Our Man From Canada

 

THE BIRD GETS THE WORM? [Or at least a really good night sleep afterwards]

Chris Chin - July 27, 2009

I think I'm going against a whole lot of common wisdom here, but here goes any ways.

When I start booking with a new client or organizing a weekend out on the river with friends, the same question always comes up: "So what time do we get to start?" On Quebec salmon rivers, the regulations state that one can start fishing one hour before sunup and you can fish right up until one hour after sunset. Since the sun comes up at 5 o'clock and sets around 8:45 in the evening, I suppose you could fish from 04h00 until 21h45! That's a very long day!

This weekend, I had some new comers to the river. They had fished for salmon on several rivers and have each caught a few salmon. As they wanted to fish all day, they woke up at 3h45 at home, a quick muffin and coffee on the drive down and we strung up rods at 05h20.

There aren't a whole lot of salmon in the Ste-Marguerite this year. I ran 25 km of the river Wednesday and saw a grand total of 2 salmon. Sure I missed some, but there were not many to see. Up in the #4 zone the story is quite different. There are salmon in all the usual haunts and they seem to be real takers!

Anyway, back to our intrepid duo. After a chilly morning and no real action, I bundled them up for some lunch. As they hadn't eaten a real breakfast, the 52 degree water was taking its toll on them. Over a hot lunch of meat pies and salad, we talked strategy. Much to their surprise, I explained that I'll rarely fish before 8 o'clock when I'm out by myself. I prefer to let the water warm a tad and like to swing a fly over a likely salmon just as the light starts to come into the pool. For dry flies, it's even later.

While I showed Sylvain how to tie leaders, Mario sacked out in our tent for a good 2 hours nap. As the sun starts to settle in the valley, we headed back to the river. We had a likely prospect all morning long, but this evening, the big Hen doesn't want to come out to play.

We head back down to Glass Pool to set up wets on a likely section of the run. As on many days on the river, just as we're starting to settle down on the beach and think about calling it quits, the action picks up:

After a full 50 minutes of action I actually had to wade very deep, grab the fly line and hand line the salmon up and out of his hiding hole. (Lordy I'm glad that Mario borrowed one of my heavy rods for the evening!!)

Good thing Mario took a nice long nap – the evening's action was long and hard!! After 50 minutes of combat, it was a good thing that the batteries in my headlamp are always fresh!

Our duo actually had a second day reserved in the same zone, ... they woke up quite a bit later, had a real breakfast, a leisurely lunch ... And a heck of a fine afternoon


Sylvain with a nice Buck : 4:30 in the afternoon! Now that's a respectable hour to connect to a salmon
So have fun waking up early. You really should on my home waters if you're chasing after sea run Brookies. Then again, we're out there for the fun of it. Not to beat ourselves to death! I suppose that on other rivers here on the East coast, folks start out at the crack of dawn just so that they can be the very first one to get a fly over a salmon. Granted, there is some wisdom in that. Then again, the salmon that Sylvain got came out of the very same pot where another Guide's client connected that morning (at 8:30).

Tight Lines!!!
Chris Chin, St-Severin de Proulxville Quebec.

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