A Fishy Story

(First, Jack will give us an account of his fishing adventures in Newfoundland. Then we’ll pick up where we left off.)

While I didn’t come to Newfoundland to fish, I enjoyed fishing on three different rivers. The first was a true salmon run river, the Great Codroy that I described in a previous blog. I did get to see a moose and her calf up close, and I did hook one salmon and caught a nice brook trout. The second river I fished was within the city limits of St. John’s that held some sizable brown trout according to the guide I had. I managed to catch several small browns that were chasing caddis flies to the surface. I think the big guys were hunkered down due to the stormy, rainy weather we had.

My best fishing day was on a small no-name stream that flowed out of one pond into another. A “pond” up here is not the little things we have back home. What they call ponds in Newfoundland we call lakes at home. The connecting stream I fished was no more than 100 yards long. After “gearing up” (that means putting on waders, boots with felt soles, a rain jacket, and putting together my four-piece flyrod, adding my fly reel, running my line through the eyes of the rod, tying on a “prince” artificial fly, filing down the barb hook… you get the idea.) I headed up to the first likely spot that might hold a trout. Just as I readied a cast, a reddish gray bird landed on a nearby rock and decided to take a bath. How rude is that? Anyway I watched for a few minutes and then headed further upstream as the pretty bird wasn’t making any signs of leaving soon. On the way up I caught many brook trout in the 4 to 6 inch range. The limit here is 6 inches, but I turn back all wild trout no matter what size they are. It didn’t take long for me to reach the upper pond. My neighbor told me that the pond is used by the little village of Tilting for their drinking water supply and they don’t like folks fishing in their drinking water. So when in Rome… I turned around and fished down the same stream. This time I hooked a 9-inch brookie, which is a decent size fish for a small brook trout stream. I really enjoyed my two hours fishing that stream. Now on to Montana to hopefully check off 12 of my top 100 trout streams!

Back to our story… When we left Fogo Island and landed back on the mainland of Newfoundland, we drove west to Gros Morne National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site due to its geological importance. We stayed in a cozy two-bedroom cabin right next to the water. Gros Morne is beautiful—craggy mountains, rivers with thundering waterfalls, and the ocean. We got some great sunset photos over the water. This place is in the Long Range Mountains, which is the most northern part of our own Appalachian Mountain range, and some parts look and seem very much like home. 

The beautiful Gros Morne scenery, with snow still on the mountains.

Sunset from our cabin.

Our first day in Gros Morne, the weather was nice and sunny, and we all took a boat tour on Western Brook Pond, a freshwater lake that got cut off from the ocean long ago. It’s surrounded by steep rocky cliffs and some astonishing waterfalls come tumbling 1000 feet down to the lake. One of them, called Pissing Mare Falls, is one of the highest in eastern North America. (Gotta love that name!)

Western Brook Pond, a freshwater fjord, supposedly some of the world's purest water.

Jack and Carol on boat tour, with waterfall behind us.

Partial view of Pissing Mare Falls, one of the highest in eastern North America.

Our landlord for the cabin we’re in suggested that we visit the nearby fish market, so we did and picked up some lobster for $4.75/pound! A delicious lobster feast for supper—one of the cheapest meals we’ve had so far!

Our cheap lobster dinner!

The next day, Marc, Lynne and Carol went on a hike to yet another spectacular waterfall. A lot of the land around here is a marshy peat bog, and many of the trails are part boardwalks since the land is so wet.  I love boardwalk trails! While we hiked Jack checked out some fishing opportunities but it was too windy so he didn’t end up fishing.

Our boardwalk trail to waterfall.

Our destination waterfall--it was worth it!

We left Gros Morne on Tuesday—all of us were sad to leave the area as it’s so beautiful and we didn’t get to see much of it— and we drove down to the Codroy Valley, close to where we get the ferry to take us to Nova Scotia. Here we spent one night in a cute cottage with a pastoral view of the river and riverbank. Jack took a photo of our morning routine here—we all wander out and make our individual breakfasts and immediately get engrossed in our respective electronic gadgets, barely acknowledging each other’s presence. We all need this early morning electronics fix apparently!

Morning routine of this geeky crowd. Check out Jack's panoramic view from our cabin.

Wednesday morning—my 65th birthday by the way!— we headed to Port aux Basques where the ferry terminal is. We got on without a hitch and had a smooth 6-hour ride to Nova Scotia. The weather had turned rainy and foggy (so what’s new??) so we drove through the fog to the Acadian town of Cheticamp on Cape Breton Island—yet another beautifully scenic spot in Canada (if you can see it through the fog that is). We’re now staying at Cheticamp Outfitters, a B&B, and plan to drive the Cabot Trail around the island. And hopefully see some moose!