Whitewater time

Adrift in a current

I cannot control,

no time for excuses.

But there's poetry here,

if only I can hold

in this backeddy

and jot it all down.

Already the end of October

and half the trees are bare.

The song birds are gone,

sweet tunes slipping south,

leaving only the harsh cries

of jays and crows.

In the rivers, salmon

flounder, their future

deposited in gravel banks.

Ice on the deck this morning,

I almost slipped going down

to play fetch with the dogs

and plant next year's garlic.

Soon there will be snow.

Each day grows shorter

each night longer,

and the darkness

keeps me awake.

And I look to the future

with a jumble of

anticipation and dread

for the moment when 

time flows no more

Mill Creek under Cover

It's been a hard winter. The Aberfoyle Reach froze early this year, a bit before Christmas and even with January's mini-thaw has remained ice covered. The frozen creek has become a corridor to get out and explore the winter landscape. 

Even in the deepest winter, some of the stream is open, particularly in fast flowing shallower reaches and in areas of  significant groundwater input. Groundwater, at a constant 8 ^oC  throughout the year,  is significantly warmer than the creek.  While open reaches help to maintain high dissolved oxygen concentrations throughout the stream, they also have their drawbacks. Air temperatures below -6 ^oC can lead to the formation of frazil ice, a Slushee-like mixture of ice and supercooled water that behaves a lot like lava or flowing cement. Under the wrong conditions, frazil ice can build up into anchor ice, blocking channels and scouring the stream bottom.

Beneath the ice, life continues. Under the gravel, brook and brown trout eggs, deposited in redds dug last autumn, are slowly developing into fry which will emerge with spring's freshets.  Groundwater upwelling through the gravel helps protect the eggs from  freezing and provides a refuge for adult and juvenile fish, when deep pools in main channels may become unsuitable because of the development of frazil ice.

As both the fish and the aquatic invertebrates (collectively referred to as bugs) are coldblooded, their metabolic rate decreases with the cold temperature of the stream and the pace of life slows down overwinter. Slows down, but doesn't stop. In the sediment and water column, terrestrial organic material, such as leaf fall,  is processed and used for growth by the assorted invertebrate guilds of shredders, scrapers, grazers, collectors, predators, omnivores, and scavengers.  These bugs then provide food for the stream's fishes.

Although their metabolic rate is reduced by the colder temperature, adult and juvenile fish still need to eat: just ask any ice fisherman. While adult brook and brown trout spend the winter recovering from energy spent in their fall reproduction, spring spawning fish, such as suckers and pike, are busy packing energy into their eggs and sperm, which they will release in April and May. For juvenile fish, winter diet is important to maintaining energy reserves so they can make it through to the next spring.

Mill Creek is also home to a range of mammals Further downstream, beavers are quietly spending the winter in their warm cosy lodges, venturing out now and then to collect the branches they gathered last fall and stored in underwater food banks. They may share their pond and even their lodge with muskrats which feed on under ice vegetation. Meanwhile, mink will forage for fish, mussels, crayfish and even frogs and turtles buried in the mud. Walking along the creek, we see the tracks of coyote, racoon and even wild turkey, and there are deer and rabbit signs in the vegetation to either side of the stream. Yet winter can also be harsh: a frozen opossum lies under one of the cedars, the same stand where we found a deer skeleton a couple springs ago.

But now  the days grow longer. All too soon, Mill Creek's winter tale will be past and a busy spring upon us.

For more information on Mill Creek and its Friends visit http://www.friendsofmillcreek.org/

A Dark Day for Fisheries and the Enviornment in Canada

As a grad student in Zoology at the University of Ottawa in the mid 1970's, I had the opportunity to sit in on Dr. Leslie Shaw's course in Environmental Law. On of the first things we were taught was the critical importance of the Fisheries Act and in particular(Section 34) and in particulatr

Section 2 which defines fish as

“shellfish, crustaceans, marine animals, the eggs, sperm, spawn, spat and juvenile
stages of fish, shellfish, crustaceans, and marine animals.”

Section 34 which defines fish habitat as::   

“spawning grounds and nursery, rearing, food supply and migration areas on which
fish depend directly or indirectly in order to carry out their life processes.”

and Section 35(1) which:

"prohibits the harmful alteration, disruption or destruction of fish habitat (HADD)"

All in all a very powerful piece of legislation which has been the cornerstone of aquatic environmental protection and conservation for generations. But the mortar is crumbling.

Within  the omnibus budget bill C-38, the Federal Government included Fisheries Act amendments which severally reduce fish habitat protection (elimination in many cases) by narrowing the range of species protected (few of Canada's more then 50 threatened or vulnerable fish species are of importance to commercial, recreational or aboriginal fisheries).

The same bill also has taken Canada's renowned Experimental Lakes Area off  life support  and into receivership.

Petitions and pleas from the public, eminent scientist  and four former ministers of Fisheries and Oceans from previous Progressive Conservative and Liberal governments went unheeded and the bill was passed on Friday June 15.

The Globe and Mail -commentary- Science, not politics, should be at the heart of fisheries

Welcome to our Brave New World.

Rainy Monday after Opening Weekend

I find other things to do on opening weekend but with the clouds and rain on Monday, I decided to put in a couple of hours and visit the local. The water was  low but clear and as the dog and I wandered downstream, the few pools with decent water looked good. Not steelhead good but small stream brown and brook good.

We turned back upstream and as expected there was nothing moving in the shallow runs. But things changed with the first pool, a flash, a tug and then nothing, followed on next cast a decent small stream brown.  More tugs and flashes and fish ensued, in all 3 browns and a small brook trout were brought to hand and released. 

The rain was getting harder and my shell proved that it wasn't waterproof but we kept on, getting strikes and landing the occasional fish in most of the small pools in all around ten or so small to medium trout brought to hand with at least as many long distance releases. There was even a strike in the run under the bridge before we called it a day and slogged our bedraggled way back home.

Rest of Season on the local

Over, the summer I hit the local a few times with mixed results. A rainy day at the end of June when the fish were on and I kept one good brown. Later in July, I hooked a nice brown one evening while playing with my 4 wt in the upstream section, I was using a muddler with a beadhead trailer, the flyfishing equivalent of fishing with a bobber.

In August, the water was down and fish were few and far between. In a bend, a clump of three or four trees had been overturned by a storm the previous week, all in different directions. It will be interesting to see how this affects the stream over the next few years

The end of the season crept up on me but I had to sneak out for the last day. A good day sun and clouds, water still up from the rains on Tuesday. I caught and released several small fish and raised but missed at least four fish over 40 cm. Finally toward the end of the day, fishing a pool section above a beaver dam, I had a good strike from a good fish, landed it and as it was a male, I kept it. A few casts later another strike, a brief encounter with an even bigger fish and then nothing.

All in all a good year, the stream is healthy, many smaller fish and enough larger ones to keep it interesting. The big fish will spawn later this fall and next year perhaps we’ll meet again.

Neither blackflies nor brook trout

Kevin Callan’s 1997 paddler’s guide to canoeing in Algonquin Park was entitled Brook Trout and Blackflies for a reason. Two years ago, I went with my sons to some streams in the NW corner of Algonquin at the end of May and we got into some decent brook trout, one over 45 cm. So this year I arranged to go with Terry, a very fit 69 y old flyfishing fanatic, thinking that this would give him a taste of the Algonquin interior and of its fabled brook trout fishing. Unfortunately, due to other obligations on both our parts, it was the third week of June before we were able to meet and head into the park, late but I hoped brookies would still be there.

The drive up was smooth, we obtained permits in Kearny and left the Tim River put in point in the early afternoon. The ‘duty moose’ was waiting for us shortly after we passed the park boundary and we made our way swiftly through Tim Lake with the wind at our backs.

.

 We made our way through Tim Lake with only a minor detour due to my navigational ineptitude and continued down the Tim River to Rosebary Lake. After a few hours, one portage, several lift-overs and paddling along countless meanders, we were into Rosebarry in good time to set up our first night’s camp.  I learned from Terry that the word meander is derived from the Meander River, which located in present-day Turkey. Even in Classical Greece, the name of the river had become a common noun meaning anything convoluted and winding.

 
Along the way we observed a large snapping turtle, likely excavating her nest on top of a beaver house. We also saw numerous great blue herons and saw what looked like Sandhill Cranes.

   

Next day we were up early, made our last breakfast with fresh eggs and bacon and set out for the NipissingRiver, with over 20 k of canoeing and over 2 k of portaging. The middle portage was even tougher than I remembered and the steep climbs and descents had me puffing. Then too, the water levels in the intermediate LaTour and Loontail creeks were lower than my earlier trip 2 years ago making paddling and pushing through the lower marshy sections more difficult. But there were compensations blue flag iris, moose. Then too, the bugs weren’t too bad, a few mosquitoes and deer flies but almost no blackflies. We made good time reached the Nipissing and by mid-afternoon arrived at our destination, a campsite beside a beautiful pool at the base of the rapids at the first portage below our entry point. It was an afternoon for swimming and relaxing, we didn’t even break out our rods. We were both tired and agreed it had been a good idea to change our itinerary to spend the last night back at Rosebary rather than make it back to the entry point in one day.

The next two days, we canoed and fished up and downstream from our camp. The upper Nipissing is a beautiful river, generally a slow meandering stream with pools interrupted by occasional rapids. In one place, it opened to Grassy Lake. We carefully waited at the occasional moose blockages, and paddled a bit faster under a massive leaning pine. Near camp, there were moose bones, perhaps remnants of an old wolf kill (??) intertwined in the roots of an upturned spruce.

 

 Unfortunately, the big brook trout we were seeking were all in hiding, no 45+ cm fish to be found. I did get about a half dozen small brookies spinning all released, but neither of us got any on the fly. In retrospect we were too late, the trout were all too deep, hiding or were only coming out at night. However, the fallfish were everywhere and there were a few perch and sunfish to be had. I filleted one perch and a fallfish for a snack, both were good although the fallfish fillets were rather bony.

The next morning was overcast and misty with rain threatening; we broke camp and were on the water for the return to Rosebary shortly after 9:00. Maybe it was that we were going upstream or perhaps the water levels in LaTour and Loontail creeks were just that little bit lower, but the entry and exits to the portages seemed harder and muddier than on the way up. A bit after 10:00 the rain started lightly at first, then harder. By the end of the first portage the rain was steady and everything wet. The grey sky foretold a steady all day rain, what the Germans refer to as “landregen.” We slogged on and even encountered a French couple on the portage from LaTour Creek, the first other people we had run into since outing in at the Tim. They had been out 8 days already and Rosebary was just another stop in their travels.  

 

In the middle of the portages to Rosebary, Terry asked if I was up for making out that day and I agreed. We made Rosebary in good time and as we headed up to Tim the rain slowed and then stopped. Once the rain stopped, the moose came out again and we saw another couple going up the Tim , I guess they prefer to stay in the bush during the rain. Then across Tim Lake and up the Tim River where we got a closer view of Sandhill Cranes on the way up to our put-in point . All in all over we traveled for over 10 h covering and more than 30 k of paddling and portage, something we wouldn't have tried a week earlier.

(More than half the pictures in this post were taken by Terry and I am grateful to him for sharing them).

Woodcock, rainbows and browns

I returned to my friend's farm, where they grow native plants and we'd helped with their spring prairie burn.

The fields were now green, the lupines in bloom.

While walking through the fields, a woodcock flushed  right under my feet and I almost stepped on it's nest.

On their suggestion, I  tried one the lower sections of one of my favorite creeks in the area and a tributary of  of the creek. I didn't get far however, as the water was brown, banks steep with near quicksand in some areas and almost impenetrable vegetation on either side. I moved higher up the creek to a section I hadn't fished for a while, where the water was clear and banks manageable. 

A good afternoon, I run into a bunch of small rainbows and browns. But the little ones always seem to hit before the big ones, dark shadows following behind.  All the larger fish were all browns,no dropback rainbows to be seen I guess they are all back in the lake. The biggest fish of the afternoon was a brown ~ 40 cm, pictured just before it swam away.