inclined to think that after conquering such adversity that I would have had difficulty keeping fish off the hook. Lots of them and big ones, too! However it was not to be. I was completely skunked! Couldn’t even catch a tiddler, while Roger had one of his best days on the Ganny ever, landing several brown trout in the eighteen-inch class and a host of smaller ones that he released. It is most unusual to be totally fishless on the Ganny. There are always countless little fellows willing to test one’s presentation with flies or spinners. For me, that day on the Hepburn stretch is forever etched on my mind.
But there are other memories. Many others! Here are a couple of incidents on the same stretch of river. Although these are comparatively recent incidences, both having occurred in 2003, I know they will be easily recalled on any future occasion. They took place on opposite ends of the season, the opening weekend4 and the final weekend.
The first took place on opening day of the trout season, a day that my good friend and fine fisherman, Paul Kennedy, and I have traditionally shared for the past six or seven years on one stream or another. Whereas we had normally worked brook trout waters on opening day, Paul suggested that this year he would like to try a stretch of the Ganny for browns and steelhead.
“Sounds good to me,” I concurred, “but there’ll be a mob scene on the lower reaches, you know. This time of year when the big ‘bows move upriver from the lake everybody wants a go at ’em. Most of these guys will be gone once the pike and pickerel seasons open in a couple of weeks.”
I reminded him, however, that most folks stick to the more open waters rather than the tougher parts of the river like the Hepburn stretch. He agreed and off we went.
Opening day that year was April 27, and it was colder than Hades when we stepped out of the Jeep at the bridge below the village of Kendal, our starting point for the walk downstream to the upper-end of the Ed Till stretch where we would begin fishing the three miles of Ganaraska River back to the vehicle. The thermometer in the Jeep had recorded the external air temperature at minus 2 degrees Celsius.
The spring-fed water in the river, cold even in mid-summer, would have been only a degree or two warmer than the air. Although the ferns, grasses and willows had not yet emerged from their winter’s sleep, the bush was still a daunting challenge with the swamps, vines and holes providing their own tests of our agility and patience. The half-hour hike was made without any of the traumatic incidents or undue stress, the likes of which I had experienced on the Hepburn stretch many times previously.
Although we were a long way from Lake Ontario, there were a number of big rainbow trout that had already migrated that far upriver seeking their ancestral spawning grounds in order to perform their own spawning rituals. The fruits of their labours, the eggs deposited by the females on the redds (those shallow depressions in gravel or sand created by the hens using their tails to scoop them out where they deposit their eggs), provide a feast for the resident browns of the Ganny I have actually witnessed some of these brown trout boldly bumping the big ‘bows in the belly attempting to hasten the discharge of their eggs.
Gord with his fiddleheads, wild leeks and brown trout, his harvest from the Ganny, Spring 2002.
Within rather short order, both Paul and I had caught and released several big ’bows and a few small browns. A couple of the larger browns taken from one of the deepest pools on the Hepburn stretch were kept for the pan. Those deep pools can be an enigma. Most often, even when fished correctly, they produce only minimal results, six to ten-inch trout, while on occasion absolutely nothing gives our flies or lures a look-see. We have always believed that when a likely looking pool or bit of cover generates zilch then it probably contains a boss fish, one suffering from lockjaw.
These big fellows do most of their feeding at night. The Ganny is a small river with an average depth seldom exceeding three or four feet in the waters that we fish, however, holes where the current has gouged out depths of a metre or so do occur. Larger trout seek out cover adjoining these pools where they can take up residence.
It is our custom to alternate when fishing these streams in pairs, with one working the pool while the other observes. There is just as much pleasure in watching someone else expertly read and work the water as there is in attempting to do so oneself. It was Paul’s turn to fish the next hole, the big pool around the bend in the river. Trees and heavy bush bordered the side of the stream that we were on, with some of them actually extending over the water and the three-foot high bank.
Carefully going ahead and working through the heavy cover towards a vantage point where he could assess the pool and properly cast and fish it, Paul paused while I attempted to follow in his footsteps and catch up to him. My back was turned towards the water as I edged backwards along the embankment, spinning rod in my left hand while clutching a branch with the other hand for stability. The branch, older than I had thought, snapped and I plunged backwards into the water, shoulders striking first, and totally sinking to the bottom. Fortunately, the shock and bitter temperature took my breath away, preventing my swallowing any water as I popped up a few feet away, carried there by the current. I will never forget the sensation of momentarily lying in freezing water on the bottom of the Ganaraska River on that April day, and through its surface being able to see the warped image of my buddy, Paul Kennedy, helplessly staring down at the scary scene below him.
The entire sequence was over in a matter of seconds. Paul was somehow able to haul my soggy carcass back up the bank at the foot of the pool where I had been deposited by the current. My heavy cold-weather fishing clothes were, of course, completely drenched and my hip boots full to their tops. It was far too cold to even contemplate pulling the boots off to drain them. They would have been almost impossible to don again and we were still miles away from the Jeep. Instead while I lay on one of the few patches of ground available for the purpose, Paul simply hoisted and held my legs up for a minute or two until most of the water escaped the boots. What we didn’t realize was that although much of the water had been temporarily removed and squeezed out, with so much moisture in the rest of my duff, it would continue to drip and drain down, and refill the boots. The struggle through the bush back to the Jeep was tremendously difficult. Within minutes, the sopping wet clothes were sheathed in ice while the boots were once again full of water.
Fishing the Hepburn stretch in 2005.
Although initially not feeling the cold, dragging my sorry, iced-up carcass with what seemed like five hundred pounds of water in my clothes and boots was an experience I would never wish on my worst enemy. Somewhat hypothermic, I soon began shaking. Even though my body temperature had been increased by the excessive exertion, it was contained by the iced-up clothing. Nevertheless, with Paul’s hovering over me all the way back and assisting me over obstacles, we eventually reached the Jeep. With the heater going full blast, I stripped and warmed up while he drove home.
That will certainly always be one of my most indelible memories, one that could have been a “tragical” memory if it had not occurred in one of the deepest pools on the Ganny. In shallower water I could have suffered a fractured skull, a dislocated shoulder, or possibly even worse, broken my neck and been paralysed. As it developed, nothing was broken, not even my fishing rod—I just had to nurse a rather sore shoulder for several months.
Although the two episodes described here might give one the idea that I am the sole klutz to have succumbed to the Hepburn
