Still Catching Kelts and Trout; Miramichi Conservation Updates

Fishing Friends –

I remembered something I had written in the end-of-summer blog last year – you can easily scroll back and read it all, but here is the operative sentence: “The 34 that entered the Millerton trap during the first two weeks of August this year amounted to 56% of the 60 salmon that had been captured during all of June and July.  In 2021 that same percentage was 21.5% and in 2022 it was just 5%.”  Why was this August 2023 number so out of whack with historical distributions of the run?  Remember, in 2023 we had almost constant high water.  Numbers caught in the Millerton trap were exceedingly poor through July, then they were exceptionally good for the first two weeks in August.  I postulated then that the high water masked the actual strength of the June/July run.  That is the most likely scenario.  In short, the run came early because of the high water.  The salmon weren’t as visible as they would have been in lower water when in mornings and evenings you can see the vees of the schools headed upriver, and the high water caused the fish to avoid the trap as it is known to do.  The true volume of those early run fish is responsible for the good spring fishing that we have seen this season.

Karl Wilson reported that the kelt fishing has now slowed down in their part of the river.  He added that the trout fishing is fantastic.  As it usually does, the run moves down river with the last kelts hanging around in the Rapids feasting on whatever smelts the stripers haven’t destroyed.  They aren’t all down there yet, though, as Byron Coughlan reported that some of Country Haven’s sports had good luck all week almost as far upriver as my camp at Campbell’s – just four miles below the mouth of the Cains.

Martin Belanger, a dental surgeon from Fredericton, and now a camp and landowner on the Cains River reported that recently in Blissfield they found a pile of salmon.  The water had dropped to a low level, and therefore cleared up enough so that in one area they fished they could see the salmon laying along the bottom.   He said that they saw “dozens” laying all over one area.  Fishing was excellent, and his six-year-old son Gab got his first salmon!  It is an adult cock salmon too, a relatively rare Miramichi spring catch.

Another feature of the spring fishing in 2024 was the outstanding condition of the fish.  Certainly, there were some “slinks” but by and large the fish have been thick and full of fight.  Most people attribute this to the short period of ice cover and overall gentle river conditions.  We’ll just have to hope that it was also a very good year for spawning.  The high water of last season allowed the fish full access to many tributaries that can be hard to reach in low-water years.

Last, and for a second year in a row, spring fishers were treated to a decent number of large sea-run brook trout.  Again, we’ll hope to see some of those further up the river later on this month and during June. These brookies are testimony to spawning and nursery ability of SWM and its tributaries.  If the bass weren’t being overly protected by DFO the sea-run brook trout fishing would be world class again in a very short period of time.

Last weekend the Miramichi Salmon Association held its annual general membership meeting.  The new president Butch Dalton as well as the various committee chairs discussed efforts that had been made during the winter to move DFO away from its over-zealous protection of striped bass and encourage them to do more to bolster salmon stocks.  There is some progress to report.  First, it appears that we will be allowed to stock a much larger amount of salmon fry, and importantly we will be able to use brood stock that we have grown from wild smolts in the MSA hatchery.

It should be noted that any joy over this important development must be tempered with the reality that the entire current capacity of the hatchery to raise fry is about 1.5% of the rivers potential to accommodate them.   By comparison, as past MSA president Mark Hambrook points out, the hatchery’s current ability to grow broodstock from wild smolts, so that they can be released for natural spawning, is equal to 10% that of the river.  This was the intent of the CAST program that was sadly canceled for all the wrong reasons.  Live and learn, we hope, and it is very possible that we will come back around to supporting the stocking of adult salmon “SAS” in the foreseeable future.

It appears that there will be some tiny progress in reducing the striped bass population. First, the recreational bag limit is being increased from three fish to four.  These fish must all be at least 50CM/19.5 inches long, and not more than 65cm/25 inches.  I don’t think going to a 100 fish bag limit would make any real difference in the overall recreational mortality of striped bass given this incredibly tight, 5.5-inch slot, but something is better than nothing.  Beyond this there is said to be a deal in the works to provide First Nations, who currently has the only allowed commercial fishery, with some additional locations to net for striped bass.  FN catch statistics aren’t made public, but the word is the current catch is only about 50% of the allowable quota, and FN officials blame this on not having enough area to fish.  This all could be instantly cured by allowing the gaspereau trap netters to harvest stripers, and while that seems fair and sensible to most of us, DFO isn’t anywhere near ready for that step.

Additionally, after years of asking, a pilot project to allow harvest without size or bag limit for striped bass caught above the head of tide – parr predators – is being initiated for 2024.  It is, though, going to be limited to a relative handful of participants and all fish must be reported by a small list of registered guides.

The bottom line of all this, is that DFO is not yet serious about reducing the striped bass numbers.  In fact, I hear that DFO does not accept that striped bass are the major factor in the severe decline of the salmon population.  Smelts, alewives/gaspereau, silversides, shad and sea run brook trout are all also severely depleted, and bass predation is thought to be the key.  Even the lobster industry is up and arms over striper predation, and lobster is a very valuable industry in the Maritimes.  DFO is sticking to a lower reference point of striped bass of some 330,000 based on what other scientists consider the aberrational year of 2017 – the lower reference point calculation is based in part on the maximum population.  Some very qualified biologists including one retired DFO chief biologist believe that the science used by DFO to stake out this high number is wrong.  Furthermore, DFO has refused to have an independent source review their lower reference point calculation.  Why would they do that? The conservation groups claim the need for a maximum of 100,000 bass to have balance in the system.  It is unclear exactly what it is going to take to get DFO to change its stance, but efforts are ongoing.

Recently FN and various conservation organizations held a Plamu – FN word for salmon – conference complete with a professional facilitator.  The need to reduce striped bass numbers was hammered on by everyone.  It is hoped that out of all this DFO will end up working out a plan to recover the Miramichi salmon population.  This plan is included in DFO’s mandate and is long overdue; the conservation groups have been clamoring for it for nearly 10 years.  It really is incredibly simple.  We must lower the striped bass population, and we need to stock more young salmon – whether fry or adult supplementation to get the population out of the danger zone quickly.  Perhaps when DFO disciplines itself to actually write this plan they will see that the bass reductions cannot be avoided.

On a sad note, Gary Colford recently passed away after a long battle with cancer.  I really enjoyed Gary.  I first met him when I visited Wade’s fishing lodge in September of 2002.  I’m always up early, and when I walked out with my coffee to their little observation deck  overlooking the river Gary was there.  As we stood in the grey light, salmon could be heard and seen jumping all over the home pool.  This is one helluva salmon pool, Gary quietly said to me.  It was also the dawn of great changes for that pool, Wade’s Fishing Lodge and its employees, and for me personally as I started the move away from a focus on U.S. saltwater fishing to the Miramichi River and Atlantic salmon.

When I purchased the Campbell’s Pool property that winter I drove up to NB to see it.  Gary Colford and his wife were living in the house overlooking the pool.  He and Willy Bacso, who I had hired as my guide and caretaker were great friends.  Actually, Gary had recruited Willy to become a guide at Wades.  Gary was still in his 50s and too young to retire.  He went off to a new career, first with George Holmes who had been the past president of the Wades Fishing Lodge Club, then with a young Englishman whose outfitting career crashed and burned on the banks of the Miramichi.  Finally, Gary moved over to Country Haven, where he had a glorious later-life career as a near-celebrity status guide.  It was a relationship that was good for both Gary and Country Haven.

I touched base with Gary several times a year during all of those twenty plus years.  I remember pulling up to Moore’s Pool on the Cains one day close to the end of a season, with a particularly poor final week in progress.  I was coming back fishless from Mahoney Brook.  Gary looked at me from across the river and slowly shook his head.   I’ll be awfully glad to see this season come to an end; he said low enough to be sure that his sports who were wading further downstream couldn’t hear him.  Many other days he’d be more upbeat and talk about the salmon he’d seen go by and the ones that they had caught.  Gary Colford simply loved Miramichi salmon and salmon fishing.

When I was writing both Closing the Season and On the Cains Gary’s knowledge of the river and its history were indispensable.  Gary’s grandfather Bill Colford had guided and cooked for Harry Allen’s outfitting business, and in doing so he met and developed a relationship with Coleman Moore from CT.  Gary started guiding and cooking for the Moores when he was just a teenager.  Gary told me about guiding up on the Cains in the sections of the river that were open between the still-frozen parts.  There were tons of fish, he said, and you spent all day unhooking fish and looking out for drift ice.

Moore at one point also owned the Brophy Pool.  Do you remember the old Brophy homestead that was there, I asked Gary?  I spent most of one summer tearing it down, was Gary’s response.  Gary’s relationship with Moore’s property continued for virtually all of Gary’s life.

Gary was a nice guy, a good conversationalist and an excellent fisherman.  He was a link back to the river’s earlier days.  He knew people, history, places etc. and it was always fascinating to have a few minutes in his company to talk about the river.  Gary’s passing seals off another avenue to the river’s past, some of which I was able to capture and put in the pages of my books.   He will be greatly missed by many people including me.

History isn’t made all at once.  People pass every day, and each of them takes a bit of knowledge of yesteryear along with them.  All you have to do is stroll through Morris Green’s 160 Years of Salmon stories, and you will see that from Quarryville to Juniper, and up and down every tributary, there have been many great individual characters and families whose lives helped weave the fascinating history of salmon fishing on the Miramichi.