scotty Lake
Another gem of a lake in the middle of all this beauty. Again, another lake that was supposedly stocked with two or three kinds of trout. All we managed was perch but being far away from everything it was actually quite nice there.
Dauphin Manitoba
Since the Pine River was such a bust we decided to fish the Vermilion River. It’s a shorter drive easier on the car.
Nice catching some chunky small mouth bass in a river .
Halfway through it I did switch over to my fishing partner’s Stephen Jay 7wt bamboo, that was made by Marcel Duval, and caught a few fish that way.
Summary
This will be the second time going up north and stopping off in Dauphin to go up to Cranberry Portage and hit some of those lakes up there. Overall it wasn’t as good I got skunked on some of the trout lakes, Goose was unfishable Pine was a disaster. I definitely going to be prepared for bugs next time but it was nice to finish off with Vermilion and some bass
Some big fish were caught and some lessons learned.
May Fly Fishing Manitoba and Ontario
My true opener
I did go to Ontario for the Victoria Day Weekend but the fishing areas and opportunities were poor
Back home to fish the Lac Du Bonnet Ponds
Robert Burton
info@flyfishingmanitoba.com
204-770-0846 (Texting only)
Big Creek Manitoba
I need to make better notes on these trips if I am going to wait so long to post them.
I remember thinking it was a bonus trip as we no longer have a closed season but no one told the fish
I am guessing it was too early and too cold.
Robert Burton
info@flyfishingmanitoba.com
204-770-0846 (Texting only)
Stonfo Razor Blade holder
It is not news that trimming and shaping materials like spun deer hair and sculpin wool, is best don with a razor blade. But, as a professional musician and educator, I can’t take a chance of slicing my fingers for the sake of a fly.
I have just trimmed with scissors and accepted the results.
Enter the Razor Stonfo tool. The grip spins to allow trimming with the razor flat or a semi circle. For me, who’s been tying for years, it is a game changer. Ya my scissor trimmed muddlers still caught fish, but now I can show them in public.
Overall, I tie to ‘throw not to show’ so I am not looking to win an tying contest but, this tool makes trimming spun deer hair fun and fast.
Here’s a short video.
January 2024 Fly Fishing Florida
Fishing the last few days of our annual Florida Christmas Trip.
Last day in the Destin area
Then 2 days later I fishing the pond in the parking lot of Coronado Springs in Disney
I only Got one bass and that was while trying to avoid a small gator
No More fishy until March at the earliest
Robert Burton
info@flyfishingmanitoba.com
204-770-0846 (Texting only)
Getting the Province’s Longest Running Fishing Forum Going Again!
As you may all be aware, the forum has been tapering off as each person decides social media (Facebook in particular) is their better option.
I get it, a one stop to have your own page and visit all your hobbies in one fell swoop.
I even tried to start a FB version of the forum but I didn’t want it to become like all the previous MB fishing forums and current FB groups (ruining spots with over sharing and spam) so I made it private with admission restricted to members there, only 17 have joined.
Since we have so much excellent info archived there and many are becoming disenfranchised with (or never liked) FB I am taking a shot at bringing the longest standing fishing forum in the province off of life support.
The first step is with you.
You need to participate.
An easy step to remind yourself to go there is to change your email notifications settings.
If you go to Profile -> Edit Profile -> Notifications (tab), you can set forum and/or email notifications there. The checkboxes are for on-forum notifications while the dropdowns are for email notifications.
You can also email or PM if you have thoughts or questions
Tight Lines!
Robert