What do you get when you combine super low water conditions with sun, cold weather and a good run of fish?? Well, the usual answer would be slow fishing because of low water, or, slow fishing due to sunny conditions, HOWEVER, the fishing has been simply mad over the last week and a half! And I mean MAD! For those of you who know me, I do not bullshit about hook-ups, ok, maybe on occassion a 15 pound fish may become 17 or 18, just like any other angler, but when it comes to hook-ups, I tell it like it is and I have a lot to tell you about!

On September 10th I hit the river with David and Andrew Clarke along with the Atlantic Hall of Fame member Bryant Freeman (who was fishing our area for the first time), we hit the Bonaventure River around the crack of 9 and stepped into Sinclair pool, alone, for once. During our morning fish we released one small salmon/grilse, and hooked up or had 4 other fish come to the fly. Not a bad morning for a few hours of fishing. As luck would have it we ended up at Salmon hole in the evening and released one more salmon and had a few pulls to go along with that small fish that David released (around 7 pounds).

I made a quick phone call to my friend Reynold Sexton from Sexton and Sexton fly shop in Cascapedia and asked if there was any water available at his camp, he said yes so we booked a day there. To say that the fishing was pretty good would be a gross understatement, because for Andrew it was a dream day with two landed fish, the largest of which was 32 pounds! His second of two fish on two passes in this particular pool we were fishing. His father David and Bryant did not have quite such good luck, however, they did manage a 12 pound fish and one more hook-up that day as well. How did I do? well, after pulling a dry fly out of the jaws of a 25+ pound fish (the guides got a kick out of that) I hooked and lost another fish around 15 pounds on a dry immediately after the big one! I lost that fish along with another 25+ fish behind Andrew in the other pool along with three other good hard takes on the same pass. One of those fish broke me off on the take and was VERY large!

The third and final day was spent with Andrew back at Salmon Hole on the Bonnie with no results at all. Nada!

After my morning fish with Andrew on the final day I headed out to the Matapedia to join my next guest and good friend Chris Wilson for an hour or so of fishing. The water there was super low, however, locals had been reporting me some decent catch stats and no anglers to compete with at all, We fished through two pools and I got one small pull but cannot sweat it was a salmon as there were a lot of trout around that evening. The next morning Chris and I booked some more water on the Cascapedia River and proceeded to tear things up and I mean we tore them up. Chris landed two fish and lost one more, I proceeded to continue losing fish after fish and was subjected to some serious abuse from Chris and my other guide friends, and I have to admit, I deserved every nasty comment I got! I am sure, or at least I am blaming, my extra long poly leader for most of my fish losses because once I switched to a solid leader, the hooking turned into landing fish. The tally for day one on the Cascapedia River with Chris was 6 fish on the line and 3 landed.

I will spare you the gory details for the next 2 days of fishing in this same sector, however, I will tell you what the final tally was after 3 days of fishing there: Released salmon 9 with 17 hook-ups/lost fish. The last fish was one of the best and I have to tell you about it quickly... it was around 6 pm and supper was waiting for us nearby at 7:30 so we wanted to finish early. We had just waded through one of the hot pools with no results and decided to quit but then our guide suggested that we take one last pass through a pool that had a lot of big fish in it. As I stood with the guides up on the road and watched Chris work his DH magic, we ignored the fact that his fly was getting dangerously close to a big fat hen fish at the tail of the pool. It is easy to get distracted when watching Chris cast, he is one of the smoothest and prettiest casters I know. Anyhow, as we watched and waited for Chris to pick up his line for another cast we saw the line go tight and the rod bend over, really bend over! We looked down to the tail of the pool and said "you hooked the big one" all at once. As the final rays of sun set upon the river the fish took a quick run to the far end of the pool and shook free. I looked at Chris who had a big smile on his face and said "what a perfect end to a perfect week"! He looked up and only smiled in agreement. We shook hands and tipped out our guides and drove home with two huge smiles on our faces, knowing we had just experienced one of the best fishing weeks of the season, or, maybe our lives!

I would like to say that things ended there, as it was sort of a romantic end to this story, but as with guides, there is always another chapter until the season is officially done!

Yesterday marked the arrival of two anglers from Toronto, Anthony and Neil, two great gentlemen who are ardent anglers for all sort of species. Neil Houlding is a well recognized DH hand caster from Southern Ontario who is part of the Guideline Power Team in N. America and a very nice caster. After a morning session of casting our rods with different lines we headed back up to the Cascapedia River for an evening fishing session. As we drove up I told them about the previous experiences I had lived with Chris but in doing so, I started to worry that maybe we had stabbed all of the fish over the previous 3-days we had fished and started to regret how much info I had shared in fear that I might be blamed if we did not get any fish. Note to self, shut the hell up sometimes! 

We started fishing in the afternoon and had a soft pull after about an hour and a half of fishing but did not move any of the 30 or so 25+ pound fish at the tail of this pool. We headed down to one of the other previous hot pools from the week before and started fishing. As the sun was still on the water, I could see that there were around 15 fish in the pool and that Anthony was getting really close to the first group of fish. I called out to him telling him to get ready and as luck would have it, he hooked into and landed a nice 18 pound cock fish. Both anglers fished their way through the rest of the pool with no addtional pulls or hook-ups so we headed down one pool to a faster, but more difficult run to fish. Neil went first and had a very nice hook-up and immediately lost this fish. Anthony followed behind with no results. Neil stepped back in and once again got a good solid take but the fish shook free after only a few seconds. With little light remaining I offered my 13'7" GUIDELINE LECie rod to Anthony to try out with a 55" Hardy midspey line. Casting more efficiently with this rod he layed out a very nice 85' cast and I told him to wait a bit longer for the fly to come around. No sooner did I finish saying that - and he hooked into another 12-14 pound hen fish which we promptly released just before dark.

I took the morning off and let the two of them hit the river alone with the camp guides and am awaiting news at this very moment! Will write more at the end of the season!

Screaming reels to you all!

David