After getting back from a long month shift at work, I was excited to do some fishing back at home. With few (none) lifers left near home, I decided to make the 6 hour drive out to Rimouski where I had seen some old Facebook posts about someone catching Round Whitefish. I made the trip with fellow lifelister Alexis and we arrived at a beautiful river with crystal clear emerald waters.
The clear water meant we could see every single fish in the river and soon we spotted some small schooling cyprinids. Alexis got out a small hook and disappointingly caught some Creek Chub. Fortunately, he soon pulled out a Lake Chub, a new lifer for him! I managed to catch some too :)
We soon tired of catching endless chubs and made our way upstream to an area with a large waterfall. I split off from Alexis and was fishing a likely-looking pool when something slightly larger chased my bait! I cast again and the fish struck! It was a salmonid, an Atlantic Salmon smolt in fact! We had caught a few brookies but I never expected to see a salmon in this river :)
Finally, I made my way right to the base of the waterfall (no pictures, sorry), and did my best to fish the deep pool between all the tourists. There were more minnows down there and soon I was pulling up a mix of Lake Chub and Longnose Dace. I even ended up catching the biggest Longnose Dace I had ever seen!
I then quickly rushed to find Alexis because I knew he needed a Longnose Dace for his lifelist. I found him about 30 minutes downriver, with Longnose Dace already in his photo tank.
That pretty much sums up my side of the excursion, a lot of cool little fish but no lifers in sight. Alexis made out pretty well with a couple new species and then continued out east to some saltwater fishing with a mutual buddy of ours. He finished his leg of the trip with 10 lifers, and a few I've never been lucky enough to run into! I'll have to follow in his footsteps someday haha.
