For opening day of Trout season this year I arranged a little surprise for my son Nico.  Instead of our usual stream fishing expedition, this year we paid a visit to Wal-Jan Hunting and Fishing (tell: 819 422-3371).  Walter and Janet Brownrigg operate a small cottage and hunt-camp rental business along with a fully stocked Trout pond just outside Low Quebec.

The pond brought me back in time to my childhood where as a boy I would fish Trout from a small pond on our family farm.  I knew from experience we would have to use a couple different methods to catch a half-dozen or so fish.  What I wasn’t prepared for was the incredible size of the fish the Wal-Jan pond held.

For my opening cast I used a #1 Panther Martin Spinner in silver and black.  Two turns of the reel and fish on!  I was set up with ultra-light gear with 10lb brade, so I was a little nervous when I surmised the fish on the end of my line was a lot bigger than I had expected.  For the first minute or so it just jumped continuously out in the middle, taking another 3-4 minutes before I had it near enough to shore to net.  A 17” fat Rainbow was my reward.

Nico wasn’t so lucky; suffering a major line tangle in fairly short order.  I had another Rainbow on two casts later, and knowing from experience that pond Trout can shut down in a heartbeat, I turned my rod over to him to fight the fish which he played brilliantly.  It came in at about 16”.

By the time he was finished I had tidied up his line and instead of going back to a spinner, figuring the spinner bite was probably at an end, I tied on a #6 hook and miniature float instead.  I figured it was probably time to go to a more finesse approach.

Nico resumed fishing with worms, and it wasn’t long before he hooked up a lovely 17” Rainbow of his own, followed up not long afterwards with a second measuring 18”.

After a half dozen more fruitless casts myself with the spinner, my suspicions were confirmed and I too adopted a hook and worm.  Besides, we had agreed to take five fish between us, and I wanted a chance at catching the last one.

Using a #6 hook and small split shot, I let the worm sink almost to the bottom before bringing it back using slow hops.  I felt a soft tap and set the hook on nothing.  A quick check to see if the half worm was still on, and my next cast came up empty.  I knew I had to slow it down even more, so on my third cast I let the worm rest on the bottom, giving it just slight rises, and it was then that I felt a soft bump.  I set the hook on our fifth and final fish of the day — a beautiful 19” Rainbow that tore off line each time it came within sight of shore.

A good time was had by all for sure, and I can’t say enough about the hospitality of Walter and Janet.  Anyone renting one of their four cottages for a week I’m sure are well taken care of.

The five Trout Nico and I caught fed about 15 people in total after being distributed among friends and family.  Keeping each fish as opposed to catch-and-release, is Walter’s policy as he would rather someone catch one nice fish and eat it, as opposed to people returning potentially injured fish to the pond.  New fish from the hatchery are introduced each spring, and the fish are fed daily.  Walter also keeps an aerator running 24/7.

The pond I grew up fishing was stocked only once and the fish were fed for one summer.  The Brook Trout managed to hang on for over 30 years before soil erosion necessitated the re-digging out of the pond.  It was a sad day to have this eco-system brought to an end after it had evolved from almost nothing and sustained itself for so long, but the gradual diminishing depth of the pond meant water temps were getting higher each year making it increasingly difficult for the Trout to survive.

Experience has taught human kind over the millennia that we are capable of halting or altering the forces of nature for only so long, and that nature is always finding ways to un-do the fruits of our labour.  Innovations and ready access to technology however, has given us the ability to create distortions in nature of a magnitude difficult for our brains and collective consciousness to comprehend.  IN the end however, the power of nature will ultimately erase our foot-print.

Just as my father’s Trout pond was gradually filling itself back in and the eco system he helped establish was being eliminated, our commercial harvest of the seas has also left a scar that nature will eventually heel in time.  The question is how much time will it take, and will any of us be around to see the results of nature’s powerful ability to un-do our human interventions?