Labrador aborted — May flood in June
It has been a very peculiar beginning to summer 2018, more than just slightly distinct from our typical rainy wet capelin weather June. This is definitely one for the climate and angling history books. I know I will never forget June 2018, and early July for that matter. This is the year we didn’t go fishing in the Big Land because of the weather. And I had a brand new Labrador flag to fly over our cook tent. We were devastated.
Rod Hale, Chris Fowler and I have been tenting and fishing in Labrador for nigh on 20 years. Matt Brazil joined us more than a decade ago. For the past few years our younger buddy Cameron Gosse has been tagging along. He’s very lucky and is constantly reminded of the fickle nature of his junior position.
Our camping logistics have evolved light-years in two decades. I think I could write a book about that goings on alone. Air mattresses to cots, a wooden grub box to protect our supplies from rodents and bears, and volumes more to make our fishing most enjoyable, but still earthy and visceral in the spirit of the river and land. There will be no metal trailers for this crew. We all revel in the coalesced magic bouquet of wood and pipe smoke with canvas and drying wool. Skipping a year was not a decision taken lightly.
In recent years we have been heading to Pinware in late June to target early run fish. It’s a risky venture but that’s what we like to do. Chasing the big bright silver salmon fresh from the cold ocean is our game. The rewards can be great but you always run the risk of high water, or the fish arriving late. But those are possible perils we are willing to gamble with. We mitigate our odds of total disaster by camping out for nearly two weeks. That way we might have a few off days but generally we get our fill of good fishing. That’s until the summer of 2018 showed up, or more accurately didn’t, at least not in any reasonable time frame.
We could have never imagined a scenario where we wouldn’t catch a fish for two weeks in Labrador. But that’s what would have happened this year if we went ahead with our plans to fish from June 24 to July 4. The Pinware was in full spring flood for the total allotment of our fishing trip. Older fisher folks, more than 80 years young, living in the Big Land all their lives have never seen the like. This year’s June was like typical May; still lots of snow pack in the country and the river in full flood. It was unfishable.
Although we knew of the late spring thaw, we left home on June 24 still with hopes of sleeping under canvas that very night in Labrador. We had the option of diverting to our friend’s cabin on Crabbes River and fishing there until the Pinware dropped to a fishable level. Or we could just wait it out in the tent for
a few days. After all, the water wouldn’t be that long taming down. But we were only familiar with Pinware floods from heavy rain, not melting snow and ice. This was different. A friend living in Labrador sent us photos and explained the reality to us. There would be no fishing for quite a while. We decided before Deer Lake, based on photos and text through Facebook Messenger, to keep heading west and not head up the Viking Trail. It just didn’t feel right, but what could we do? We’d fish Crabbes and Codroy for a few days and monitor the news from Labrador. Then when the Pinware approached fishable levels we’d head north in a big hurry. It didn’t happen.
No, we would not be going to the Pinware. The news from Labrador got no better has the days passed. The river had crested but the floodwaters subsided very slowly. Then 65-mm of rain sent the river up in the woods again. We’d be spending the duration of our 2018 fishing holiday on the west coast of our fair island. Although we missed Labrador, we dug in and made the best of our time fishing Bay St George and the Codroy region. In these relatively new waters there was much to learn and explore.
Explore we did and had a fantastic adventure, but the gods weren’t quite finished messing with us just yet. I’m accustomed to fishing in cold weather, being an Avalon sea trouter. I have the gear, stocking cap with earflaps and wool gloves without fingertips, so I can manipulate fly lines. But I don’t take warm mitts and wool caps salmon fishing. Sure for God’s sake, the season opens in June. This was a year completely off the bell curve.
I think it was June 26 or 27, and we were fishing on the Codroy with a brisk upriver wind, served with pelting rain and mercury hovering just a tad above freezing.
The wind chill was certainly in the minus, and rain pouring down, could you possible imagine harsher summer fishing conditions. I wished I had my bloody mitts. We fished a full day only because we were hitting some very nice fish. It seemed we had a solid run of chrome heading in from the sea. A big slab of a salmon snapped a Perfection Loop knot in my 15-lb tippet. I tried to stop the big boy from barreling down a fast rapid when I probably should have rock skipped him downriver. I’d say the miserable cold and my numb fingers messed up my good judgment.
We eventually had to relinquish our quest to the wet and cold, leaving the river three hours before dark with the odd fish still biting. This is not at all normal. We reasoned on living to fish another day instead of succumbing to hypothermia, a reasonable plan. But the gods can be bloody devious. If I had known I would have cast and fished till dark, or froze on to a rock trying. It poured all night and the river went up more than two feet, making it essentially unfishable. Unfishable was becoming a very common theme for 2018.
Eventually the Codroy dropped and we were back at it. Actually the Codroy rises and falls quite rapidly. Now we know that very well.
One day we crossed the river in quite high conditions, in fact still rising. We did have enough sense to erect stick markers at the waters edge to monitor the river while we fished. We weren’t there long when we noticed the water rising. Before we got back to our crossing point the water was up at lease six inches.
We all revel in the coalesced magic bouquet of wood and pipe smoke with canvas and drying wool.
We barely made it across the powerful flow, a very close call. We would have had to walk many miles downriver to cross on a bridge.
July came and the gods gave up the fooling around with summer. The sun came out and temperatures soared to normal. But you know what, the best fishing was that bloody cold miserable day that we left the river early. But that is angling for you.
Now we have to wait another full year for our two weeks in Labrador. Maybe I’ll sneak north in August, just to ease the pain.
Older fisher folks, more than 80 years young, living in the Big Land all their lives have never seen the like. This year’s June was like typical May; still lots of snow pack in the country and the river in full flood. It was unfishable.