This is big news! We are very pleased to announce that Ontario fly fishing guide & outfitter Rob Heal has joined the team at WILSON’S and will be working in our new Fergus fly shop when it opens in the coming weeks. Rob has been given the task of heading up and coordinating our fly fishing education and outfitting programs and we could not be more delighted to have him on our team!

If you are familiar with Rob Heal you already know that he is one of the most experienced and respected fly fishing drift boat guides in Ontario. Getting someone of Rob’s calibre is a coup by any measure and it is a union of strengths that will produce a level of outfitting, education and fly fishing retail in Ontario that has never been seen in the Province. To be honest, we can’t wait to get started! Anyone who has fished with or been guided by Rob over the past 16 years knows that he is passionate about teaching people and being on the river. This is a great opportunity for WILSON’S to take our fly fishing guiding and fly fishing school programs to a new level. Rob has been given the responsibility of putting together our new program and he has gathered together some of the other most skilled, experienced guides and pro-staffers in Ontario to create the most formidable team of drift boat and walk & wade fly fishing guides in the Province. Keep watching our website for more details in the coming days…

To learn more about what is happening with our new fly shop in Fergus, our schools and our guiding program please make www.CanadasFlyFishingOutfitter.com a favorite. We will continue to keep everyone updated via this blog and on Twitter @WILSONSFlyShop. In the interim please feel free to contact us with any questions or comments you may have – and of course guided trips! Rob is currently booking guided walk & wade trips on a number of destinations including of course the Grand River, the Credit River, Whiteman’s Creek, Bronte Creek, the Niagara River, the Humber River, the Ganaraska River, Bowmanville Creek, the Trent River, the Bighead River, the Mad River, the Beaver River, and the Saugeen River. We are also now booking fly fishing drift boat trips on the Grand River, the Saugeen River, the Maitland River, the Sauble River, and the Nottawasaga River.

We trust you will agree this is very cool but we have more announcements coming!

Stay tuned…

As I sit at home battling the proverbial “mother of all chest colds” it is emails like the one we received this week that make all of the effort of running a fly shop worthwhile. It is always gratifying to receive words of praise and we thank Ken for taking the time to let us know what he thought about our hatch chart for Whiteman’s Creek.

“I just joined your site & was totally AMAZED that u had a hatch chart for Whiteman’s Creek. I have had a 35 foot trailer 20 ft. from the creek at a gun club for 23 yrs now & many members fly fish. I have taught many younger & older members how to fly fish (as I have been doing it for about 45 yrs) & taught my 2 kids boy/girl how to fly fish at the age of 5. I will shortly be ordering a few of your flies [and] will definitely be giving your address to everyone here & am sure they will pass it on to all their friends… I am very glad I found you! Ken”

If you would like more information on hatch charts for the Grand River, the Maitland River, the Saugeen River, the Credit River, the Nottawasaga River, the Humber River, the Boyne River Nd other fly fishing destinations in southern Ontario please go to the Members area of our site. It is free to join our Fly Fishing Club and we trust you will like what you find!

I was driving home on Saturday and saw a sign that said “No Exit”. Knowing that I had never been down that stretch of road I decided to take a quick detour and found myself at the end of a lane where someone has decided to establish their own garbage dump. But beyond the garbage I could see a path and my GPS told me that path likely lead down to the valley below the road. I doubled back and drove into the last driveway to ask the owner about whether it might be possible to walk through the woods on their property to try fly fishing the creek which I knew ran below their house. As luck would have it the owner, Evelyn, was just walking out of her barn and waited for me as I drove onto her property. After introducing myself and explaining why I was there she smiled, thanked me for asking and said I was more than welcome to walk through her property. She then added that many people don’t ask and when she sees them she goes out of her way to ask them to leave. As she said, “It’s a courtesy – but it means a lot.”

If you have never knocked on a door to ask a landowner for permission, in my experience the typical response you get is, “No problem – thanks for asking!” Many landowners are more than happy to grant permission to fly fishers but if we don’t ask we’re lumped in with that knucklehead who is dumping his garbage at the end of the lane way. We are breaking the law.

So if you see a stretch of water and you are not sure if it is public property, do the rest of us a favour, err on the side of caution and ask permission. And a word of advice: don’t be shy asking because it’s kind of like being back at a high school dance. Remember those painful moments when you saw the one with whom you wanted to dance but couldn’t muster up the courage? All we have to do is ask…

While walking the banks of Whiteman’s Creek last weekend I met an angler who was as disappointed as I was to see a pile of garbage at one of the access points leading to the river. This man was going on about how irresponsible some people are but when I asked him to help pick it up he quickly dismissed the idea, suggesting that by the time he got down the bank I would have already picked everything up… The thought that went through my mind was, “Don’t complain if you’re not willing to do something about it.”

On a similar note, Canada is having an(other) election on Monday May 2 and although many of us think this is a waste of time and money, it is important that we all take the time to vote. Unfortunately, many of us are like that well-intentioned but lazy angler: we don’t bother to vote but complain about what is wrong with Ottawa. That’s not how it works. If we want Canada to continue to be the best country in the world we have to take care of it. Wishing things should get better doesn’t make them better – it takes effort. We are blessed to be citizens of Canada and we should all take the time to vote on Monday because, if nothing else, it is the right thing to do.

If you need further urging, watch Rick Mercer’s rant…

With the snow finally – and quickly – disappearing I have been making occasional trips to the banks of my favorite stretches of river to check on the conditions and see if there are any new pools that may have been carved by the spring thaw. The other thing I have been doing is taking advantage of the lack of underbrush at this time of year to pick up garbage at access points and along the river banks. Candy wrappers, water bottles, cigarette boxes, coffee cups and lids and styrofoam containers are the usual haul but on occasion, like yesterday, there are things like beer bottles, copies of the fishing regulations (at least they were responsible on one level) and a hookah pipe which made for a very relaxing day for someone on the water last year…

I started carrying small plastic garbage bags with me while fly fishing a few years ago to have a place to put the refuse I found along the way. Although a small gesture, picking up any garbage I find makes every outing that much more rewarding. If you are heading out to check on your favorite water in the coming weeks we encourage you to keep a few small plastic bags and a pair of gardening gloves in the trunk of your car with a larger bag in which to put the garbage you find (the larger one will keep your car clean). If we all take a few extra minutes to do a little bit of spring cleaning it will make a world of difference.

Now, if I can only do the same thing around the house…