The Fly Explorer: January 2012

2011 Retrospective - Winter

I can’t complain about this year in terms of fishing. Since I was under a study permit condition and just doing a post-graduate program in Business at George Brown College, I had enough time to make some nice fishing trips and also explore some local waters (i.e., Southern Ontario). Now it is time to take care of my “non-fishing” life for a little while, thus I thought that a good way to end this year would be making a sum-up of my best fishing adventures, highlighting some points that I think it can be useful somehow for the average traveler.

Winter

My first trip of the year was to Quintana Roo, Mexico. A good place to go with the family and arrange some guided fishing trips in the amazing flats they have down there. We went to Cancun, Tulum and the Syan Kaan Biosphere. I’ve just fished 2 days during this trip; one in Isla Blanca, where the guide pick you up in Cancun, and the other in the Syan Kaan lagoons. There are not too many options for the non-guided-shore’s fisherman there. The local lodges and operators say you cannot fish inside the biosphere without a guide, but I know many anglers who fish the area walk and wading around Boca Paila bridge, which is apparently legal and a great spot. It is possible to stay in Tulum and drive down there or you can stay somewhere inside the reserve. The coolest place that we slept in this trip was the CESIAK (http://cesiak.org/), a kind of environmental friendly eco-lodge inside the reserve that offers an interesting accommodation set up , where the cabins are nothing else than military tents raised inside wood’s platforms with no electricity. The little electricity that they get to the restaurant area is provided by the sun and the wind. They can arrange guided fishing trips inside the reserve for Bonefish and other classic flats’ predators. I especially enjoyed the great Snook fishery they have down there in the winter, but if the target is just Snook and Baby Tarpon, Isla Blanca mangroves and flats offers even better opportunities, and you don’t even need to leave Cancun. However, Sian Kaan is more like a classic inshore flat, with lots of small bonefish, the odd Permit, and casual meetings with Snook and Baby Tarpons. Jacks and Cudas keep the action ON everywhere in Quintana Roo.

A nice sight-fished Isla Blanca Snook

Fighting the wind at Isla Blanca flats

Small snook caught on the mangroves, finesse on the #6

Cabins at CESIAK

My cabin’s view

An acrobatic Sian Kaan snook

The spot at Boca Paila bridge

A Sian Ka’an Bonefish

A Sian Ka’an Jack torpedoe, not a fish for the #6 weight rod that’s for sure

Whoever likes snook’s fishing (who doesn’t?!) will stop breathing for a few seconds with these mangrove roots

Sunset at CESIAK

Back to Cancun. Yes, that's Winter in Mexico. I am the luckiest guy in the world. I love you, baby!

2011 Retrospective - Spring

Before the trout opener in Ontario, I went to San Francisco with my wife because we got a “buddy pass”. She needed to come back to Toronto before me, and I stayed a couple of more days there to fish the famous Truckee River resident trout fishery, in the area defined in the Californian freshwater fishing regulations as Sierra District. I couldn’t afford a guide, so my idea was just hitting some areas that remain open year-round in a catch-and-release-artificial-lures-barbless-hook-only’s basis. This was one of the most beautiful places that I have ever driven in my life. Although the water was still too cold and high after the snowmelt, I still managed to catch a beautiful resident brown trout and got into a couple of more shy actions. Talking with some local anglers, they told me that late spring / early summer there can be great when resident trout enters in the section between Boca and Stampede Reservoir and kind of get packed in there when the level of the water starts to decrease after the runoff. However, this section suffers a lot of fishing pressure because is located close to cities such as Reno and Tahoe. There are many creeks to explore in the open season for anglers who are able to hike and/or camp in more secluded areas. The accommodation there is very affordable as many casino hotels want to attract guests that end up spending some dough in gambling (which I did LOL). Great times for such a short trip!

The Little Truckee

A Little Truckee resident brown

One of the many creeks in Sierra

The season for trout has finally opened in Southern Ontario, after the long winter’s wait. The cold weather kept some steelies in the creeks around Toronto for a while and there was still some fresh fish coming up in the river almost in the middle of May! The dropback’s bows were pretty hungry and I had some great action in natural patterns such as the Woolie Worm and Caddis larva. The sucker spawn’s imitation was also working great during the spring.

Nothing like fishing for Steelies using just a t-shirt! That was a great spring in Southern in Ontario.

2011 Retrospective - Summer

Summer equals Bass fishing in Southern Ontario. I fished in some Conservation Areas around Toronto with my float tube for Largies, and I also did some classic bait casting fishing for Largies in Lake Scugog, but the highlight of the season was the Grand River Smallmouth Bass fishery. Although the fish on the Grand River doesn’t grow as much as in some lake fisheries, the joy of sight fishing or catching then in large dry flies and big nymphs make this fish a special target that can be as much sportive as the brown trout fishery upstream in Fergus. The Conestogo River is also a great spot to sight fish for smallies and brown trout are found in this section as well, again, farther upstream. But Smallies were there before the brownies, and they are all wild…

Float Tubing for Largies!

Lake Scugog Largemouth! Who said I am a fly fishing purist?!

Conestogo smallies!

A Grand River bull!

2011 Retrospective - Fall

When I finished the program in September, the flightcentre.ca was offering one of these flight deals to Fort Lauderdale by $299.00. Given that my wife’s cousin lives there and he would land me his truck to drive around, I couldn’t contain myself and bought the ticket. Fly fishing the Florida East Coast without a guide in its channels, inlets and in the surf was not such an easy task. Figuring out a new place alone is never an easy task, one actually spend more time fishing on Googlemaps and getting lost than in the water itself in most of the cases. However, I finally found one of the greatest Snook spots that I have ever fished, and this spot is located in Stuart. It is almost possible to see it when you type Stuart, FL on googlemaps. That’s all I can say here…

Who said I am a purist? (2x)

Back to Toronto I started to plan my trip to Rio Negro, Amazon. I have already explained in details this trip here and shared some of the best pictures, thus I will just post some extra pics that I didn’t posted anywhere before. For me, there is no other place that encompasses the same number of aspects that makes this place one of the best fishing destinations in the world. I will quote Dennis Bitton, famous angler who wrote about the Amazon Peacock Bass:

“If you were to use the predators that inhabit Africa’s Serengeti Plain as an analogy, a speedy Smallmouth Bass would be the Cheetah, the lurking Largemouth the Leopard, and the Peacock Bass, or Pavon as the natives call it, would be the massive and magnificent Lion”

I thought that I would not have too many fishing opportunities after coming back from Amazon, because last year by the end of November, the creeks around Toronto were already freezing up during this time of the year, and I am still trying to get excited with the idea of Ice Fishing. However, this year, I was fishing in the middle of December! That was a great Steelhead season and it seems that it will continuous to be as the forecast for this winter is “mild” weather. Again, I will try to do not use the same pics that I used in recent reports.

A resident brownie caught while fishing for Salmon in Eastern Toronto tribs