Now we're talking. I sure miss the fishing discussions we used to have here. But now it seems everyone is too frightened to speak about catching and, dare I say, eating a trout or any other fish for that matter. We used to have some interesting tackle discussions.  Anyway, I digress.

Back to your question. Yes, bring Mickey Finn's for sure due to the color match of the dace that are in many of the lakes and river systems. You only really need about a dozen flies/streamers to be effective in May. And no need for full sinking line either. Water is cold and fish are shallow, but I mostly use bead head BH versions early spring.

My goto fly selection for the Gonk are;

Mickey Finn - various sizes
BH Muddler Minnow - yellow brown
BH Zuddler Minnow - olive brown
BH Pheasant Tail - brown and black
BH Sculpins - olive
BH Woolly Bugger - olive and black
BH Prince Nymph - natural
BH Hairs Ear Nymph - natural

You can pack a few favourite chironomids if you see them active in a shallow bay, especially in the sun. I now pack two fly rod setups #3, and #6 to toss both light and medium/heavy streamers, and in case I break one..did that few years ago.  Both are wound with double taper in case I run into an issue that requires me to flip it around. Keep it simple.

Hit the rivers and play in the eddys, slack water, cut banks, and target the seams..the usual stuff.  Oh, and bring a small Mouse or Rat pattern if you are hitting any of the river systems that hold 4lb + brook trout.  They absolutely clobber these patters when they're on. Nothing larger than a 4.

Lastly, if you tie your own, terrific.  But if you dont and are looking for the most inexpensive BUT amazing quality of online flies/streamers go no further than Realflies.ca.  Their pricing is unbelievable and they have everything.

Edit: forgot to inlcude that I bring a hand full of EGB's (size 2 pattern #330) and a 7ft ultra light spinning rod spooled with mono and a flouro carbon leader. Brook trout are the only species I use mono as a backing when fishing them. Everything else is braid
 

Last edited by Swift Fifteen (2/01/2024 6:20 pm)

I have a couple muddler minnows and a few bunny muddlers, I suppose it makes sense to get a couple zuddlers in there too! 
Sculpins I definitely don't have and will tie a couple up!
As for nymphs for whatever reason I haven't tried a prince nymph tie yet, maybe it's the wings  , but I just pruned my nymph box.  Lots of space for all the hare's ear or pheasant tails I can get through. Just picked up a few different hareline dubbing colours to play with. Does size matter with these fish? I was going to keep them on the slightly bigger side. Probably won't have too much time to get fussy with it all. Few different bead colours to boot.

Going to bring the 10ft 7 wt with a few reels and lines and my 7 ft spinning rod to toss or some spoons, but hoping to spend most of the time with the fly rod.

Now back to the mousing. I'd love to hear more about the strategy! Time of day dependent? Strip and pause across the river?

              white streamers flies with lots of sparkle work for me,,

Last edited by swedish pimple (2/03/2024 10:40 am)

I tied the tightline productions version last night of the Less Mess Morrish mouse along with some prince nymphs (again tightline productions, the dude is amazing for his instructional videos, especially tips for the tail and wings here) and my own version of a stonefly.

That Sutton River video is so awesome! I am definitely going to get a trip in to one of those northern Ontario, Hudson Bay tributaries, no question about it.

I also tied up some streamers with stinger hooks. Had started thinking about that then saw Moonman post about it on a thread from a few years ago.
I'll double check the regulations but I plan and going with 2 streamers on the line when trolling. Heavier Clouser as the bottom point fly then a lighter fly from a tag a 2 or 3 feet above it. Maybe add a tiny bit of buoyancy to the upper fly to keep them separated and I don't need to stay all that deep.
Also thinking about a few bigger dry flies to do dry/dropper setups for nymphing the river (chatted with a very nice YouTuber named Derek and he mentioned he does that, and you can see him employ it with success in his videos).

Just need to get my hands on some bathymetry maps for big crow and Lavieille, although probably not as important in the spring. Still I love to know the layout of the bottom structure before hitting up a lake.

Last edited by Hobbes (2/03/2024 10:29 am)

Moorish Mouse is a fabulous example.
You honestly won't need tandem trolling setups on lakes.  But a dropper in some of the river systems can work well.
Again, no need for sinking lines or sink tip since I discovered polyleaders. Super easy to swap out for any application other than fishing deep rivers or lakes.

For photos you have to ask someone else, I don't believe I've posted one here.  Maybe PEEK can help you.  He seems to spearhead the WIA forum and posts photos frequently. Shoot him a pm
 

Here's a dump of all the recent ties from the last month and last fall. Should all fit in a few small fly boxes that I'll bring in with me.

Beautiful!  Nothing gives me the itch more than these pre-season threads!

Yes! Love the chatter. It's fueling my obsessiveness of this all to the fullest extent .

In the end I'll probably end up bringing at least 2 reels with full sink and intermediate sink lines on them. My debate will be do I go mono rig for the dries/indicator/tight line, or normal floating line which would mostly be beneficial for either roll cast ability or if I need to send dries out at a longer distance. The big pro of the mono rig is I don't have to change out any lines, just add on the longer/thicker mono leader to whatever line I currently have on EZ PZ.

Awesome tips about the flies Moonman. I'll look to add your suggestions to the boxes! Still a few months until paddles hit the water so I can put that energy into more flies haha.

Also, I FINALLY found an old bathymetry map of Lavieille so planning my trolling routes accordingly.

Hobbes