I've gotten the opportunity to know Graham Bristow over the last few years; owner of a small tackle store (Angler's Pro Shop) in Orangeville and Musky and Trout Guide. Anyone who knows Graham knows that he's a "salt of the earth" type of guy, extremely nice, friendly to fellow anglers and the guy can full out fish. Over the last few months Graham and I have tried on numerous occasions to get out but between his busy work schedule guiding full time, it has been tough. Luckily he had a free day recently and we decided to go hunting for some chrome. We fished the Nottawasaga River with his drift boat.
There was really no rush to get up there for first light as Graham knew we would more than likely have the whole stretch to ourselves and he was right, not a soul in sight. We set up the boat and drifted to the first pool; classy guy that he is, he let me have the first drift in every pool, even though I told him on numerous occasions that it wasn't necessary.
Water was great, clear (3 feet of vis for Notty standards in this stretch) and a tad low. As we slipped off the boat into the first pool, it looked fishy and Graham was confident that the fish would be holding there. Low and behold we each hit a fish and we were off to a great start!
As we made our way downstream, Graham made sure that any garbage he see's goes into his packs and carried out to where it should be put. A great tip for all river anglers! We stopped by one spot with a pop can and 3 worm containers and some other litter….come on guys, clean up after yourselves! Not a nice thing to see but in the effort to keep our streams clean, it's something that we have to do.
Well, off we went from pool to pool hitting a few fish in each spot; it wasn't fish after fish but a good steady pick to keep us working. Graham knows the this stretch like the back of his hand calling many fish before the float would go down as he was well aware of the sweet spot in each pool. As we went down river he would probe the pool with his oar to see how deep the pool was. Often times the pool would be 3-4 feet at the front, and then a huge dip to 6-8 feet and then up again to 3-4 feet. Most Steelheaders would simply run a 4-5 foot lead through a pool like this probably missing where most of fish would be lying. Having Graham as a guide who knew what he was doing was priceless. Being a guide on the Notty is no easy task; being a sandy bottom stream its constantly changing from year to year, more drastically than a rocky bottom river. He has to stay at the top of his game each and every day he's on the water to put his clients on fish.
It was a great day; we landed around 15 and lost a bunch more. It was very scenic and a nice quiet day on the river. Here are a few pictures from our day....
Graham's river guiding service has been picking up steam and has very few free days. I would highly recommend Graham's service to anyone who wants an educational day on the water, or the chance at getting into a lot of fish in a very remote piece of river.
Graham is also one of the main contributors to the Credit River Spring Steelhead Tournament.
Thanks for the good times Graham! Hope to do it again soon.
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