Fishing Excuses

Think of this list like one of those jars you see beside the till in convenience stores. Need a penny take one; got a penny leave one. All of the excuses I have either used myself or heard someone else use.

Need an Excuse- Take one; Got an Excuse- Leave One

1. No fish here
2. The wind was wrong
3. The barometer was rising
4. The barometer was falling
5. The Solunar table said it was the wrong time anyway
6. It is about the fishing, not the catching
7. Water too cold
8. Water too warm
9. Water too low
10. Water too high
11. Jinxed myself
12. You jinxed me
13. Using the wrong fly, lure or bait
14. Wrong spot
15. Wrong tide
16. Fish are too educated here
17. Couldn’t cast out far enough to reach the fish
18. Wrong moon phase
19. Too many other people around
20. Leader too heavy
21. Leader too short
22. Pulled it away from him
23. Too cold to fish well- after falling in
24. I did everything right but the fish just would not take
25. I did not know the hook was broken off my fly
26. Too bright out
27. Must have had gas fumes on my hands
28. Fishing from the wrong side of the brook
29. There was a seal in the pool- works with beavers and otters too.
30. The guide ….- just fill in the blank. Only works when there are no fish. If there were lots caught, you never hear the guide mentioned.
31. Tony said... Took the wife .....she scared them off !
32. Fish Whisperer said... Took the wife and she caught them all.

Nova Scotia Summer Salmon Season Best in Thirty Years

Well, wouldn’t you know it? The best salmon season in thirty years and I missed it. It was a classic case of being in the right place at the wrong time.

The good news is that the Atlantic Salmon seem to be having a banner year.

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Geoff J. sent a couple of photos of him releasing some dime-bright and chunky grilse. Those fish look healthy and heavy for their size. He also tangled with a few multi sea winter fish this summer.

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Ian Gall sends a similar report from Newfoundland, lots of fish and a few pictures.

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I have my hopes pinned on the Fall Salmon season now.

The River P. opens on September 1. I have not heard if there are any salmon in the river yet. Not that a lack of fish has ever stopped me from fishing but it does make my excuses a bit better.

Green Awareness Hits home follow up

Geoff J., sent me this picture and a note in response to the post about Green Awareness Hits Home


"I was reading your blog about the hole filling in with silt and your wondering if the construction project is to blame. It made me think of the problems Dexter had a couple years ago while building the highway interchange next to Dartmouth Crossing. I have attached a picture of the silt running into Lake Mic Mac during that event which I think was in 2005. If this were the right location and time frame then I would say that you might be right on the cause."




Thanks Geoff. I guess that explains it. Sad though.

Green Awareness Hits Home

Well, it is funny but cynical old me seems to be on a bit of a “green awareness” binge.

I visited one of my favourite urban fishing spots two nights ago. This was my “go to” place for Trophy Trout during the heat of summer; a spring fed little pool on the edge of a big lake. The Speckled Trout would stack up there to get relief from the oxygen starved, warm water of the lake. They were there all through the dog days of summer.



The small, spring-cooled brook seeped through the boulder-strewn bottom and the fish would lay in the shaded protection between the rocks. The tops of the rocks were inches below the surface but the actual bottom was any where from two feet to four feet below that. A well-placed fly would raise those big Trout from their shelter in the crevasses and make for an amazingly exciting and challenging dry fly fishing experience.

Since my last trip there, a big construction project has been active across the highway and up the hill from the secret spot. It may be a coincidence but all the gaps and channels between the boulders are now filled, a couple of feet deep, with fine sediment. There is no place for the fish to lie. I did catch a few tiny eight inch'ers on the outer edge of what used to be the pool but the Trophy Trout are gone. I hope that it is just that they dispersed throughout the lake, but who knows?

Smallmouth Bass are as plentiful as ever so there is no obvious sign of the tragedy that has occurred. I will never know if the construction project was the cause. It is too late now anyway. Something precious has already been lost.

How to Remove a Leech - Updated

 For someone unfamiliar with leeches it is a disgusting experience to have one attached to you. For a child it can be horrifying. We got into them while hunting frogs in the calm water under bushes along the riverbank a while ago. Here is a clear version of the removal process from an article written last summer about the event.


Avoiding Leeches:
Leeches do not like bright light or fast moving water so it is unusual to have to deal with them at the river cottage. They prefer still or very slow moving water and the semi-darkness under docks or rocks where they attach themselves to stationary objects and wait for their prey.

First Things First:
When a child has a leech on them or three as in this weekend’s events it is pretty scary. The first thing to do is react calmly and start to work removing the leeches immediately. You should use one of your hands to hide the leech from the child’s sight. Have anyone who is contributing to the child’s unease run and get things for you.

Folk Remedies:The folk remedies for removing leeches are salt, alcohol, a burning cigarette or smoldering broom straw.

The Best Way:The best way to remove one is to slide your fingernail around the place where the sucker attaches and try to get the seal broken.
Grab the fat end to detach the rear sucker, grasp the leech and pull gently which will raise the skin around the attachment point.
Keep sliding your nail around where the mouth meets the skin until you can pry it off. This can take a few minutes, which can be anxious for a child so by all means, sprinkle some salt, wave around the burning embers and mutter instructions to your assistants to keep the child distracted and calm.

Tip:Remember to place your hands so that the child cannot really see what is going on - not just to calm them but because leeches secrete an anticoagulant, the wounds though tiny will bleed profusely.
I think most of the mumbo-jumbo about salt and cigarettes is to distract the squeamish while you rid them of the nasty critters.

Adults:
In my experience on oneself, just grab the leech and pull it off. They are not like a wood tick and do not leave any bits behind. Clean the wound with an anti-septic though and cover it up with a band-aid, as much to stop the bleeding as to keep it clean. I have never heard of any complications from a leech attack here in the temperate north but at the first sign of streaking, fever or other symptoms of infection consult a doctor immediately.

Stewardship and Waterfront Development

There has been a lot of concern in the last few years about the disappearance of frogs and other amphibians from their normal territories. The specific reason for their loss is still elusive but intuition suggests environmental degradation of one sort or another as the likely cause.

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At my cottage on the Medway River, the fellow who owned it before me cut all of the bushes and trees from the waterline back to the cottage. He wanted to have a better view of the river. He got the view he wanted but at a price.

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For example, at certain times of the day Salmon used to hold in the shadow of the Button Bushes he cut down. There has not been one seen there since.

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When I started going to Bear Falls, it was pleasant but the Salmon were on the decline anyway from the scourge of acid rain. It was more a place to go and decompress rather than a fishing destination. It was quiet.

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Over the last ten years the bushes and shrubs along the river bank have grown back. With the re-growth came an explosion of life. As I sit here, the sound of birds is almost tropical. For the first time since I can remember the Red-winged Blackbirds are nesting along the river shore. Each bird with a carefully measured territory he will defend with song and action. Song Sparrows abound, Robins, Blue Jays, Canada Jays, Pine Siskin, the cheerful Chickadees, comical and friendly Juncos, Wrens and Finches I have not identified yet and more. Someday I’ll make a list. I bet it will amaze me.

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It is not just the birds, insects too are rebounding. The dragonflies, damselflies and all of their aquatic brethren, those whose nymphs climb from the water for the metamorphosis into ephemeral winged beauty are colonizing the new grown lushness along the river.

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The frogs started their comeback a couple of years ago. This year they are as thick as the birds. If I walk from my cottage to the river now I fully expect to see frogs, Leopard Frogs, Bull Frogs, and the common Green Frog. It used to be a treat to spot one.
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With the frogs came the turtles, Snapping and Painted as well as a funny shaped one that may have been a Blanding’s turtle but I did not want to scare it off by trying to catch it and see.

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At night the fireflies are like a miniature galaxy along the river bank. Bats weave through the dusk, picking off the unwary. All to a chorus of the deep organ tones of Bullfrogs punctuating the river’s descent of the falls.
I guess what constitutes a view is in the eye of the beholder.

The Button Bush, a Rare and Unusual Nova Scotian Plant

The Button bush is a shrub that grows in and close to water. It is common along the Medway River system but rare elsewhere. I have seen it in places along the Petite River but don’t recall ever seeing it anywhere else.
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The Button Bushes form a low thick cover. Their roots spread out like mangroves in miniature to create a wonderful, sheltered environment for all sorts of river life. It thrives in the ten foot strip between the normal low water level and the normal high water level along the river bank.

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Aquatic insects use the stems as the stairway between water and air. With the insects come birds, first to feed on the insects and later as the bush thickens to nest in the sheltered protection.

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The bush halts the seasonal erosion of the river bank and builds strength and stability. It also shelters the larger river mammals. The burrowing of the muskrats and pathways of the beaver and otter create the small puddles and pools that harbour amphibians.
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The Button Bush has thick, richly green, foliage and an eccentric almost random shape to the trunk and branches. The trunks take on a look of ancient, weathered beauty.
The flower bud is globular and pale green, about the size and shape of a button. The flower is an unusual white spiked ball. Bees seem to love it.

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Flowering occurs in late July. Interestingly, the transition from bud to flower seems to happen quickly. I have noticed one or two flowers just starting to show in the morning and by that afternoon hundreds of flowers will cover the bushes.

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I think it is a valuable and beautiful plant. It is also a haven for wildlife along my stretch of the river.

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The actual name of this plant is Cephalanthus Occidentalis.

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This map shows the native range of the Button Bush. It is quite common in other parts of the Eastern States and Canada.

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How to Remove a Wood Tick

What the experts say:
The Nova Scotia Department of Health Protection and Promotion–

The Nova Scotian Government distributes a brochure with the following advice: Grasp the tick with tweezers and pull it straight out. To be honest, that is how I deal with them except I don’t bother with the tweezers. I just grasp them as close to the head as I can and pull gently and steadily until the little bugger has to let go. It might take thirty or forty seconds but it seems to work fine.

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A Parasitologist –
A Parasitologist working at Dalhousie University says the best way to remove an embedded tick is to cover the body of the tick with Vaseline, butter or a similar substance. An insect breathes through holes in its body called spiracles and if you plug them it can not breathe. This will cause the tick to contract the little spines which hold it in place so you can just pick it off.

It is the spines on its proboscis and head which make it dangerous to just pull the tick off. If any part of the tick breaks off while pulling it out, the consequences to your health can be profound, from infection to tumors or worse.
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Folk Wisdom –
When I was young, the conventional treatment for removing a tick was to touch it on the bum with a lit cigarette or the little ember on the tip off of a just blown-out wooden match. The tick would pretty quickly let go and try to find a more temperate place to settle in. At that point you would grab it and either finish burning it or just flush it down the toilet. It seemed to work as well as anything and left no obvious ill effects.

A. blacklegged tick larva. B. blacklegged tick nymph. C. blacklegged tick adult. D. Dog or wood tick adult. Image from: http://www.gov.ns.ca/

Where did they come from?

Ticks have not always been a problem in Nova Scotia. The first ones are thought to have arrived in Yarmouth on some sheep imported by a farmer in the 1940’s. I always figured they came in on the dogs brought by tourists via the Portland to Yarmouth ferry that docks in Yarmouth. In either case, the first ticks settled into Yarmouth and have worked their way steadily across the province ever since. In the 1970’s we had them in Queens County. In the 1980’s they were being found in Kejimkujik National Park and into Annapolis County.

Apparently they are everywhere in the province now but I rarely see them west of Lunenburg County. East of there I expect to be crawling with them after a day in the woods.
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What about Lyme disease?
For a long time Lyme disease was not a concern here even though we had ticks. It seems that the ordinary wood tick is not a particular carrier. Recently there have been reports that a different and smaller type of tick has been found around Bedford in Halifax County that is a carrier. I read in the paper recently that there are now twelve confirmed cases of Lyme disease in Nova Scotia. Five of the confirmed cases are in Garden Lots, Lunenburg.
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Keeping them off in the first place

I am not sure you can really keep them off in the first place if you are spending time in the woods but here are the conventional tips to minimize contact:

Tuck your pants into your socks when walking around in grassy areas. Check yourself and your companions frequently during your trip.

Wear a mesh bug jacket when you can.

Use a good DEET based insect repellent and spray a bit on your shoes and around your ankles.

When you get home from your day out, strip off and examine yourself for ticks. You rarely feel them on your skin so check your self over. Most often ticks climb aboard and work their way up toward your head and neck area before embedding-not always but often enough that it is a good idea to carefully check the hair line around the back of your neck and ears.

The most common place to get ticks on you is not actually the woods but the fields and grass around the edges of the woods.

It might be good advice to avoid Garden Lots, Lunenburg County.

-Here is a picture of a device some friends showed me at the cottage the other day.

A doctor from Yarmouth, Nova Scotia – the entry point of Nova Scotia’s tick invasion, invented Tick Off. It looks like it would work pretty well but I have not tried it.

 

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Here is the link to the Nova Scotian Government fact sheet on ticks: Click here

Fishing Photo Follow-up

I saw the funniest video the other day posted at Marian's Hunting Stories. Check it out if you get a minute and if anyone can explain what is going on I'd appreciate hearing from you.

Here is the link to the video: Boxing Bucks.

Marian sent along a fishing picture as well.

Looks like what I've been catching this summer.

Digital photography and Good Fishing Pictures

I had an e-mail the other day asking about the beautiful photo illustrating the gone fishing notice posted in early July.

The photo, taken at about 4:30 in the afternoon in June 2008 by Dave Dobson, uses some photographic techniques with which he has been experimenting.

It is a shot of me fishing an upstream, dry fly to a trout rising in a typically tiny Nova Scotia, backwoods brook

I am doing a single haul roll cast because there is no room for anything fancy and definitely no room for a mistake. In this situation, you either catch the riser or put him down with rarely a second chance.

According to Dave, the "Strobist” blog spot is one of the most useful and inspirational sites out there for photog's wanting to take the next steps towards mastery of their craft.

I just think it is a great photograph.

The Trophy Trout of Christopher Lake

The local trout hatchery sometimes releases its over-matured brood stock into Christopher Lake. These are two or three pound Eastern Brook Trout and people flock to the lake trying for these trophies. I have tried, off and on, for them over the years and have come close but never quite managed it.

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The first time I was within striking range was at the mouth of a little brook that empties from Second Christopher Lake into First Christopher Lake. I was fishing a Muddler Minnow and having some luck with small eight and ten inch brookies. I could see a big fish rising every few minutes a short cast offshore. It was slowly heading in my direction so I waited and fished, quaking with excitement and anticipating the slashing strike of the big Brookie.

The fish was about a hundred yards away and still meandering along its feeding path, holding to the pattern, as a canoe came down stream from Second Christopher Lake. The fellow fishing in the bow was casting a big silver spoon seemingly randomly. He hollered a cheerful greeting as the canoe glided over my fly then to add insult to injury, his line came tight on the great big trout I’d been patiently waiting to intercept.

He obviously wasn’t casting quite as randomly as I thought.
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The next time I came close was at the same spot but this time I was in a canoe. While unloading the boat from my truck I noticed a small grass frog near my foot. It was chilled by the early morning I guess because I just reached down and picked it up. As I tucked it into one of my fishing-vest pockets I thought, “There, a secret weapon if I see one of those brute trout”.

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Well, I fished around for an hour or two with no sign of any trout at all. None were rising. Nothing was touching my fly. I was well and truly skunked!

While rummaging through my fly boxes trying to figure out what to try next, I remembered the frog from the boat launch. Pulling it from my vest pocket and holding it in the palm of my hand I was struck by a pang of pity. The poor thing, I just didn’t have the heart to impale it on a hook to catch a trout I was planning to release anyway, so lowered it over the gunnel of the canoe, nestled in my palm. As the water slowly rose up my hand and the frog found itself awash it gave a kick. Gradually gaining speed, he made for the near shore.

My rod lay across my knees forgotten for the moment while I watched the frog swimming away. I was slightly appalled by the bloody instinct that had caused its capture in the first place. My little friend had only gone about ten feet when the water erupted and he disappeared into the gaping maw of two plus pound Brook trout.

That was the only fish I saw that day.

At the Camp - Bear Falls on the Medway River, Nova Scotia

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As I write this I am sitting on the dock at my cottage. From here I can watch for salmon surmounting the short rise to the pool stretching out on three sides of me.

The sound of the falls is a muted roar. It is exactly the same sound as the wind during a hurricane but softer, less jagged, without the threat. A Bald Eagle flies over and agitates the Black Backed Gulls sitting on either side of one of the narrow dumps over which the river rushes.

They have been sentries to that gate since time immemorial. The rocks painted white with their droppings, witnesses to their patience. What they hope for is hard for me to know. I have seen elvers, the little glass eels, leave the water there and creep snakelike over the spray dampened rocks to avoid the treacherous currents but they are scarcely a meal for those voracious scavengers.

Along with the salmon, alewives, or as the primordial Mi'kmaq called them "Kiacks", run in their thousands through the channels of these falls. Shad too run in this river but rarely this far up. There are trout here, the speckled treasure of the Nova Scotian backwoods and all the small minnows, catfish, parr, and fry. Somewhere in the rich life of the river is their reward.

The gulls settle back to watchful immobility. The Eagle drifts on down the river with the strange, slow motion flight of his imperious kind, unimpressed by the constancy of the Gulls.