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Wednesday, May 27, 2009

An ass whooping on the York...

An ass whooping on the York... I hate to admit it, but yesterday I got my ass whooped by a salmon. Yup, a creature with not legs and no arms brought me literally to my knees - and that is NOT an exaggeration!

I met up with my longtime friend and fellow salmon freak, Paul Caron, at the Grande Gaspe ZEC office (this is the management body for the York, Dartmouth and St-Jean Rivers) to buy our daily passes at around 8:15 a.m.. After about 10 minutes of banter with the staff there and between one another, we finally decided to try our luck on zone 1 of the York – there were already 4 other rods fishing that sector but we figured there was plenty of room for two more. I was anxious to hit the river of big fish - the York – which was running almost clear and just on the high side, in other words, perfect!!
I followed Paul up the river in my Subaru with Forrest aboard, to one of the pools in zone 1 (sorry but you are not going to get the name of the pool) and geared up while Forrest (my 2-year old chocolate lab)sniffed around the luscious forest surrounding us. It was a balmy 6-degrees C and the wind was already blowing at about 15-20 km an hour with even stronger gusts from time to time. It was not pretty, but then again, it was a lot nicer than the snowstorm I encountered coming through the Chic Choc mountains the day before! Yup, a real blizzard like storm that was only localized in the Murdochville area - thank God. I will post some pics on Facebook soon for those of you who do not believe me…

Looking like football players for all of the layers we had on, we started our jaunt up the trail to the Paul’s favorite early season "spot". As Paul had more early season years on this stretch than I did, I was happy to follow him, taking mental notes as we walked up the trail in silence. Upon arrival at our first pool all I could think was ‘this is sweet looking water’! Paul broke my train of thought with two of the most beautiful words an angler can hear as he gazes out over sweet looking water – “you start”. Now, usually I would be polite and argue a bit, telling Paul to go ahead and start, bla bla bla, but Paul is my friend and I knew that he would not take no for an answer so I did the only thing I could do. I waded in and stripped out a bunch of line off my new 13’ Guideline LPXe rod.

After about 30-minutes of casting and stepping down through the run, I finally got down to one of the "hot spots" Paul had pointed out to me before I started, one that I had been drooling over when we first arrived. There was a lovely white Birch tree overhanging the river just a bit and the water just below it looked very very sexy. I made a few casts through the sweetest part of the run hoping for a pull with each swing, but nothing happened. I told myself that it was only the 26^th of May and the fish might not be there yet so I was not all that bummed out when each offering I made simply turned into another cast. The run was getting a bit skinny for my tastes but I decided to pound out one last cast. After I made the cast, which was more out of wanting to cast than anything else, I made one step towards the bank and started to turn my head but out of the corner of my eye I caught the sight of a huge head crashing out of the water along with a HUGE boiling splash. The line went tight and I was hooked up! Yeeeehaaawww – followed by a big grin and me yelling to Paul – FISH ON! The first hook-up of 2009 on the York!

For the first few minutes the fish actually did not do too much. It actually came towards me a bit and just sat on the bottom straight out inf front of me. It did not take Paul too long to make his way down to me with a camera. As he started to take pictures the fish started to slowly turn and headed down river very slowly. Its’ slow decent down river got a hell of a lot faster in the blink of an eye and I found myelf looking at my reel wondering why I had so little backing and also wondering who the hell spliced my line like that and why? I watched in horror as a piece of line came whizzing out of my reel that had two ends to it! The next thing I saw was the inside of the spool with barely 25 feet of backline left. Oh shit -was about all I could get out of my mouth before I started running!

I had no choice, it was either run as fast as I could down river or watch the line pop right there! I opted for the running, or should I say, stumbling down river thing... I actually did fairly well for the first 100 or so yards, that is, until I slipped and twisted my entire body in a way it was not designed to twist! Fuuuuuccckkkkk was all I could muster as my knees gave out and the daggers went into my spine! I stumbled for about 5 feet and then froze. I was afraid to move at all it hurt so bad. During this 100 yard stumbling episode, I had managed to regain about 25 yards of line on my reel and as I stood hunched over in the middle of a raging York River, all I could do was pray the fish would not hit the rapids I could see about 30 yards below where he was holding.

Sometimes praying works and sometimes it does not. In this particular case, it did not and the fish, despite all of my hoping, wishing and praying, flipped me off again and bolted for the heaviest part of the rapids. As my line went tighter and tighter and my rod got dangerously close to the expoding point, I saw one last glimpse of the fish as it splashed on the water with its middle fin just poking out of the waves... it was beautiful. Painful, but beautiful... :-)

10:13 am edt

Monday, May 4, 2009

Season just around the corner!

Another beautiful day in Cascapedia St-Jules... this spring has been full of them!

An early spring may just bring us an extra early run of fish this year, at least, that is what I am betting on!

The trout have already started to run in and out of the estuary and locals have reported some great catches thus far! I saw a few 3-4 pound trout myself over the weekend!

I was planning to hit the Risigouche this weekend, however, heavy rains on Friday made me change my plans. From what I hear there were fish taken, however, it was a bit dirty and high... I think I will wait another week or two before I venture out. By then there should be some big bright fish heading up towards the Causapscal River.

I am going to be making my first Quebec road tour with my new GUIDELINE and Shadowflies gear. Rimouski Tuesday, Quebec Ciy Wednesday then off to Three Rivers and Montreal! Weekend plans include a two day stay at the Chateau Montebello about an hour and a half away from Montreal.

Will be updating more and more often as the season approaches!

Screaming reels to you all

David

10:10 am edt

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Atlantic salmon fishing the Gaspe Peninsula is truly a special experience. Our waters are some of the most beautiful and accessible in the world for Atlantic salmon anglers to visit and explore. As an independent guide I offer my guide and casting instruction services in the Baie des Chaleurs area of the Gaspe Peninsula where I take my clients salmon and trout fishing on the Cascapedia, Petite Cascapedia and Bonaventure Rivers.

If you are interested in learning more about our area or about Atlantic salmon fishing in Quebec, or, if you want to catch some VERY big trout, I invite you to drop me a line. It will be my pleasure to help inform you about how to set up a trip from A-Z in our area.