I am accustomed to sometimes receiving strange calls in the middle of the night from an unamed friend who has epiphanies at three o’clock in the morning about new and improved fishing locations and species which are never too far away from the city to explore and which sometimes verge on the ludicrous. Like the time he called and asked if I wanted to head out to a secret spot he knew that held escapee Atlantics from Lake Champlain and stripers from the seaway. And yet strange as this may sound, as both these fish seemed to be more prevalent on the east coast of Canada and not within a half-hours drive from Montreal, there was some truth to the proposition. That was always the most damning part, that there was always a kernel of truth no matter how insane it sounded, like the odds of winning a lottery or finding a needle in a haystack, the opportunity for success nevertheless existed, no matter how much of a longshot the endeavor appeared. The biggest issue was always wading through the stories, half-truths, conjectures, hopes, and making a decision if it was worthwhile to invest time in discovering new yet uncertain frontiers.
So it was not without some degree of trepidation and doudtfullness that I responded to yet another late night call about a place where there were golden trout and arctic char that lay practically at our doorstep. He also mentioned that there were lakes with giant brook trout and rainbows up to eight pounds, and that there were sufficient hatches that we would have the opportunity to catch them on dry flies. Hmmm. It didn’t take me long to pack every dry fly and rod in my possession into the truck and we headed off away from the bustle and hum of the city towards the Auberge la Barrière in Ste-Émilie-de-l’Energie, northeast of Montreal in the lower Laurentian mountain range. This was trout country, where crystal clear mountain headwater lakes and creeks and rivers interlaced the landscape and breathed life into everything. We were fortunate to have been the guests of the owner, Jean-Michel, who was out fishing for salmon on Lake Ontario but who would be coming back to meet with us the following evening and give us a run down on his operation. On our way down the dirt road that led to the Auberge, we spotted three whitetail deer grazing by the side of the road ahead before the noise of the truck sent them bounding off into the thick forest. When we arrived at the camp, we were greeted by two old chocolate labradors, each well over a hundred pounds, that lumbered over to welcome us with wagging tails. We were quickly taken care of by Jean-Michel’s mother, Carole, who gave us a key to our cabin on the lake as well as a pass for the boat and directed us towards the boathouse where Alain would set us up with a boat, electric motor, and battery. There were no gas engines permitted on the outpost lakes, and only two horsepowers allowed on the main lake which was the lake with Palominos, which were also sometimes referred to as golden trout. This was where the fascination lay. I had always read that the real golden trout only lived in the High Sierras and other inaccesible places out West and that their populations were limited. A trophy was a fish of twelve inches. Here they had caught fish up to ten pounds that were commonly called goldens due to their unique colorations. The fact was that these fish are Palominos, a designer trout discovered in a West Virgina hatchery in 1964 - a single unique golden chimera colored fish that would be milked until its gonads were sore and father an entire generation of Palominos for stocking programs across the country. However, in Quebec the stocking initiatives were different, and largely based on indigenous species that had once existed in any particular body of water. One could not on a whim plant alligator gar or striper hatchlings into a private lake if the lake had never harbored the species in the first place or was out of its natural range. So how did the Palominos and Char wind up in these lakes that were only an hour and a half away from my front door? Despite much conjecture the answer was in reality quite simple. The government department responsible for these decisions had made a bureaucratic error on one of the forms and had approved the stocking of Palominos and Char in these lakes that had once only held native brookies. Despite its contravention of its own policy, by law the approval stood.
As we rigged up our rods outside the cabin, a noisy ATV pulled up in a cloud of dust and a man walked up onto our porched and introduced himself as Noel, and said he would be at our service for whatever we needed during our stay at the lodge. He was both friendly and knowledegable about the fishery and as a fly fisherman, was able to provide us not only with some information on hatches and flies to use but also gave us several flies from his own box to use on the different lakes. Like his namesake, it was Christmas in July in Ste-Émilie-de-L’Energie and Santa Claus, in the form of a fishing guide, had just delivered us our presents early. He was particularly fond of Muddler Minnows in both Olive and fluorescent green patterns, but also suggested that the true method of fly selection lay not so much in its color but rather its superstitious benediction or baptism in spit before tying on the leader.
The first lake we fished was lac Sans Coeur which tranlated roughly into English as Heartbreak lake, which is really not a great monicker for a lake. This lake was loaded with both giant rainbows and arctic char and as we set up on the docks we saw a few swirls out on the placid water. No sooner than we loaded our gear onto the boat and headed out towards the main lake the sun dissappeared behind angry dark clouds, the winds began to rise out of the Northeast and it began to pour. We quickly switched up our dries for streamers and opted to troll flies around the lake and see what we could dredge up. For hours under the rain we trolled around the lake, switching up our flies every few passes, running them at varying depths and distances from the shoreline, without a single strike. The hatch that had occurred prior to the rain was now over and there were no more rises on the lake. Everything was quiet. Despite the numbers of planted fish in this small lake they were not pushover hatchery fish and we joked that they had reverted back to their true natures as capricious, finicky trout. A few hours later and just around sunset, somewhat despondent at our lack of success, we headed back to the cabin for a steak supper and a few drinks to drown our sorrows.
The following day we awoke to a hazy blanket of fog that shrouded the lake and from our cabin window as we sipped our coffee we watched fish rising and several ospreys who were hunting above, and every so often one of them would dive bomb the water and emerge clutching a golden fish in its talons. It was truly a remarkable display of aeronautics, one that could never be duplicated with any modern technology. We decided to fish the main lake for the shot at a mystical Palomino and within minutes were trolling flies once again down the shoreline. The first strike came an hour or so later and was a light tap that barely woke me out of my reverie and was too slow to respond with a proper hook set. My friend nailed the next one and we watched in amazement as it surfaced from the depths, a golden bar that looked like something you would find in a vault at Fort Knox. It was the first time we had ever seen such a fish and marvelled at its unique genetic markings, golden flanks with a single red stripe running along its side, a piece of artwork with fins. We photographed it for several minutes before dropping it unceremoniously into the bottom of the boat. Releasing fish was not allowed and quotas were based on the length of your stay at the lodge. In this way they were able to keep an exact census of the trout polulation and are therefore able to properly manage the lakes and their stocking in order to always maintain a quality fishery in each of their seven lakes.
We fished for a few more hours on the main lake but the winds had once again picked up as the sun crested the treeline and lifted the thin remaining veil of fog off the lake. As we headed back towards the lodge we spotted an American Eagle perched atop a broken birch tree, surveying his domain with regal demeanor, confident in the juristiction he ruled over from above. Noel greeted us back at the dock and asked us if we would like to try some stream fishing for a few hours in a place that held some beautiful dropdown brookies and rainbows from the main lake. We followed his ATV down the dusty road and parked by a half-beaten trail that led down a steep canyon into the giant gorge that had been formed by this little creek over millions of years. Noel led the way and within a few minutes the trees opened up and we were walking down several rock ledges with deep pools that were like stairs that led down to the main basin, a beaver dam pond of a few acres. In the Spring it was usually loaded with fish but the water level was lower than normal as it was late in the season and as Noel had suggested, might have also been poached by the locals. We fished with worms and bobbers that Noel had fashioned on the spot made of cedar and within a few minutes had a few native brookies wriggling on the shoreline that were destined for breakfast the next day. None of the fish were big but they were native and wild and would taste like candy dipped in flour and pan-fried in butter over a small fire. While my partner wandered around the perimeter of the small lake, jumping over deadfalls and rocks as he cast his spoon into likely holding waters, we sat on the rock with our legs dangling out over the water and smoked cigarettes and talked about fly-fishing and the hatches on some of the camps lakes. Noel only fly-fished and only floating line, whether he was fishing dries or trolling streamers. But he had grown up in the country and learned to fish the pocket water of little creeks with worms and a hook and still appreciated the simplicity of this type of fishing he had done as a child.
Upon our arrival back at the camp later in the afternoon, we were told that Jean-Michel had got stuck in Ontario and would not be joining us as planned. We decided to head back out towards Heartbreak Lake hoping that the winds would subside and that it would not live up to its namesake a second day in a row. There were two other boats on the lake when we arrived, one of them anchored near a large rock near the rivermouth where two guys were plunked out with worms or power baits, a preferred method for catching the char that were hugging bottom.
There were no visible rises and we began by trolling streamers tight against the other shoreline where we had seen some huge rises the day before. Every half hour or so someone would shout from the other boat and we would see them fighting a fish towards the net. Each time we trolled by they would give us the count and show us the fish on the stringer. They were all Arctic Char, lost char, displaced, diaspora char that through both bureaucratic error and entrepreneurial inspiration had found themselves in this lake a thousand miles away from their natural range. it was somewhat of a dream come true for a fisherman who could otherwise not afford to fly up to Nunavut for the weekend.
As the afternoon drew on into evening, the wind was showing signs that it was subsiding but there were still no rises on the surface. Our streamers were useless as the fish really seemed to be focused on both emergers and spinners and nothing else with feathers seemed to interest them. Eventually the other boats cleared off the water and we we left alone on the lake, sharing it only with an industrious beaver that showed itself occassionally as it dragged a branch through the water towards its den. A pair of loons were courting on a nearby lake and their calls echoed hauntingly up through the valleys that separated the lakes. As the golden sun dropped below the majestic pine trees on the mountains, the wind slowly died down and the lake began to settle and show signs of activity. Tiny white spinners skittered uncertainly across the surface of the water and every so often disappeared into a swirl. We stationed ourselves towards the back end of the lake where the surface was calm and slick, tied on some Green Drake and White Wulff patterns and waited for the hatch to begin. It was not long before fish were rising around the boat and we missed a few fish before my partner finally nailed a fish he had seen rising a few feet from the shoreline. It hit like a train and swirled around on the surface before taking off towards deeper water. After a few runs it finally surfaced next to the boat, exhausted and on its side, a rainbow of around four pounds. It glistened like a bar of radiant silver under the final rays of the setting sun and we marvelled at its life energy as it flopped around the floor of the boat. This was the way trout fishing should be always and as we drove back towards the city, our minds were still back at the Auberge de la Barriere, with Noel and Carole, the crazy golden palominos and diving ospreys, and casting dry flies to the gigantic rainbows of Heartbreak Lake. ARI VINEBERG.
This is neither a cautionary tale nor a work of fiction. Rather, it is a factual account of the activities that took place a week ago last Friday, as all official records will indicate, during my latest trout adventure. Little did I know that the roles were to be reversed and that the fisherman was to be the catch of the day.
Crank Bait’s Are King
:):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):) lol noob
