Welcome to Brad Burns Fly Fishing
This website offers the books On the Cains and Closing the Season, and shares with my fellow Atlantic salmon devotees information about the Miramichi River’s Atlantic salmon fishery. Other books by me such as Maine to Montauk and Black Spruce Stream can be purchased through my “author’s page” on Amazon at this link.
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Do you have any questions for me about the Miramichi or Atlantic salmon fishing in general? Just e-mail me at bigbass@maine.rr.com. To read Miramichi salmon blogs and fishing reports select Miramichi Salmon Blog from right side of the menu bar near the top of the screen.
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Here is a photo of two, harvested sea-run brook trout sent to me yesterday by a fellow Miramichi fisher. Another friend and I spent three solid days fishing the Main South West Miramichi and the Cains up above Muzzerol. We never saw a salmon – not terribly surprising, but we had hoped – but we did get a few brookies, both sea-run and river resident. At one point Jason Curtis and I had finished, …Read More →
Springers on the Eastern side of the Atlantic and brights in Canada, different names for the earliest run salmon that are now starting in from the sea. Just this week Pete Dube and the Restigouche River Lodge reported big bright salmon from the Restigouche and Matapedia, last night Jason Curtis said that Larry Porter – manager of the Hershey Camp on the Miramichi, located about one mile upriver from Campbell’s and Keenan’s – said, …Read More →
The spring salmon season on the Miramichi is now more or less over. It has lasted a bit longer than normal, and from my conversations with a some of the outfitters and guides who fished it nearly every day, I’d say that it was a better than average fishery for salmon and a bit below normal for grilse. It was, though, quite satisfactory and anything but a disaster. There were some good and consistent, …Read More →
Along with a complete c/r fishery in New Brunswick for Atlantic salmon of all sizes we have a regulation for 2015 requiring the use of single barbless hooks. We could endlessly debate the necessity for either of these new rules, but they are now the law, and we must work with them and still enjoy our salmon fishing. If nothing else it is undeniable that the barbless hooks will save the lives of thousands, …Read More →
4/28/2015 – my annual black salmon – kelt – trip to the Miramichi was delayed twice by ice, and finally I headed up alone for a quick two days on the water with Jason Curtis. It was as much to check out the camps as anything. It is still winter this year in Blackville. There were snow drifts all over the place, and from the camp windows I could see deer day and night moving, …Read More →
It’s been on helluva winter in the North East. The season opened on 4/15 with the river still frozen, but now it is running out. Jason Curtis sent me these great videos from his home. So far this is a pretty and gentle ice-out. The ice doesn’t appear to thick because it was well insulated with snow. This is good because it will produce the least damage to the river bed and river banks., …Read More →
4/17 – This year NB has put an online licensing system in place. No matter how it is handled – online by you or in a shop – a portion of the process must be done online in order to get a special identifying “Outdoor Card” number that will be used in any other hunting or fishing licensing you participate in. Here is the link. Even if you plan to buy your license in camp, …Read More →
The picture immediately below from guide Jason’ Curtis’s deck this morning 4/16 is a big, open lead on the west shore of Main SW Miramichi. According to Jason the ice will go in a day or two. The picture below from the day before where open water was starting to appear on the opposite shore from Jason’s house. The shift across the river shows that the whole ice, …Read More →
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has decreed that for the 2015 angling season there will be no retention allowed by Miramichi anglers of salmon or grilse, and that single, barbless hooks will also be required on salmon rivers throughout the Province of New Brunswick. While to some this measure may seem harsh we applaud it. It can only help to release alive all the salmon that do make it back to the river, …Read More →
Somewhere there is fishing for bright Atlantic salmon, and right now that is Scotland. A fishing buddy George Watson and I just returned on 3/23 from two fun weeks of fishing the River Naver and staying at the Altnaharra Hotel. While we never catch a lot of salmon on this trip we get a few and had 8 fresh run fish that are locally called “springers”. Fishing in Scotland is different than in Canada, …Read More →