2018 Opening Weekend on the Grand River, Ontario

Most river levels started off too high to fish, but quickly settled over the ensuing 48 hours.

This is a short video of Ethan Roach, after he hooked a big brown, whilst Euro-Nymphing with a debarbed caddis pupa.

After this Ethan and Mikey left the area, so we carried on fishing.

Obviously, there are big browns, ready to chomp down on a correctly presented fly.

I was initially fishing with a Partridge and Orange wet fly,

got caught on a rock, and decided to check the status of my size 16 hook.

I had caught something already; a green caddis was helplessly impaled on there!

So I switched my fly to an emerging caddis pupa:

rigged on 6 feet of a 6X tippet nymph rig, weighted with two small split shots.

I was rewarded with an initial soft take, then an explosive run, followed by aggressive head shakes.

This was another big brown!

As we readied the net the trout spat the hook.

All of the terminal rig was intact, so I carried on and once again hooked into a really good fish. Initially, I thought this was a two-year-old specimen, as it was not as hearty in the first fish that I had hooked.

However, this brown also had a lot to say before I eventually brought it into the net. It measured 21 inches.

All in all a great start to the opening week of the trout season. Two of the biggest browns that I have hooked in my lifetime.

There will be more to come.

david williams

2nd May 2018