Grand River Report

Post by **GrandRiverReaper** » Sat Oct 27, 2007 10:02 am

Hello Hawkers,

Me and my childhood buddy GrandRiverGod (GRG) hit the mighty Grand on Friday afternoon to try our luck at the steelhead and bows that are making their yearly exodus from Lake Erie. Reports were coming in from local anglers that the trout are invading the river, shooting the various riffles and congregating in the several pools that adorn the Grand from Paris to Dunville.

GRG and I have renewed are zeal for fishing and have been hitting the river on a better than weekly basis since May this year. We've fished the bass derby, put a hurting on Fergus and invented several new forms of flycasting; at least we think we have.

We started out at an isolated island after crossing the rapids, which when angry enough can carry a big man back to Brantford. The first plan was to penetrate a very fast bend around the island with purple wooly buggers on our 6wt flyrods. I had a solid bite, but little after. GRG was experiencing a great deal of difficulty with his leader and threatened to give up.

The rain began to pound the surface as we applied our stormtech shells over our waders. Our vests were beginning to take on water and the cold was beginning to bite the surface of the flesh. We commented on how much the rain was putting our luck in dormancy, but realized the benefit it will have in the next couple days for the trout. We cruised to a hole that has been known to hold 7lb smallmouth and ripped spoons, minnow trailers and streamers through with no success. All seemed lost at this point when GRG suggested going old school and grabbing some worms and hitting a new hole that his dad found on the Grand a short distance away.

My first cast at the "new" spot rewarded me with a sweet little smallmouth bass that fought me tooth and nail. Perched upon my rock I took another smallie on the next cast of my little cleo and boasted to GRG that the ficticious first pitcher at the local would be on him. His reply was "we not make bet yet" in his Arnie accent. He suggested that we bet on the first one to 10. Soon enough he was pulling them in cast after cast, with the worm of course. My bite slowed as he surpassed the 10 bass catch and release mark with laughs and trash talk directed at his boy, GRR.

I then switched back to the flyrod with a clouser minnow and a little used technique I use, called adding a couple small split shot and screwing up the leader and tippit with weighting casting....I switched to an olive woolie bugger (my money fly this year) and starting bringing them in. What a fight these fish put on the flyrod. I must say that I haven't seen them with so much fight in a cold, wet and miserable day. The weather we had would shut normal fish down in the Grand, but these bass were on steroids and were ragging at the right time. None I must say with honesty broke the scales, but we've recieved intel that the hole will yield smallies in the neighbourhood of 4 or 5 lbs. With this we know we'll return in the summer for the tournament and make an entry. The only dilema we have now is to engineer a way to bring the live well down to the spot and transfer the winner to the weigh station.

In the end GRG ended up around 20 and I grabbed 15 or so with a late flurry with the spoon. We have found the new hole that will replace a spot we lost that was called "The Bank Machine" (because it was so money). We both lost monsters in the process, but will be back on Sunday.

keep it reel and best fishes,

GRR

P.S. Sorry no pictures...We were too busy catching fish. [/img]

Post by **wolfe** » Sat Oct 27, 2007 8:09 pm

Fun report!

Must have been a blast catching all those bass.

PICS NEXT TIME!!!

W.

Post by **SALMON** » Sat Oct 27, 2007 9:17 pm

Grand River smallies are on fire right now..lots closer than the lake.

Post by **titowoody** » Sun Oct 28, 2007 1:40 pm

Grand River Smallies are tops in my book.

GRR some of the spots you describe are hot spots for BIG Bronzebacks. I fish the area in a kayak and it is a blast.

Cheers

tW

Post by **joco** » Sun Oct 28, 2007 2:26 pm

I fish the area in a kayak and it is a blast. ....you got that right titowoody.

.

great report.

would love to go down there sometime.

thanks for sharing

joco

Post by **SCUBA_STEVE** » Sun Oct 28, 2007 3:54 pm

nice report!

scuba_steve

Post by **GrandRiverReaper** » Mon Oct 29, 2007 9:31 am

Thanks for reading all. I am still looking for more spots titowoody, but am doing fairly well in the spots I mentioned. The Nith River is pretty amazing in some spots, but is hard to access as it careens through a lot of private land.

Joco, anytime you want to get on the river in the yak there are several great spots to put in. I'm sure titowoody would be able to make some suggestions. Feel free to drop me a line if you want to make the trip down this way.

best fishes,

GRR

Post by **titowoody** » Mon Oct 29, 2007 2:36 pm

If we ever get some rain the Nith is a great drift. Dragging bottom a lot at the moment unfortunately.

The Grand would be a good drift out of your kayak Joco or test ride an X Factor.

First frost of the year this morning, will get the fall feeding frenzy in full gear.

If ever you want to drift instead of wade shot me a PM GRR, I have a few spare boats.

Cheers

TW