Anglers Annual documents a rite of spring: the opening of trout season at the mouth of the Beaver River in Thornbury on April 28, 1984.
Willy Waterton
The chief photographer for the Owen Sound Sun Times for 35 years, Waterton’s newspaper photographs won over 100 provincial and national awards. Now retired, he continues to explore Canada with his camera (willywatertonphotography.com).
story and photography by Willy Waterton
Back in the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s, if you were driving the backroads of Bruce and Grey counties on the night before the fourth Saturday in April, you would be greeted by the glow of Coleman gas lanterns at almost every river or stream crossing. These would be the spots where anglers had set up camp to await the opening of trout season at precisely 12:01 a.m.
Saturday morning.
In those days, restaurants stayed open late and served breakfast early for the fishing crowd. Motels were booked months in advance. Convenience stores and gas bars adjusted their hours to accommodate the hundreds, if not thousands of anglers coming from all over southern Ontario for the chance to catch the first trout of the season.
The crowds have waned over the years due to a lower number of rainbow trout and an increase in “No Trespassing” signs posted on area waterways. Finally, there was the introduction of salmon to the Great Lakes that started a whole new open-water sport fishery.
Crowds were always largest at the mouth of the Beaver River in Thornbury. Anglers stood shoulder to shoulder along the slippery rocks of both banks between Thornbury dam and Georgian Bay. Occasionally, the call “Fish On!” would ring out in the darkness, shouted by a lucky angler to warn others to reel in their lines to make way.
I shot this photo (above) in 1984 on Kodak Tri-X film with a manual Nikon camera using a 300mm lens to compress the anglers. With today’s digital technology you would be able to get a photograph in the dim night light of the midnight opening, but in the 1980s it was nearly impossible. So I headed to the Beaver River at first light, and set up on the footbridge looking towards Georgian Bay.
Taking the photo was only the beginning. Then I drove back to the Sun Times offices in Owen Sound, where I developed and printed the image, wrote a caption and distributed the image to Canadian Press in time for Sunday’s or Monday’s newspaper.
An enlargement of this photo hangs in the Corner Cafe & Grill in Thornbury, commemorating a rite of spring from an earlier era. This year’s trout opener is on Saturday, April 22.
