Fishing Friends – How quickly things can change. Three weeks ago I was packed and ready for my annual salmon fishing trip to the River Naver in the northern Highlands of Scotland. The news about the corona virus had been building, but cases of it were still quite rare outside of China. My daughter Caroline, a registered nurse who is finishing up her nurse practitioner degree didn’t like what she was hearing, though,, …Read More →

Atlantic salmon fishing friends – I spent much of the day on this past Friday 2/16 listening in to a Miramichi Salmon Association board meeting that took place in Fredericton, New Brunswick. In this meeting there was discussion about the very poor returns of salmon last year to the Miramichi, a discussion of the probable reasons, and what the MSA’s plan is to slow and reverse the downward trend. The plan is not completely, …Read More →

Fishing Friends – State of the Miramichi Atlantic Salmon Population:  The Canadian ocean fisheries branch of the government, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans or DFO, has completed a report of the Miramichi and Resitgouche River fisheries for 2019. The full report is not available to the public yet, but highlights of it have been released to the press and stakeholder organizations. The bottom line for the Miramichi is that the Atlantic salmon population, …Read More →

Fishing Friends – Your salmon fishing schedule for 2020 Have you planned your Atlantic salmon trips for 2020? I have, almost, but I’m leaving a couple of things open. I’ll start on the River Naver in Scotland during the first two weeks in March as I have for each of the last 10 years.  This early in the season it is never fast fishing, but I usually manage a couple of bright fish each, …Read More →

Fishing Friends – Ted Williams White Birch Lodge  – Many of us who fish the Miramichi are fascinated by its history of attracting some remarkable people to its waters. At the top of that list stands Ted Williams who was not only a very high profile personality, but someone who became much more involved with the river than simply spending a long weekend at an outfitting camp. Ted’s popularity is particularly broad based because, …Read More →

The raise of water from Dorian gave us the fastest fishing of the fall.  I hooked 7 one morning on the lower Cains.  They were all grilse.  Here is Jason Curtis handling one of them for release.   If you turn on the volume you can hear Jason mutter that the one in the next video was nearly 20 pounds.   Here is a nice salmon going back at Doctor’s Island.      , …Read More →

Every fall I’m struck with the beauty of the wild flowers that grow all along the banks of the Miramichi and Cains Rivers. There are definitely some nice ones during the summer too, and in both cases they are a bit of a surprise when you look at the April banking, scraped clean of all soil by the ice during runoff. The autumn flowers, though, have a special appeal, perhaps born by the knowledge, …Read More →

Miramichi Atlantic Salmon Run Final Counts for 2019  The final numbers for the DFO salmon counting traps used to estimate the number of fish returning to the Miramichi each year are in for the 2019 season. These numbers are available at this link https://inter-j01.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/asir/report/count in case you want to study them for yourself. The trap numbers are posted for the fifteenth and last day of each month June through October.  You can select from, …Read More →

Fishing Friends – the 2019 Atlantic salmon season ended on the lower Miramichi and Cains Rivers on October 15. I’d been in Blackville since September 5th, and while that is a long time to be in camp, I enjoyed every minute, and the unbroken stretch provided a good perspective of how the fall run developed on these rivers.  I had a line in the water some portion of every day during that period. I’m, …Read More →

Late Summer Fishing: Miramichi and Newfoundland – On Tuesday 8/13 I drove from Falmouth, Maine to Blackville and fished the Miramichi at Doctor’s Island that evening. Conditions were not good with low and warm water, and I knew it, but I was itching to cast a fly into the Miramichi.  As anticipated there were few to no salmon holding there with evening water temperatures around 22C/72F, but we did see one jump, and that, …Read More →