Memories of Magical Waters. Gord Deval
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Little Birchy Lake, Little East River, Little Jocko River, Little Kennesis Lake, Little Mackie Lake, Little Redstone Lake, Long Mallory Lake, Long Schooner Lake, Loughborough Lake,* Lucky Lake,* Mackie Lake, Mad River, Madawaska River, Magnetwawan River, Mazinaw Lake, Mill Creek, Moore Lake, Moose Lake, Mosque Lake,* Muskoka Lake,* Noisy River, Nonquon River, North Lake, North Quinn Lake, North River (P.E.I.), Nottawasaga River, Oshawa Creek, Otonabee River, Ouse River, Papineau Creek, Peach (Miskwabi) Lake, Pefferlaw River, Pigeon Lake, Pigeon River, Pine Lake, Pine River, “Piss” (Trout) Creek,* Pottawatami Lake, Pretty River, Quinn Lake, Redstone Lake, Remi Lake,† Rice Lake, Rideau Lake, Rock Lake, Rocky Saugeen Stream, Rouge River, Round Schooner Lake, Rupert River, Saugeen River,* Scugog Lake, Severn River, Sharpes Creek, Sheldon Creek,† Shelter Valley Stream, Silver Creek, Silver Lake, Skootamata Lake, Sludge Lake,† South Quinn Lake, Sturgeon Lake, Sturgeon River, Sullivan Lake,† Sydenham River, Tedious Lake,* Temagami Lake, Toronto Islands, Trent River, Trout Creek (Pennsylvania), Trout Lake, Willemoc River (NY).*
The asterisk (*) in the above list indicates the greatest of all locations for the memories pertinent to these waters, and the symbol (†) marks those I also consider superb, thus their inclusion in this work. This book will, of course, deal with the most powerful and interesting recollections. The other waters listed here should still be considered as excellent sites, well worth a visit for the enterprising fisherman.
Many of these waters emerge from their underground reservoirs in minuscule fashion, bubbling out amongst the roots of the trees that form the nucleus of the swamps and forests in the area. Hiking through these areas, one can hear the springs gurgling as they escape their secret hiding places and emerge into the open then bubble along a few feet, only to retreat beneath the roots and mantle of sphagnum moss carpeting the forest floor. With the decayed leaves from the few hardwoods that manage to exist in the saturated swamps and bush in the area adding to the moss and accumulated humus on the ground, one gets the sensation of walking on six inches of the plushest broadloom imaginable. The only thing missing from this unique ambience is the presence of tiny dryads perched provocatively on their fungal saddles.
Pick your way a little further along through the sudden silence, broken only by whispers of the breezes in the treetops, and suddenly the lilting music of the bubbling springs, materializing as a tiny sparkling brook, once again dominates the character of the bush. This then is the environment that I recall most fondly from my earliest exposures to the pleasures of these magical waters that are the origin of all our lakes and streams.
Before I had reached the ripe old age of ten, I had become fairly proficient at collecting dew worms. When I was a kid they were called “night-crawlers,” as they emerge after dark. Bob Wilcox, my uncle, often conscripted me into collecting a supply of dew worms for him and Curly, his fishing buddy. When he wasn’t fishing, Curly raced motorbikes on dirt tracks.
My reward was a promise to take me with them to sample the fishing delights in the brooks below the Town of Uxbridge, if my parents would give their permission. My mother wasn’t entirely pleased with her brother-in-law’s somewhat devious scheme to avoid the backbreaking chore of having to pick his own dews. Of course, my pleading with her to be allowed to stay up late enough to gather the bait so I could accompany them on the fishing excursions usually prevailed.
These outings were never in the spring, however, as least as far as my participation was concerned. I suppose, unable to avail themselves of my services during that time, they bought their bait. It wasn’t until the summer months with school out that I would find myself crawling around the neighbourhood lawns an hour or so after sunset with my moss-filled pail, flashlight beam zigzagging back and forth, while my eyes strained for the momentary glimpses of the shiny dews before they instantly drew themselves back into their burrows.
I soon discovered that if the flashlight beam was not shone directly on the worms, or the batteries weakened, the elusive critters were far less likely to be spooked into retreating, and I was able to collect enough to satisfy Curly and Uncle Bob. I seldom fished with the worms myself, preferring to manoeuvre artificial trout flies into the holes between the roots and overhanging grass alongside the tiny brooks.
On the odd occasion though, I would dangle a dew worm behind a fluttering lure, a Colorado spinner, 1 and work it along the edges of the watercress beds that bordered all the brooks in the area. I had read in one of the fishing magazines Mom had bought for me that brook trout preferred to dwell in the shady shelter of the watercress, (a delectable green growing in spring-fed brooks) emerging only to pluck appetizingly appearing morsels from the flow for their snacks. Actually, Uncle Bob had taught me to just use the fat end of the dew worm and completely thread the hook through it, leaving only the barb exposed.
I can close my eyes while I write this now and effortlessly visualize that first wonderfully magical moment when a magnificently bejewelled seven-inch speckled trout darted from nowhere and seized my Parmachene Belle trout fly.2 Although I had accompanied the men on a couple of earlier trips to the Uxbridge brooks, this was the first “speck” (another of the many monikers applied to speckled trout) that I was able to seduce into having a go at my fly. Unceremoniously, the tiny trout was jerked out of the water into the branches of a tree behind me. Tossing aside my steel rod, I pounced on the catch before it could escape.
The young Gordon Deval at the Uxbridge Pond, 1947.
Nevertheless, I remember admiring the vividly coloured trout for only a moment before carefully detaching the hook as my uncle had shown me when he put undersized trout back into the swim. It, too, was gingerly placed back into the beckoning brook.
This is definitively my earliest memory of what today is still a magical place for me—Uxbridge Brook.
Although the Uxbridge area produced my earliest memory of the countless waters I have fished, it also produced several others worthy of mention. The springs and brooks escaping from the underground aquifers in the ridge to the south of the town are not the only Uxbridge waters to have tested my angling abilities. The brooks feed a large pond, intersected by a road and bridge with a few lovely homes along its shores. With its feeder springs and brooks, the pond forms the headwaters of the main Uxbridge Brook which flows northwards towards Lake Simcoe after it pours over the small dam in the heart of town. The stream, still fairly small at this stage of its development, produced a couple of other exceptional memories easily recalled in full detail as follows.
The affable citizens of this lovely town whose backyards front on the meandering brook have never become terribly upset at my fishing my way downstream while working the many enticing pools with their log-laced cover. That is, other than the occasional emergence of someone either reminding me to, “Please be careful going around my flower beds, son,” or simply questioning our luck with, “Catching anything,” or that most oft-asked question of fishermen, “How are they biting?” Almost sixty years of fishing this particular section of waters has never resulted in my being asked or told by one of the owners to get off his land.
There are small, gorgeously coloured speckled trout in the brook. Unfortunately