diligently on their fly tying and casting fundamentals. Their thoughts on the island and its excellent trout and salmon fishing were never far from their minds though. We were frequently entertained throughout that winter in the gym with tales of the wonderful trout fishing to be had in their home province.
I distinctly remember one of the chaps addressing us around the fly-tying table one evening, “You know, boys,” he stated unequivocally, “it’s got the finest trout fishin’ in the world, the island has, you know”
He continued, “We’ve caught speckled trout there as long as your arm and as thick as your leg. At least eighteen inches and a couple of pounds on the scales.”
We all glanced at our arms then our legs then each other. His buddy, not quite as loquacious as he, then inquired, “You got any trout like them in these parts, boys?”
Not wishing to be impolite, we merely nodded back and forth, before someone spoke up, “Well, yes, occasionally we hear tell of trout that big caught not too far from here.”
Another added, “Usually a brown, but the odd big brook trout does show up, too.”
By the May 1 opening of the trout season and our exiting the gym for the outdoor practice pool, both of the club’s Newfoundlanders had become quite competent with their fly rods and eager to test their new skills on the real thing. I was asked, “We’ve got a twelve-foot canoe we would like to use for fishing if you know someplace not too far away where we can catch trout? Neither of us have got good enough legs to do a lot of walking up and down streams.”
Uxbridge Pond immediately came to mind. “There’s a spot,” I said, “actually a fair-sized pond, not much more than a half an hour’s drive from here that has an assortment of fish in it that you can catch on a fly; specks [speckled trout], perch and ‘bows [rainbow trout]. The trout are smallish, maybe nine or ten inches tops, but they do smack flies there pretty good and you should have a bit of fun. You can test your new fly-casting skills by trying to lay your presentations right on top of the rises. Get on top of them quickly enough, and they’ll strike every time.”
They left indicating they’d give it a try on the weekend.
Saturday afternoon, the opening day of the trout season, the phone rang as I was cleaning my own morning’s catch of a half-dozen stream brook trout. The call was from one of the gentlemen who had taken our advice to test the Uxbridge Pond waters.
Occasionally when Newfoundlanders talk quickly, because of their dialect it can be difficult to interpret what they are saying. What at first sounded like exuberant gibberish was quickly determined to simply be the excited voice of one of the islanders. Finally calming down, he explained that they had enjoyed their outing, canoeing and fly fishing on the pond, caught a dozen or so small trout, but just before leaving had the thrill of their lives when a trout, much bigger than any of the others sucked in one of their dry flies.
“Bloody thing towed our little canoe around that pond for fifteen minutes, eh, before we even saw him,” he swore. “Never saw anything like it,” he continued, “except one time thirty miles from shore back home when I hooked and landed a fifty-five pound halibut after it towed me out in the Atlantic, half-way to England.”
Dying to know about the Uxbridge adventure, I interjected, “Did you land it, or what? What was it? How big?”
“Yeah we got it all right…it’s a 23-inch brown trout, almost four pounds and it’s going to the taxidermist this afternoon,” he replied. “I’m taking this baby home with me when we go back!”
After he finished profusely thanking me for the assistance and instruction he had received in the club, along with the suggestion to fish the pond at Uxbridge, he asked if I would like to have a look at his trophy before he took it to be mounted, which I was delighted to do and at the same time snap a picture for the club album.
A few weeks later I learned that the Department of Lands and Forests had previously placed a couple of their retired brood stock of hatchery browns in the town pond in the hopes that one of the local kids in the town’s annual “Fishing Derby for Kids Day”4 would experience the excitement and adventure that my two friends from Newfoundland had enjoyed.
Another recollection also concerning the Uxbridge area, is a story I have told many times when reminiscing about my earlier days working over the brooks south of the town. I had just recovered from a terribly debilitating bout of poison ivy that covered me from head to foot. The noxious stuff was contacted on a previous trip to another stream a little west of Uxbridge after taking my girlfriend, Mona, with me to introduce her to my second favourite love, trout fishing. We had paused for a bite of lunch later in the morning and as it often does when it’s springtime and you’re eighteen years old, one thing led to another. I was too engrossed in the moment to notice that we were stretched out on a large bed of poison ivy until it was too late.
It took several weeks for the rash and pustules to fade and, having been on my back completely coated with lotion to soothe the itch for that long, it was a relief to get out of the house to wet a line once again. This time—on my own! Nevertheless, I still chose to head to my favourite brooks below Uxbridge for the hour or so that I had at my disposal, but kept well away from the poison ivy patch.
Most memories do fade somewhat after more than fifty years, but we are dealing here with magical memories, those that never wane or diminish. As it developed that day though, I was not the only one who had awakened in the morning with an urge to do a spot of fishing for a few brookies to bring home for supper. For some reason or another, the old Ford parked on the side of the gravel road had failed to catch my attention. Slipping on my hip boots a little way down the road from where I had parked my own car, I decided to avoid the more heavily fished area where the creek crossed beneath the road and access it instead a hundred yards downstream. In most of these places the trails disappear rather quickly when one works a little further on from the easiest access, normally where the brook crosses the road.
Hiking a few yards into the bush I could hear the brook gurgling seductively inviting me forward through a dense growth of six-feet-tall ostrich ferns. Suddenly I almost fell over a fisherman sitting by the edge of the creek—my mother! Comfortably ensconced in a bend of a huge, curling, tree root, she held a pocketbook in one hand with her fishing rod in the other, while her line disappeared through the grassy blanket topping the little brook. Mum was so engrossed in her book, probably a Harlequin romance novel, that she was completely unaware of both her son’s presence and the gentle twitching of her rod tip.
Gord’s mother, Helen, at The Beach in Toronto near the Fallingbrook neighbourhood; photo taken in the mid-1940s.
Trying not to unduly alarm her, I gently said, “Mother, I think you’ve got one on…using worms, eh?”
Without batting an eye she replied, “Of course I’m using worms. How else can you fish here? Oh! It’s you, Gordon! How did you know I was here?”
I explained while she reeled in another plump eight-incher, efficiently dispatching it before threading a fresh dew worm onto her hook, that I hadn’t known that she was fishing there—or even realized that she knew about the waters of the Uxbridge area. Undeniably, a very special memory indeed!
