I love fly fishing and my favorite place to fish is the Saugeen River in southern Ontario. Why? Because this enormous watershed offers a lot of fly-fishing opportunities. Both warm and cold water species live in the 160 kilometer river that flows northwest from the Osprey Wetland Conversation Lands to Lake Huron. Very few rivers in southern Ontario are large or ecologically complex as Saugeen.
In the upper Saugeen River, you’ll find trout. Lots of trout. From Durham to Priceville, brook trout as long as 18 inches are caught regularly. From Durham downstream to Hanover, you’ll find brown trout. But beware: the river is deep there and the bush is thick. A lot of fly fishermen who fish this area use canoes, pontoons or drift boats.
In the lower Saugeen River, from Hanover downstream to Southampton, you’ll find both warm and cold water species: Carp, Rainbow Trout, Brown Trout, Musky, Pike, Small Mouth Bass and Large Mouth Bass. And during the fall and spring, as migratory fish are looking for spawning areas in the cold, upper sections of the river, you can catch Salmon and Trout from the Truax dam in Walkerton.
One popular spot to fish is the area below Denny’s Dam in Southampton, where there’s an extended open season until December 31st each year.
Of course, any discussion of fishing on the Saugeen River has to include Steelhead, also known as Rainbow trout. The Saugeen is Ontario’s top destination for Steelhead fishing. Every year, about 40,000 steelhead migrate up the river to spawn in the spring, from around March through May.
Typically, anglers cast nymphs and streamers in the quicker sections of the river to catch Steelhead, which are pretty acrobatic fish.
If you choose to fish Saugeen, as a nature lover, I must ask you to be careful while you’re there. That’s because the North Saugeen River is home to a critically endangered insect: the Hungerford’s crawling water beetle. The only known population of the Hungerford’s crawling water beetle outside of the United States was found near Scone, in Bruce County, Ontario.
Thirty-five years ago, just 42 beetles were found in a site downstream from a dam there. The Hungerford’s crawling water beetle was named an endangered species in March 1994 under the United States Endangered Species Act, but it is not protected in Canada.
So, it’s really important that we take it upon ourselves to not needlessly hurt these yellowish-brown, ovoid-shaped insects with irregular, dark marking.
There are a lot of special places in Ontario, beautiful places where you can relax and enjoy nature. But in my opinion none rival the beauty and serenity of Saugeen River. If you’re a fisherman, it's a wonderful place to enjoy the sport, of course. But I highly recommend visiting it to anyone who appreciates nature in all its wonder.