Saturday, July 15, 2006

The Grand River

This time of year, water temperatures in the Grand River, a stream known as a tail-water, because it is the outflow from a bottom-release dam, remain cooler than in many freestone streams such as The Credit. There are trout in the river because over a dozen years ago, it was recognized that the cool water from Lake Bellwoods could support them. There are special regulations of most of the trout water, and lots of insect hatches, so we see plenty of large free-rising brown trout. Right now, the downside of the Grand is the chunks of algae floating down along the river, a curse for the fly fisherman.

The trout water on the Grand is usually described in three sections, the upper river, above Fergus, the middle river below Fergus, and the lower river, down by Inverhagh. The lower river warms up quite a bit by mid-summer, in part because of warm feeders entering the stream. I fished the upper river last night, and the water temperature was in the low 60s f.

There are no secret spots on this river and nothing is remote - and most days you can expect to see other fishermen on most stretches. Last night I fished for two large trout that were rising in a little flat, but ended up catching a few smaller fish.

To see some pictures of this river go here

2 comments:

greatwhitebear said...

beautiful river! Don't know how the trout are hitting your way, but every boat we saw on the st joe yesterday was getting their limit on smallies. Saw a lot of guys using poppers on fly rods or or ultra light spinning equipment.

mister anchovy said...

The trout have been rising in the Grand, but they are professional trout in this special regs area and can be very tricky to catch. The Credit was blown out by rain for a few days. It isn't so good in this heat, but picks up again as it cools in late August.