Читать книгу Memories of Magical Waters - Gord Deval - Страница 11
ОглавлениеThe Ganaraska watershed, an hour’s drive east of Toronto is comprised of a great number of springs, brooks and streams, all merging at one point or another into the main southerly flow, the Ganaraska River, providing all in all well over a hundred miles of exceptional and varied trout fishing for its aficionados. The “Ganny,” as most of us prefer to call it, is home to resident brown, speckled and rainbow trout all year. It also hosts spring and fall runs of steelhead trout and chinook salmon entering the river from Lake Ontario on their annual spawning rituals to supplement one’s angling prospects for success.
If there is one river with its magical waters that has created more memories than any other during my sixty-five years of trout fishing it is the Ganny. Only the mighty Broadback River in northern Quebec, with its huge brook trout, takes up as much space in the part of my brain that stores these recollections.
Over my many years of working over the Ganny, we have learned that the numerous and varied sections of the watershed with their complexions switch abruptly from shallow and fast, clay and meadow waters, to heavily tangled bush-bordered pothole sections. Such variations have led to our creating a range of nicknames1 for specific locations, names such as the “Red River stretch,” “Picnic Grounds,” “Nudie stretch,” “Used Car Lot,” “Fly-fishing stretch” and the infamous “Allan Hepburn stretch.”
The “Allan Hepburn stretch”2 of the Ganny has been responsible for several situations that will be forever etched in my memory—there certainly are a couple of lessons to be absorbed from recounting our adventures on this section of the river. The almost three-mile Hepburn portion is a veritable minefield of awkward and potentially dangerous stream, bush and swamp conditions that one must negotiate in order to fish its relatively untouched, therefore magical waters. Between the masses of jungle-like vines and enormous multi-trunk trees are tangles of six-feet-tall grass, ferns and goldenrod, much of which extends right over the stream bank. Beneath them are unseen, underfoot rotten logs and branches, interspersed with holes, just waiting to trip you up or break your ankle. If one survives those niceties there are always others with which to contend, such as the poison ivy, stinging nettles and needle-laced hawthorn trees and raspberry canes designed by Mother Nature to rip at, or pierce your skin. I haven t even touched on the seasonal mosquito, blackfly and deer fly infestations. My fishing buddies and I are seldom concerned about overfishing or finding other folks plying these difficult to negotiate waters.
Nevertheless, some anglers such as my fishing buddies and I covet the challenge in being able conquer the diversities and complexities in waters such as these in order to capture a few trout for the pan. Some would say we are foolish, and they may be right, but merely sitting in a boat or on a dock while drowning a worm or minnow beneath a red and white plastic float, is and always has been, far too mundane a pursuit, fishing-wise, for us to even contemplate. The reality is that we consider ourselves to be anglers—not simply fishermen
Several years ago, at a pre-arranged location—a truck stop on the highway, near Bowmanville on Highway 401. I met good buddy Roger Cannon at five o’clock in the morning and after grabbing a couple of coffees we continued on in my car towards the Ganny. Previously we had fished a number of lakes, rivers and streams together and worked over several sections of the Ganny, usually with moderate success. Roger is an excellent angler, competent with both spinning and fly-fishing gear.
As we drove towards the river, I recall asking if he would like to try the Hepburn stretch? I didn’t think he had fished it before.
Pausing to contemplate the questions, he answered hesitatingly, “No. Don’t think I have. Isn’t that the spot where you’ve been trying to get that six-pound brown that you’ve been after for a while now? Yeah, I don’t mind trying something different. I think you once told me that it’s too difficult to fly fish so I guess we’d be throwing tin.3 Maybe you’ll get another shot at your big brownie.”
I warned him that it was not only a tough stretch of water to fish but just getting through the bush alongside the stream was extremely difficult. He was not deterred and although it was still early with very little daylight to assist us we were soon parked and getting ready to do battle. As is our custom when fishing most streams, we booted up, grabbed our fishing gear and headed downstream. Although with our adrenaline flowing we were eager and fresh, our tackle would remain unassembled until we reached the spot where we had decided we would begin, depending on the amount of time we had at our disposal. This would serve two purposes. One, we would be fishing in the much preferred upstream direction and two, when we finish and are obviously tired, we would emerge from the bush right at the car. This is a much better system than fishing for several hours then having to struggle back through the bush to the car with little strength left in your legs.
Find Gord making his way through the dense growth of ferns on the Hepburn stretch of the Ganaraska.
Roger, younger and stronger than I, however, took the lead in picking our way through the dense tangle of bush and underbrush. It was still rather dark and we hadn’t penetrated the bush more than a hundred yards when an unseen log beneath the profusion of ferns and grasses seemed to reach up and grab my foot, effectively poleaxing me. In an attempt to avoid the fall, I tried to throw my left leg up and over the log, but failed. With my hands protecting my face, I crashed to the ground on the other side, legs askew on top and my right foot snagged on something or another. Fortunately the dense grass cushioned the fall somewhat. But I was even more shaken up when Roger, racing back to assist me after hearing me yell and swear, pointed out that my face had just missed striking a three-inch tree stump obscured by the ferns and grasses. It had been sharpened to a point by the teeth of a beaver gnawing a tree to knock it down for its dam. After Roger had helped me to my feet, and I had partially regained my composure, I refused his suggestion that perhaps we should wait a while longer so more daylight would make it easier to see where we were going. Actually, we usually feel our way through dense cover such as this, with careful and rather slow leg movements that allow you to locate the pitfalls before they locate you. However, on that day Roger was out in front, eager to get going, and I had to move much faster than my normal pace to keep up with him.
“Let’s just keep going,” I said, “but maybe a little more slowly, okay?”
I stretched, took a step forward then discovered I had pulled the hamstring muscle in my right thigh. Lifting the leg, which suddenly seemed to weigh about two hundred pounds, became quite painful. Nevertheless, completely forgetting that the Hepburn stretch of the Ganny was fraught with many other impediments to progress through the bush, I mistakenly theorized that struggling through to our destination would provide enough exercise to work out the strain. Moving more slowly might allow my leg to loosen up, so I thought, but as a precaution I suggested that perhaps my taking the lead would allow me to set the pace.
With little strength in the sore leg I went down once more when I couldn’t force my way through a stand of willow. By the time, a good half-hour later, we reached the end of the Hepburn section where we had planned to begin fishing our way back upstream, I had stepped into a hole, slid off a grass-covered embankment dropping a couple of feet into the water, and tripped several more times over unseen logs. If my memory of that day is correct, Roger managed to remain in a vertical stance throughout the entire exercise, only having to stoop occasionally to assist me to my feet while commiserating almost continuously. Being a very busy chap, Roger was not able to get out and go fishing with us as often as he wished so I stubbornly refused to cut short the outing. We soldiered on.
What makes the recollection of that particular day exceptional was not simply my getting hurt, or catching a big trout, but the total picture of the day’s results. One might be 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 stretch’s difficulties, I would like to state emphatically here that I am not the only victim to have fallen prey to the entrapments of this section of the Ganny. It seems a little bizarre, but even with my doing the backflip into the river on opening day of the trout fishing season that April day, we did manage to fish it with several different fellows over the summer. There was very little difficulty until closing day when fishing there with another buddy, Jim Lloyd.
Jim Lloyd of the mighty leap, still living dangerously.
Not far from where I performed my graceless backflip into the icy spring flow in April, Jim was attempting to negotiate a similar high bank around an awkwardly placed tree stump on its edge. He, too, while leaning over the river, used another large log for his support and balance. Fortunately, although that is seldom the case in these situations, his feet were firmly planted. The log broke the instant he leaned on it and he was faced with an instantaneous decision. He could either fall straight down into the river as he protected his face with one hand and his nether region with the other, or he could attempt to leap across to the other side of the stream over whatever perils lay below. There, he knew, the water was shallow and the landing if he was successful, would be comparatively gentle—on a muddy bank.
Standing a few feet away from him, surrounded by six feet of grassy cover, I witnessed a feat of athletic endeavour that I doubt had ever before been achieved. When the log gave way, Jim, without a pause didn’t simply jump, he launched himself powerfully across the water and landed on all fours on the opposite stream bank with nothing bruised but his ego. Still clenching his rod like a baton throughout the episode, he looked like he had been shot from one of those ridiculous circus cannons. I swear that as he passed over the middle of the stream, the apogee of his flight was at a higher plane than when he pushed off. With that kind of athletic and acrobatic ability, I suggested afterwards that he hire himself and his act out to the Cirque de Soleil. This Hepburn stretch of the Ganny has produced countless and unforgettable memories for us over many years.
Another favourite section of the Ganny for my fishing buddies and me is the “Picnic Grounds” stretch, a three- or four-mile section of magical waters that has also produced innumerable memories. But the first thing to come to mind would be why—and when—this section was first labelled the Picnic Grounds. Perhaps the easiest stretch of the Ganaraska River to fish and negotiate, this is where I have taken dozens of neophyte fishermen on their initial wand-waving pursuits to help them learn the intricacies of the beautiful sport of fly fishing. It is also the place where I introduced my two sons to trout fishing.
My sons, Randy and Ronnie, were eleven and twelve years old respectively when I first surrendered to their pleas to take them stream fishing. Although they had already fished with their old man for several years and become proficient casters with their spinning tackle in the process, they had not experienced the trials and tribulations—and yes—the pleasures, of stream fishing for trout. The lads’ previous angling experiences had been restricted to fishing on lakes, either in our car-top boat or from a variety of piers and docks where it was easier for the youngsters to learn how to use their light-weight fishing tackle than on the tight quarters to be found on the streams that their father fished.
Prior to their initial exposure to stream fishing with their own equipment, they had accompanied me on numerous sorties to more easily negotiated streams such as the headwaters of Duffins Creek, a few miles east of Toronto. Duffins is in an area with well-defined stream-side trails due its proximity to Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources conservation area at Claremont.
Their patience was sorely tested that summer as they tagged along with me on those occasions, not to fish, but simply to observe and learn. If they were going to be able to enjoy their fishing on streams, decidedly more difficult than fishing out of a boat on lakes, then reading the current, determining the holding spots and how to fish them and simply getting through the bush, were lessons that I deemed necessary.
Although they were eager to prove that the lessons had been absorbed, they both patiently awaited the word from the teacher and consoled themselves with cleaning some of the brookies that I flipped over my shoulder towards them. By the end of that summer they were allowed to bring their rods with them and fish some of the more accessible pools on successive trips. It soon became obvious that I would have to begin cleaning my own fish again as both boys proved that they had become excellent students and were ready for a more exciting and difficult test of their recently acquired skills—fishing the magical waters of the Ganaraska River.
The season was almost over, but after managing to fish the Ganny on a couple of short, problem-free outings and their having caught a few small trout in the process, I was being bombarded on the one-hour trip home with pleas to go again and be allowed to stay over and camp on the riverside. There is a little copse where I normally parked the car and where we had taken luncheon breaks on these trips to devour the goodies their mother had packed in the picnic baskets for us. That was the spot they had in mind.
I can remember every detail of the conversation and what followed on the way home after our second visit to the Ganny. Although it was more than forty years ago, it is such a startlingly vivid recollection that it must be considered my number one truly magical memory of fishing the waters of the Ganaraska River.
As we drove back to Scarborough, Ronnie asked, “Dad, why don’t we ever fish until dark, or early in the morning like you do when you go with the other guys? You’re always telling us that that’s the best time to catch the big ones.”
Before I could answer his question, Randy fired one of his own at me as well, “Yeah, Dad, can we bring our tent the next time we come? We could set it up in that clearing right beside the spot where you park the car. You know, the “Picnic Grounds.”
Still contemplating their surprising requests, I had yet to respond when Ronnie suggested, “You could help us set up the tent before you leave then Randy and I would be able to fish until dark before we got into our sleeping bags. Then we would get to fish early in the morning, too, before you come back to pick us up. What do you think, Dad? Could we, please? Please?”
“I don’t know about that, guys. What about food? And there are animals there, too, you know. I doubt if Mom would ever give you permission to stay overnight in the bush and right beside a river—all by yourselves.”
“Ah, Dad! Please. You can tell Mom that we’ll be okay, won’t you, please? We’re not little kids now, you know!”
They moaned in unison. I told them I would think about it for while. By the time we arrived home I had pretty well made up my mind to consent to their wishes, but only if their mother could be convinced that they were capable of surviving the mini-adventure.
The final weekend of the trout season was approaching and Ron and Randy had both been on their best behaviour since our last outing. Their exemplary conduct, along with my assurance that I believed they would be able to stay out of trouble eventually led to their mother’s acquiescence. We agreed that providing they packed their gear and Mom made lunches for them the night before, that I would pick them up from school and they could change their clothes in the car. In that way we could reach the Picnic Grounds with time to set up their tent and still get in an hour or two of fishing before dark.
Arriving at the edge of the stream, they chattered with exhilaration as their sleeping bags, picnic basket, tackle and tent were unloaded. They refused to let me assist them in setting up and could hardly wait to say goodbye to their old man. My final words to them before departing were that there was to be no campfire and that they had to be in their sleeping bags before dark. The boys had a couple of reliable flashlights with them to ease any fears of the dark after they zipped up the door to the tent. Trying not to display my anxiety at leaving them there 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.
