on their own, I swallowed my concerns, smiled and hugged them both before hopping into the car and waving until I was out of sight. As I glanced in the rear view mirror I could see they were paying no attention to my departure and already busying themselves in setting up their little camp.
I slept fitfully that night, skipped breakfast in the morning and had to suppress my urge to set a speed record for the drive to the Ganny We had agreed that I wouldn’t come for them until at least ten o’clock so that they could have a little time to fish by themselves in the morning. As I bounced down the trail towards the Picnic Grounds, I could see by the grins on their faces as they greeted me by the tent, each displaying a fat fifteen-inch brown trout for my approval, that my concerns had been completely unwarranted.
After the hugs, I admired their catch and asked if they had stayed up talking all night or managed to get in a little sleep because I had another treat in store for them. They had slept alright, or so they said, but a big fish splashing around in the pool right in front of the tent had awakened them a couple of times.
“Yeah,” Ronnie added, “and there was a bear or something poking around outside the tent, too. But when we shone the light through the side of the tent we could hear it scramble away.”
“Probably just a big racoon after your fish or the picnic basket,” I said. “After all, you were trespassing on its night-hunting territory, you know.”
Things had gone so well for them that I thought we would spend an hour fishing another piece of the Ganaraska watershed. Obviously it was no problem getting them to agree to the proposition. I was thinking of a big pool below a dam some distance upriver from where we were, the section of the river we referred to as the “Used Car Lot” stretch. The owner of the land there sells used-car parts from wrecks that he buys and stores on his property, hence the name.
I sweetened the suggestion, “It doesn’t look as nice as the Picnic Grounds, but if nobody else has fished there yet this morning you’d have a chance at catching a big brown, even bigger than the ones you’ve already got. Sound okay to you?”
The smiles that had not left their faces since my arrival, broadened even further as we threw everything in the car and drove the back roads for twenty minutes until we came to the lane leading between the wrecks and derelict cars strewn around the property which led directly to the pool below the dam. Pointing the way down the lane to the dam, I said, “You guys can fish from shore there while I go back down the road to the bridge and fish the stream near it for a bit. Okay? I’ll come back and meet you right here on the main road in an hour. All right?”
We synchronized our watches as I dropped them off and wished them good luck. The hour flew by, and while I was standing on the bridge a couple of hundred yards away from the lane leading to the Used Car Lot pool, no fish in my creel, I could see the lads emerge on to the main road and head in my direction. I have lousy hearing but have always had excellent vision. Even at that distance I could see that although they were soaking wet they were both smiling excitedly, while Randy was making a futile attempt to disguise the fact that he had a huge fish strung on a length of cord and hanging over his shoulder down his back. The problem was its tail was easily visible between his legs, swinging back and forth in unison with his footsteps. Not wishing to spoil the surprise that they were hoping to lay on their old man, I feigned ignorance and awaited their arrival.
“Okay guys,” I said, “What’s with the grins? Catch a ‘biggie,’ or something?”
Randy heaved the big brown trout off his shoulder and when I could see how big the thing really was, I no longer was able to hide my own enthusiasm. “Where in hell and how in hell did you catch that? It’s got to weigh over eight—maybe even nine pounds!”
With Ron speaking first, their story spilled out excitedly, “Randy got it, Dad, right below the dam. It almost broke his rod charging all over the pool trying to get away.”
“I wasn’t going to let it break my rod,” Randy interjected, “so I slid down the bank into the water to keep it from trying to get under a bunch of logs. Ronnie jumped in near the logs, too, to help me steer it in the other direction where the water was shallower.”
Ron explained the rest of the struggle and eventual capture. Seemingly, when Randy finally got the fish into the shallow water at the bottom of the pool, they both jumped on top of it and dragged it up on shore. Their pleasure was somewhat marred for fear I would be angry at them for getting their shoes and clothes soaking wet.
“Are you kidding,” I said, “I’d jump in myself if I ever caught a trout as big as that one! It’s way bigger than any brown I’ve ever caught.”
As a matter of fact, to this day my son’s big brownie is still larger than any I have caught ever since that episode thirty-five years ago.
Randy Deval at ten years of age: his first overnight camping trip and his first large brown trout.
According to Gord, his will stipulates that his ashes are to be spread on this pool of the Ganny.
There is a rather inconspicuous pool on this Picnic Grounds stretch, about half a mile upstream from where we leave the car and just around the corner from the swimming hole, the deepest spot in this entire section of the Ganny. It, too, has provided me with several wonderful memories.
A four-and a-half-pound male brownie sporting a huge kipe (an extension of the lower jaw of a male fish that occurs during spawning) fell to one of my fly-fishing efforts on the river there while filming a show for the CBC television network. The same hole provided me with one of the biggest thrills I have ever experienced in all my years of fishing for trout. It was the largest rainbow trout, actually a steelhead, to have ever tested my tackle and patience—and lost!
Weighing almost twenty pounds and thirty-seven inches in length, the trout took over half an hour of my splashing up and down the stream, while first it charged in one direction then another, frantically attempting to break free, before finally being brought to captured. Really big rainbows rarely break the surface, normally preferring to fight their battles in the depths, however that fellow hadn’t read the “rainbow trout manual.” With its head shaking violently from side to side, it was airborne in exhilarating leaps and cartwheels at least six or seven times. It rests majestically now on a plaque above the piano in our dining room. The Picnic Grounds stretch of the Ganny has unquestionably earned its inclusion in my list of magical waters.
I have probably fished twenty-five or thirty
