Ice Fishing

Stopped the car to watch a fellow ice fishing on one of the city lakes today. He was sitting on a bucket working one rod. It is a cold day and he sure didn’t look too comfortable. Can’t say I saw him catch any fish either but, it is a bright, sunny day and it was probably great just to be outside.

Now I have never been a big fan of ice fishing. When I lived in Kelowna, out in British Columbia I used to go the odd time. What ruined it for me was pulling those big rainbows up through the hole and thinking about what fun they would be on a fly rod come spring.

I just could never reconcile catching a two pound plus, wild, mountain rainbow on a piece of Green Giant corn through the ice - when I couldn’t catch one on a Doc Spratley in open water.

I do remember telling the proprietor of a deli where we loaded up with snacks and pepperoni once, that the pepperoni was our secret killer trout bait. He couldn’t keep it in stock for weeks after because he, of course, told every fisherman in town the secret.

I would sure love to get back to some of those mountain lakes with my fly rod now that I have a few more seasons under my belt.

Rainbow Trout, An Invasive Species for Nova Scotia?

When I was buying my fishing license this week I ran into Larry Short. He told me that two Rainbow Trout were caught in the Sackville River on opening day.

Why is this significant?

Well, they are not a native spices here. Back in November, a hurricane crashed into Nova Scotia.


There was an amazing amount of rain, screaming winds and waves of over 12 meters, that is about 40 feet, were reported in the ocean off the coast of Nova Scotia.

Hurricane Noel destroyed an aquaculture facility in the waters of Liverpool Bay. They lost about $1,000,000.00 in equipment and stock. The stock in this case was big Rainbow Trout that escaped.

Between Liverpool where this happened and the Sackville River are several salmon streams. I call them salmon streams but all of our Nova Scotia rivers have been severely damaged by acid rain and other human activities. The naturally breeding salmon stocks are extinct in many and endangered in all.





The Sackville Rivers Association has been working for years to rehabilitate these urban waters and re-establish a breeding population of Atlantic salmon in them. With some success, I might add. Nevertheless, it is a fragile victory.

These two Rainbow Trout could disrupt the whole program if they were carrying a pen-born disease. It could be a disaster if they are the harbingers of breeding pairs pioneering local waters.




I asked Larry if these fish were not triploid as much fish farm stock is.

Triploid fish are sterile because of a genetic manipulation. They have three sets of chromosomes instead of two (diploid) which is normal.

The advantage to fish farmers of using triploid fish in aquaculture is their rapid growth and weight gain. The disadvantage is their susceptibility to deformities and disease. It also means that escapees cannot reproduce and become an invasive species.

Larry told me that the problem is that even though triploid fish are being raised, not all of them are in fact sterilized. As in anything, there is a margin of error.

What does it all really mean?

Well, in talking to my fishing friends not all of them are unhappy about the fish escaping and entering our rivers. About half of the guys are looking forward to catching them if they can.

They point to Cape Breton, which has Rainbows and Steelhead in the rivers now, apparently from aquaculture escapees getting into the Bras D’Or Lake over the last twenty years or so. I have gone fishing for Steelhead there myself. (I did not get any so went salmon fishing instead).

Others fear the big picture. A new invasive species that just might be the straw that breaks the Salmon’s back.

The Rainbows are out of the cage now so only time will tell. It is too late for our opinions on the subject to have an effect but I would still be interested in hearing what you think.


Image of fish after storm on Beach Meadows Beach from the Queens County Times

New fishing pictures

Some great new pictures added to the gallery.

Here are a few of them.

The Doc Spratley and Kamloops Trout

Doc Spratley fly

 The other day I was thinking about a fly called the Doc Spratley. The fly is named after a dentist who happened to be in the shop when the fly was being tied for the first time by Dick Prankard, who originated the pattern around 1949 in Mt Vernon, Washington.



It is a deadly pattern I first used in Postill Lake, British Columbia for Kamloops trout.

Kamloops trout are rainbow trout. They are well adapted to the clear, rich waters of Canada's west. They eagerly take a fly, fight with lots of jumps, grow to an impressive size and are great table fare too.

If ever "Intelligent Design" advocates need an example to prove their point, the Kamloops Trout sure seems like it was custom built for the fly fisherman.

I was just beginning my fascination with fly-fishing in those days and we fished the lake by trolling a black Doc Spratley slowly around the edges. We regularly caught a bunch of fish.

My main fishing buddy in those days was Nick Palmaruk. Nick is a great guy with a wicked sense of humour. At the time, he was the chef at a downtown hotel in Kelowna. One of the traditions that evolved early in our fishing trips was that we would take fairly elaborate lunches.

I only mention this because when I was in my twenties I'd regularly fish all day on a can of Pepsi and a chocolate bar. I'd barely stop for a pee, let alone for lunch. It was a completely foreign concept to me.

 A typical day's outing would involve meeting in the pre-dawn, loading the lunch and gear then heading up into the foothills of the mountains in my old Nissan pick-up. The narrow logging road was an adventure in itself. Every blind curve, of which there were plenty, could reveal a fully loaded logging truck barreling down upon us.

As a chef, Nick when it was his turn to provide the lunch, would provide an incredible feast, foi gras stuffed cold pheasant breast with an aspic glaze sort of thing complete with a three-foot baguette and a very good bottle of wine. Of course I felt obliged, when it was my turn, to at least match his effort so I'd get extra crispy on the bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken and never diet cola, only the real thing was good enough.

Postill Lake BC

I remember one particular day as we were trolling along with mixed success. I was holding the motor control arm with one hand, eating a drumstick with the other and watching my rod tip carefully as I listened to Nick expound on the importance of good food.

Apparently this particular bucket of chicken didn't exactly represent the state of the art of culinary expertise, at least as practiced in the better restaurants of the day. I calmly finished my drumstick and carefully brought his line in hand over hand across the transom, cautious not to alert him to anything unusual going on in the back of the boat. As his fly came into my hand I hooked the well-cleaned chicken bone onto it and then, just as carefully, let the line back out. When it reached the end I gave it one good tug.

"Hello", he hollered and started an epic battle to land what he expected to be another good trout. The fact that it wasn't jumping convinced him that it was in fact a big fish, bigger than any I'd caught that day anyway.

That’s when I learned an important lesson about delaying the bragging until you have the fish in your net. Nick hadn't learned it yet so he kept up a steady stream of chatter until it slowly dawned on him that this was too strange and one-sided a battle to be a fish.

He fell silent and continued to reel in line until he was holding his leader. Dangling below his hand was the beautiful Doc Spratley fly with a well-stripped chicken bone firmly attached.

He slowly turned and gave me a cold stare. "Damn" he said. "He got my bait."



image of fly from www.thechronicflyfisher.com/HOME.HTML

Lot's of big fish this year.

 Here is something you may find interesting:

Brown trout sinks old record
Last Updated: Monday, April 30, 2007 10:00 AM AT
CBC News
A Cape Breton fisherman has officially reeled in a provincial record.
Charlie Lahey's fish is now listed as the largest brown trout ever caught in Nova Scotia.





 A provincial fisheries biologist confirmed the record, the Cape Breton Post reported Monday.
The 8.3-kilogram fish, caught April 21 in the Mira River, beat the record of 3.58 kg set last year. That fish was caught in the Wallace River in Cumberland County.
It was 86.36 centimetres long and 71.12 centimetres thick. That's about 34 inches long and just under eighteen and a half pounds, if my math is not too rusty.

How about this one from Lake Diefenbaker in Saskatchewan?

Lana Haight, CanWest News Service Published: Friday, June 08, 2007
SASKATOON -- Adam Konrad has another fish story to tell.

43.6-pound rainbow trout

"It is an ugly one and it is fat. With a 34-inch girth, that's bigger than a human, almost," said the Saskatoon man who landed a 38-1/2-inch long rainbow
trout that will put him in the record books, again. On Tuesday between 6:30 and 7 p.m., Konrad snagged the 43.6-pound rainbow trout at Lake Diefenbaker, topping the previous world record set in 1970 when a boy landed a 42.3-pound rainbow trout in Alaska.

"I've already talked to the world-record co-ordinator (with the International Game Fish Association) and she's freaking out." On Tuesday, Konrad was casting from shore with his identical twin brother Sean and a friend. He says there's more to landing a record-breaking fish than being in the right place at the right time.