Early Summer Season Ending Miramichi Salmon Blog 2025

Fishing Friends –

I dearly love the progression of the New Brunswick salmon season as it advances from spring salmon opening day on April 15, to the chrome fish of May and June, the hide and seek around warm weather and thunderstorms of mid-summer – okay, my least favorite – to the beginnings of the fall run and finally the drive upriver of the big colored fish to the spawning grounds.  But, no part of the season is more attractive for me than the early summer fishery that we have just finished.

Scott Cormier got that great MSA certificate winning salmon over on the NW on June 1, and that kicked the season off.  It wasn’t the only early fish on the river.  Brock Curtis of Curtis Outfitters in Blackville sent me a synopsis of this year’s fishing from his perspective: “I think it would be safe to say that most of us were a bit anxious this spring to find out what the salmon angling would be on opening day, mainly due to the low numbers counted at the end of last season and the early ice out long before opening day. All reports from anglers and guides for the first two weeks seemed quite normal and in most cases the talk centered around where the salmon were coming from. As we got closer to May more reports were coming in regarding nice trout being caught. A lot of large salmon were hooked and released with the odd grilse. We had a period of angling where you could hook into salmon, trout , and stripers all in one day. That envelope of time here on the lower section of the river doesn’t get any better. It is really pretty hard to beat if you like fishing. 

It was June 3rd while fishing trout with Chris Cummings and his wife that I saw my first June Salmon. We were using light fly rods for trout and didn’t stand a chance with the 2 large salmon we saw. Both were beautiful fish. While talking to customers at the tackle shop the next day we learned that anglers were seeing salmon below and above Blackville in the Upper Blackville area. Not a lot of people were out fishing salmon, but by the 4th of June we were getting reports of hook ups. From that point on more anglers started fishing and more reports were coming in of seeing, losing, and hooking into salmon. Some of the locals are saying they haven’t seen salmon showing like this in 10 years.  For early June to have guys reporting catching and releasing a salmon and a grilse in one day is great news. Just to catch an early June salmon on the Miramichi is not easy. You have to put the time into it and for those who do ,the rewards are well worth it. This June has been a very active month. It is a real treat to talk to anglers who spend a lot of time fishing here on the lower section of the river. Some have enjoyed good trout fishing, the opportunity to catch salmon, a period of time when they can get shad, and of course seeing the schools of gaspereau spawning on some of the gravel bars. 

 As always, weather plays a big part when angling. This May and June we had a cycle of rainfall on a weekly basis with cooler temperatures, and it has made a difference in what we are seeing for fish, resulting in a good start to this angling season. Hopefully this will continue to be the norm.”

One of my old friends, Jim Graul just spent 5 days with me at Campbell’s.  The last evening, while we were having a Monkey Shoulder and some of Ralph Vitale’s smoked salmon on the porch, he stated that the one grilse that he had caught made his whole trip.   Everything about those fish is just so special, he said, that even though he landed just one for the trip – he did have some other action – it scratched the itch.  Many of you reading this will know exactly what I mean.

I arrived at Campbell’s on June 15 and caught my first fish on Jun 17^th.  It was a grilse, and my notes say that I hooked two more that morning, both of which leapt their way to freedom.  The water height was .92M on the Blackville gauge, the temperature was 67F and the fly was a #6 green machine tied with a flash chenille body instead of spun bucktail.   All the fish I raised that morning were grilse.  I was definitely surprised to see them that early in the season.  Both the Millerton and Cassilis traps as well as the barrier reports through June showed that grilse numbers were far above the near zero returns of 2024.  It was a very pleasant surprise.

The highlight of my June fishing came on the 19^th.  Fishing in comparable conditions to the 17^th, and again using a chenille green machine, I hooked a large salmon.  When I got to Doctor’s Island and stepped out of my canoe to wade, I saw a big splash as a fish surfaced in the sweet spot of the lie I was going to fish.  I decided to work down to the fish rather than rush right to the spot – always a difficult choice for me.  Within a few minutes I was casting to the exact spot where I had seen the rise.  As my fly swung over the lie, I had a good pull.  It turned out to be a huge chub!  Nothing else disturbed my fly on the rest of the pass through the pool.  I changed the flavor of my green machine to one with a red Krystal flash tail and made another pass.  This time when I got to the hot spot I had a much stronger take and was fast to a heavy fish. I assume this was the same fish that had jumped earlier and had ignored the fly on my first pass through.  This fish swam strongly upstream and never jumped. It swung roundly across the middle of the pool and headed downstream peeling off a lot of backing.  I was afraid that I had one of the big stripers I had seen chasing gasperaux the day before.  In the end it was a large salmon that I steered into a shallow cove just below where I had moored the boat.  Finally, it lay in shallow water that just floated it on its side, and I could easily remove the hook and take a few photos.  I was alone, and I measured the fish against my rod.  Later at the camp that section of my 8-weight Spey rod measured 43”.  I gave it 42 to be a bit conservative.  The fish was in perfect condition, thick and chrome.  I did not notice any sea lice, but they were probably there.  I put it in the book at 28 pounds, but of course we’ll never know for sure.  Would I like to land a lot more Miramichi salmon like that? Yes, of course, but one like that goes a long way.

In summary I landed salmon or grilse on the 17^th, 18, 19, 21, 23, 24 and 27.  My guests had several more as we ended June with 9.  The final mix was 3 salmon and 6 grilse landed.  We also hooked but lost a number of others.  6 were caught on green machines and 3 on a silver rat.  All in all I felt very fortunate to have some decent fishing.  I could see the heat coming and returned home on July 1.  I must say that I had anticipated the run would start to build during the last few days I was in camp and just the opposite seemed to be happening.  On my last morning with very good conditions, I drifted down over the lies at both Doctor’s Island and Campbell’s and saw no fish and failed to get a pull on the line.  It was a down note to leave on, but there is nothing predictable about the early salmon run, and it may well pick up and should with the passage of the current hot weather.  I exchanged e-mails today with Byron Coughlan of Country Haven.  He said that over this week the number of salmon now gathering in the cold water pools has increased.  It appears to him to be the best grilse run in the last 4 or 5 years.  This is a welcome surprise because it is the grilse that first reflect the effects of striped bass predation on smolts.  Clearly, even though tagging data proves that almost 90% of the tagged smolts are being eaten by the bass, a few points of increased sea survival  still make quite a difference in the final return.

June is over for another year, but we have a lot of season to still look forward to.  Hopefully the Miramichi will have a decent fall run in store for us this year.  I know that I plan to be back up for the fall at the end of the first week in September and to stay for the duration.  Now is the time to book your trip for this fall at Country Haven, The Ledges, Wilsons, Upper Oxbow, Black Brook, Ted Williams White Birch Lodge, Mountain Channel or one of the independent guide services.  I apologize for whoever I may have missed with this list.

above Darrell Warren nets a grilse for angler Dr. Nick Tsapatsaris.  Video by Dr. Andy Eisenhauer 

Here is a look at the available data on the salmon run through June 30^th.  There are two basic sources of data on adult salmon returns.  One source is the barrier reports.  There are two, one is on the Dungarvon River and the other is on the Northwest Miramichi.  They were both originally placed there years ago to provide a holding sanctuary for salmon that get that far upriver without being poached.  The barrier count provides solid info because every fish that gets that far is counted.  The problem is that the barriers only count limited segments of the overall Miramichi watershed.  The other source is the trapnets at Millerton on the SWM and Cassilis on the NWM.  Some of my scientist friends warn me against reading too much into the trap numbers, but it is what we have for statistics, and even though the traps only catch a small portion of the run, it is done the same way year after year.  You may not be able to get an exact report on the strength of the run, but over time it will certainly show you the trends.

The June 29/2025 barrier reports show the following:

Dungarvon – 11 grilse compared to 0 in 2024, 8 salmon compared to 9 in 2024, a total of 19 adult salmon for the year to date compared to 9 for the same period in 2024.

Northwest Miramichi – 3 grilse compared to 2 in 2024, 30 salmon compared to 14 in 2024, a total of 33 adult salmon compared to 16 in 2024.

So, the overall barrier counts are essentially double last year, largely from grilse.  Don’t misunderstand these numbers.  15 years ago the barriers had roughly 7 or 8 times that many fish by this date, but at least we are up solidly over last year so far.

The June 30/2025 trap counts are as follows:

Millerton on the SW Miramichi – 9 salmon compared to 72 in 2024!  While the June 30 numbers have historically ranged all over the place, it must be noted that 9 is the lowest number on record.  Grilse were 11 in 2025 compared to 0 in 2024.  This is a total of 20 adult salmon in 2025 compared to 72 in 2024.  It is hard to say where that 9 number comes from.  Perhaps there is an error of some kind.  We’ll know more after the July 15 numbers are reported.

Cassillis on the NW Miramichi – 14 salmon compared to 19 in 2024, and grilse were 29 in 2025 compared 9 in 2024.    This is a total of 43 adult salmon in 2025 compared to 28 in 2024.  It bears repeating that these are early numbers and subject to a lot of fluctuation as the season progresses. We’ll look forward to seeing the July numbers.

In other Miramichi conservation news,  the DFO Minister The Honourable Joanne Thompson made a surprise move on June 19 when she sent out a fisheries order directly from her office.  Here is a link to a copy of the order. The order was clearly in response to a complaint by the Maritime Fisherman’s Union that they could no longer operate their gasperaux nets because they were constantly clogged with striped bass.  The order requires the netters to keep the first 500 striped bass per day that they catch within the slot limit size.  This is very important because it apparently shows a willingness by Ottawa to give orders to the local DFO office, and because it shows that Ottawa considers this overpopulation of striped bass to be a serious issue while DFO Moncton seems perfectly content to let the bass extirpate salmon and smelts from the Miramichi River system.

Minister Thompson is from Newfoundland, and while I know nothing about her beyond this issue, Atlantic salmon are very important in Newfoundland.  So are lobsters, and the lobsterman are very concerned about striped bass eating too many small lobsters.

A couple of months ago I was asked to do another letter writing campaign to the Minister asking for help in getting Moncton to do something about the striped bass issue on the Miramichi.  I agree that it is time to do that, but when the suggestion was made the new FOPO House Committee that oversees DFO had not yet been established.  It now has.  I have been working on a draft letter to the Minister.  I want to send it to the FOPO Committee also because in 2019 that committee strongly advised DFO to bring the bass and salmon populations of the Miramichi into balance.  As well all know, DFO ignored that advice, though no one knows exactly why.

Sometime in the next two weeks you will get an e-mail from me with a sample letter to the Minister attached and a list of political contacts to copy on it.  We’ll see if we can’t shake the tree a bit.

Also, at the moment we are in legal limbo as we wait for a court date on Save Miramichi Salmon’s lawsuit against DFO.

 

Right now the cold water pools on the Miramichi system are closed to angling for salmon.  The rules surrounding this are the Cold Water Protocol.  Here is a link that will give you complete information on the closure.  Essentially the temperatures in the river as measured in Blackville must get below 20C for some time each day for three days in a row to reopen these pools.  Conditions towards the end of next week look like that will be likely to happen.  DFO does consider some forward-looking information when opening or closing the pools.

Stay in touch between blogs by checking on my Salmon Fishing Reports at this link.   When I’m on the river I post in person observations daily.  When I’m not I do gather information from friends along the river and I monitor the daily changes in water levels and conditions and post this information almost every day.  Anyone can sign up at no charge to receive e-mail notices of new salmon blogs on the home page of Brad Burns Fishing – just scroll up to the top of this blog and click on the logo.  I don’t sell or share the list with anyone.

Thanks for reading.    Brad Burns