The Return: Firsts.

In the fall 2012, I was given an assignment by my creative writing teacher to create a weekly blog and to update it throughout the semester in her class. I was told to write about an interest, write about something that I enjoyed writing about. It was during that assignment; my weekly blog post was commented on by a classmate. She politely explained that she enjoyed my post, but it fell to deaf ears, wondering if there was somewhere, I could share my words to my true audience. From that comment I than created a parallel blog outside of my school project and created “Fishing with Thomas”. Fishing with Thomas was my weekly fishing blog, in which I used to do my best at outdoor journalism. I would discuss tactics and topics, while sharing my own fishing stories. I remember even trying to get sponsorships by name dropping fishing companies than emailing them my blogposts. This became my passion project for some time, even continuing it after I graduated and moved off to college. I even remember writing a post my first day at college. I kept up with the blog until 2014, when school started to become more encompassing, and spending hours writing about fishing was not helping. I stopped posting after two full years, and just under 100 different blog posts. I walked away thinking I would take time off for school before jumping back in where I left off. Always expecting the return.

Its now the spring of 2020. Fresh off returning from international travel, days after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s plea for travelling Canadians to return home, I stare blankly at a computer screen. After only two days of quarantine, I felt that I had extracted all the possible serotonin inducing content from my laptop. Like a digital archeologist, I began to search through the dust and rubble to unearth the remnants of what came before. For some unknown reason, the internet seemed void of the old blog. URLs from Facebook posts brought me to blank pages, google searches left me sifting through videos of Thomas the Tank engine going fishing.

IF I had maintained the blog the entire time, I could have shared my entry into flyfishing; The beautiful artistic method casting and the hours of misery at hands of the most beautiful fishing presentation. I could have shared my entry into musky fishing, also hours of misery but this at the cost of 75-dollar baits. I could have shared experiences guiding, or the different people I fished with. I could have shared my first catches, like Bull Trout, Grouper or Chinooks. I could have shared my adventures like fishing Kingfish in New Zealand, or fishing Vancouver Island Salmon. I could have shared new tips and tricks, styles and patterns, all the stuff I learned on the way. I could have shared beautiful fishing photos, stocked full of memories and moments.

But I didn’t,

Until the return.

In this official kick off the second edition of Fishing with Thomas, I plan to share my experiences, advice, insight and research on various fishing topics, from musky to panfish, from the ice to the ocean. I want to create content that I would want to read, and I hope you are interested as well. To kick it off, it’s a three part series of stories from the past six years to share some of the most memorable fishing experiences.

Firsts

As someone who prides myself in the collection of experiences, firsts carry a mythic feel. A once ever obtainable feat, a checkmark that sets the benchmark, a feeling that cannot be duplicated. Firsts may be accidental or intentional, but always seem to be memorable.

White Sturgeon

While travelling around British Columbia in the fall of 2018, a friend invited me to come stay and try fishing the Frazer river out of Chilliwack. He had just moved out west, and the prospect of a fish bigger than us sounded otherworldly for two Ontario kids. We found ourselves a local river guide with an open booking and made our reservations. It was also the first time I had ever paid a guide to bring me fishing!

I woke up at 4:30am on a couch in Vancouver. Before the city could wake up, I was already on the highway, heading to a boat launch on the edge of Chilliwack. I met up with Tysan and our Guide Johnny, and we blasted off in our guides jet powered river boat. Up the river we went, past steep embankments reaching to the sky, and gravel bars covered in veracious eagles, fighting for scraps of rotten salmon. We slowed in a narrow, with a steep shoreline blocking the sunrise on the right, and a field expanding from the muddy bank to the left.

Sturgeon fishing was different than any fishing I had done before. Using pantyhose for oversized roe bags, and a hook that looked like it should be used to hang meat in a locker rather than towed behind the boat. Once the bait was out, it was time to sit and wait until the whiskered snout of a sturgeon discovered our offering. This part didn’t take long. As a rod began to twitch with anticipation, we all watched. Finally, when the rod began to double, our guide gave the nod and the hook was set. Once I buried the large circle hook into the corner of the sturgeon’s bottom facing mouth, he began to peel down the river, clearly upset by the deception. Line repeatedly whizzed off the bait caster in a high pitch whirl. I pumped the rod, trying to slow the fish on its line melting run. Watching the line helplessly pass out of the reel like a cracked hourglass, I knew my time was limited. I pumped again with force, this time getting the fishes attention. The fish turned out of its run and launched straight up and out of the water, thrashing back and forth before smashing down into the river.

This jump was the turning point, as I now had the upper hand. After a few more runs and leaps, we had cornered the fish tight to the bank, it exhausted from the fight, but not ready to quit. My first sturgeon I ever caught was longer and heavier than I was. It was one of the many sturgeon we boated that day, all having their magic, but only one was the first.

Artic Grayling and Bull Trout

In the Summer of 2015, I was working for a forest fire fighting crew out of Fort Frances, Ontario. That summer, Alberta was on fire and we were deployed to assist just outside of Grand Cache. One night after a full day of firefighting I overhead two Alberta fire fighters talking about fishing nearby. The idea of getting to fish amongst the Rocky Mountains glacial blue streams seemed almost unimaginable. I asked about their plans, and was rewarded with news that they had an open spot in the truck. After a short ride down the highway, we arrived at an inconspicuous highway pull off with a brown metal garbage can. The area seemed vacant, seeming like a truck pull off for sleeping drivers rather than an access point for anxious fisherman. We stumbled in the low light down a long footpath, stepping over downed trees and exposed roots, before coming to the top lip of a bowled canyon. Below us was a steep slide of scree, before flattening to a fire pit at the rivers edge. The opposite bank was made of sand and stone at such an angle that it appeared vertical. Cutting through the canyon was a blue river, cutting jagged corners before plummeting fifteen feet into itself. A small log jam held tight at the far corner of the falls, giving it an irregular spray pattern, creating a tiny rainbow of light that was still managing to make it to the canyon floor.

We slid down the scree, dust kicking up from the season’s drought. More and more of the Alberta Fire fighters began to appear at the top of the bowl, until the bonfire and shoreline was filled. At this point, the man who asked me to join asked if I knew how to fly fish. I stared blankly, caught off guard by the surprising question. Without another pause, he began to show me the basics of the cast, a rhythmic flowing cast that dropped a dry fly exactly at the top of a churning run. I on the other hand seemed to be directing traffic and an orchestra simultaneously, albeit doing neither well. After some practice I plopped my small indicator fly in the river which seemed to be all that was needed. With a quick strip set, I now had my first fish on the fly, and my first Artic Grayling. The gun metal grey and the large iridescent scales made it already one of the most mesmerizing fish in memory, but the long dorsal fin that grayling is known for, was the real prize. Like a sail of a pirate ship, it leapt off the fishes back, full of striking colours and designs. That feeling of the firsts faded fast, as just moments later catching grayling had become monotonous.

Sensing my feigning interest, I was asked if I wanted to catch a bull trout. At the time I had no idea what a bull trout was, let alone how to catch one, but when asked to take off my shoes, I really became lost. The plan was that we were to swim across the river, climb the waterfall, and fish a small pool beside the logjam above the falls. The hope was we would be able to catch one hidden amongst the logs, if I managed to not get swept away by the river or fall climbing the falls. At this time, it was now well after dark, and only the faint blue light of dusk kept the black at bay. With rod in mouth, barefoot, and soaking wet I clambered onto the small ledge at the top of the falls. Instead of casting amongst the pile of logs, I was taught the basics of streamers. I lowered the small minnow pattern in front of the log jam. Keeping the streamer out front to dance in the current. “move it a little closer” He says, and I bring the streamer just an inch closer to the mangled mess. There was something so hypnotic about watching a streamer dance in the water, rippling and flowing like the river itself. Entranced by the bait I barely registered the bull trout come blasting out from behind an ancient deadhead. I quickly strip set, and began to steer the fish from the log jam. I used the nine-foot rod to steer the fish right onto the bank, where I smothered the fish in a bear hug. Smelling of trout, barefoot and soaking wet, I held the 7lb bull trout tight to my chest in the pitch black of an Alberta evening.

We released the trout and watched as it swam back to its hidden hollow, before returning to ours. We stayed up late beside that river, lit up by the bonfire and with the constant drone of crashing water to give us backdrop for jokes and stories. I don’t remember the names of the people I fished with, the river I fished how many fish we caught that evening. But I will always remember that evening and all the things I did first there.

Brook Trout

In the fall of 2020, I managed to find three days off in a row, coinciding with the last of the warm weather. This coincidence needed to be seized, knowing all too soon I would be staring at an eight-inch hole in the lake. I had spent a lot of time that fall fishing lake trout out of my yellow Souris River canoe and this next adventure was to be all the same. As I poured through my resources trying to find the ideal destination, I couldn’t seem to find somewhere that would suffice. I turned to google for a simple request. Brook trout within driving distance of Fort Frances.

One Result Found.

A small stocked lake north of Atikokan Ontario, and over 175km down the highway. This small stocked lake just a quick walk from the 622. All the years in the area, and I hadn’t even heard a whisper of this hidden gem. I turned my focus of my trip to how I could incorporate this lake, because I was catching my first Brook trout. I was anxious, catching a brook trout carried weight with me. This wild, gorgeous, powerful fish, known for its beauty and taste like none other had managed to be the one that got away. I spent weekends hiking into back country lakes around Kingston and Bancroft, Ontario without ever landing one. I stopped on highway rivers and streams along the north shore of Lake Superior, every time I had an excuse to drive past it, unable to find where they hid. I even spent a weekend in the Credit Valley counting spawning brook trout for a conservation society, and Electro fished for them in a Cobourg area drainage, but still it remained on my list. This culminated in a three night late fall camping trip in Frontenac provincial park, where for three days and on three lakes I casted from every inch of fishable shoreline with only a few follow ups from yellow perch to show. It was safe to say my anxiety was warranted.

We set off on the crystal-clear lake to a backdrop of turning foliage. The forest crept tight to the shoreline, With a tall mixed wood forest on all sides. The yellow of the Birch, the reds of the maples, and the crisp evergreen of the spruce shone like sunset on the shorelines. The light breeze allowed reflections to dance on the lakes surface, but the gentle gusts stirred the colourful images to create a fiery dance of mirrored magnificence. The yellows and greens, the Blues and the reds, every colour seemed present, from black to white. Colours so vibrant that they almost seemed doctored. How could nature be this beautiful I thought. This raw untouched beauty that couldn’t be duplicated.

The perfect fall day melted away, with the days light beginning to run short. My partner had managed to land two brook trout so far, but I sat in the stern seat of the canoe, feeling another loss setting in. “another pass” I called out, and we back tracked again through our choice trolling lane. While paddling along trolling a small metal spoon, I stared at the tip of my fishing rod as it bounced rhythmically. Tip-tip-tap, tip-tip-tap, it spelt as it vibrated back and forth.

Waiting for any deviation in the pattern, being lulled by the measure, my mind wandered back to all the previous trips and how they all had the same feelings of optimism and gradual defeat that I was enduring again when amongst the tips and taps was a tug! I set the hook hard on the small trout, making sure that I wasn’t going to miss this chance. The fight was short as I horsed the fish hard to the canoe and quickly to the net. I had no interest in battling this long-awaited opportunity. Once in the net I was able to really look at what I had just caught. The yellows and greens, the Blues and the reds, every colour seemed present, from black to white. Colours so vibrant that they almost seemed doctored. How could nature be this beautiful I thought. This raw untouched beaut

y that couldn’t be duplicated.

I ended up keeping that brook trout, my finish line in a marathon. on a bald rock beside a glassy lake, laid to rest in tin foil and butter, beside a smoldering fire. In the dark of the night beside the last glow of a dying fire we ate the brook trout with our hands. The culmination of a dream ended that night, in what would look like a primitive night mare from an outside view.

Sometimes a first can be an only, knowing all well that you seized your only opportunity. sometimes a first can be the end of something, the climax in the story. The thing all firsts share is that unrepeatable feeling of new experience. These new experiences have become harder, and less obtainable but I with that I have come to learn new methods to fish. But that's next time.