From the River: Of dogs, water and life

12 years ago this past weekend I drove over to Cambridge Narrows to pick up a pup for $650.00. I had just finished up university, my wife and I were house hunting and I decided it was time to rectify the situation that apartment living had created. I picked up a 7 week old Lab from a litter in Manitoba. Her original name was Candles in the Wind which I shortened to Evening or “Evie.” That day we traveled up to Brûlé to start the season and as Evie and I get ready to do so again next week, I can’t help but think it was the best money I’ve ever spent.

I worked with Evie and various wings to train her for bird work, she travelled in the canoe with me and as she grew and eventually found her way from the top of my kit bag to the front of the boat. More than just ballast, she became my bowman.

I’m pretty sure she saved my life a few years back on a drive up to the camp as well. We were heading along a twisty old two-laner when Evie got uncharacteristically agitated. Normally a great driving partner (she sleeps the whole way), Evie started pawing at the seats and whining, so I pulled onto the shoulder to let her out. Pulling over also let a soft-top LeBaron that had been riding my tail race by. Thinking she’d just go for a pee I was surprised when she bolted into the woods. It took me a good 10-15 minutes to get her back in the truck. With Evie finally back in the passenger seat and settled, I was pretty shocked to come across an accident about 15 minutes down the road. A transport had cut into the oncoming path of that LeBaron. It was pretty gruesome. Evie didn’t even notice as she had already drifted back to sleep.

There are very few, if any, pictures of my canoe without Evie. Over the years, she has identified all the angler activities on the river as potential for excitement. Just the mention of trout will get her on point, and a fish on the line will bring her instantly to the gunnels of the canoe. Tying on a dry fly gets her zoned right in and she also eyeballs the fly as it drifts. Evie demands an opportunity to approve any fish brought to the net and inspects them as we get set for their release. She has become a fish licker extraordinaire.

Evie’s been around for the birth of both of our kids — the oldest called her Snee — and has helped to raise and protect them. Maternal instincts I suspect she never had a chance to employ with loss of her own litter the one time I bred her, an event that still makes me furious when I think about it (a story for another occasion). I rarely go anywhere without her, and feel guilty when I do. She’s been a fair and consistent common denominator in my life the last 12 years.

I’m looking forward to hitting the river once again with Evie this year. We might also be picking up another pup in the not-so-distant future — a new partner on the water and in the field for Evie to help learn the ropes.

From the River: An early Spring

March 30, 2012 T&T Reply

The recent, record-setting warm weather has unleashed an early thaw and ice-out in many of the salmon rivers in Atlantic Canada. The Gaspe rivers, where I live and breathe through the summer/fall, are among them. I can’t remember weather this warm, this early into spring. In Fredericton, NB, my winter home, back-to-back days of 27C (~80F) made it feel like summer had already arrived. You’d have to go back to 1921 to get the next closest high of 20C.

In like a lion out like a lamb might be appropriate for this particular March, but there’s still time for a lesser-known (and far better) saying from the Farmer’s Almanac to ring true: As it rains in March so it rains in June. I’m a big fan of rain through the season and I have often thought there’s no such thing as too much rain. No doubt Noah would disagree, but to me the most successful fishing seasons have gone hand-in-hand with good, high water levels. But I’m drifting here. Let’s get back to the early season happenings.

Along with temps like these, I have never seen cardinals (Cardinalis cardinalis) in this area this early either. A few of the little red devils have been messing with my sleep recently, blasting out their call d’amour at 5 a.m. outside my bedroom window. I’m not really complaining though—I suppose I could be listening to crows squawking instead.

The cardinals are not the only ones that have flown in early though. Black ducks (Anas rubripes) and their aggressive relatives, the mallard (Anas platyrhynchos²), are occupying all the open water and fields around here as well…a good 2-3 weeks sooner than expected. Robins (Turdus migratorius—my personal favorite Latin name I learned as a kid, tagging along with Uncle Art, the ornithologist) are rooting around in the back yard, as well as a skunk and a couple of very active groundhogs. Add the daffodils, tulips, crocus and primrose poking up 3-4 inches and it feels safe to say that Spring is here.

Of course, this will have an interesting effect on the salmon season.

In my opinion, it bodes well for those folk that have taken a chance and booked earlier in June this year. Assuming there isn’t an unlikely, sudden and vicious shift back to winter, the salmon will more than likely be in the rivers early as well.

Up home in the Gaspé, many of the old–timers believe that the salmon run up the river at the same time as the bank swallows (Riparia riparia), those wonderful little fork-tailed acrobats that nest along the banks of the rivers.

I haven’t yet heard that the swallows have arrived, and generally the Gaspé runs a week or two behind Fredericton, but I guess what I’m suggesting here in my overly-verbose way is that we should see salmon running early this year, maybe even late May. Now lets hope that, like last year, there’s a whole whack of them.

From the River: My First 30 Years

February 24, 2012 T&T 5 comments

It will be 30 years this coming summer since I started working as a guide. Like all good things involving time, it doesn’t seem that long ago. Not quite like yesterday, but hardly 30 years. I started off as a shoreboy. I mowed the lawn, scraped and painted the cabins, cleaned the canoes and put