Brad Burns Fishing

On April 13 the SW Miramichi stood at 1.55M on the Blackville gauge.  That is the sort of number you’d expect when fishing for the first bright salmon on June 1.  At that height many of the river’s pools are beginning to take shape and you can do a fair amount of wading.  There were two rain events, one on the 14th and another on the night of the 15th.  These were both inch-plus, …Read More →

Fishing Friends: Just returning from salmon fishing in Scotland, with the Miramichi salmon season about to open – I bought my license and guide exemption permit yesterday – and with lots happening on the conservation front, I’ve got plenty of material for a spring Miramichi salmon blog.  Let’s start out with the fun part – salmon fishing. The ghillie for the Kildonan estate on the River Helmsdale in the Northern Highlands of Scotland is, …Read More →

Fishing Friends:  The first piece of important news is the formal adoption by DFO of what was apparently the Draft Wild Salmon Conservation Strategy that was aired last July.  At the time we remarked at what an incredibly disappointing document it was, especially since it has been many years in the making.  It was most disappointing because it held no specific action points at all.  There was a great deal of talk about who, …Read More →

Fishing Friends – For an Atlantic salmon fisherman, to borrow a famous line, early March of 2025 is the best of times, and it is the worst of times.  After a day of spring fishing about 20 years ago, I remember sitting on the deck at Campbell’s with Jason Curtis, overlooking the SW Miramichi.   Jason looked at the river and said, “I love this time of year; the whole salmon season is still in, …Read More →

  Fishing Friends – We’ve put together a little Miramichi salmon blog with information on a variety of fishy topics that you’ll enjoy reading on this wintery day. First, I want to report some new art being added to the MSA auction and raffles currently underway.  Gary Tanner is well known to many folks for his auctioneering at many MSA events, his superb shadow boxes and his personally produced feather-wing salmon flies.  We had, …Read More →

Fishing Friends Here is some important and timely news regarding Miramichi salmon.  On the conservation front, John Bagnall, Alex Mills and Karl Wilson of Save Miramichi Salmon – the organization that is moving forward with litigation against DFO for their mismanagement of striped bass and Atlantic salmon in the Miramichi – recently had a preliminary meeting in Moncton with two representatives from DFO.  It is hard to know where to start in our complaints, …Read More →

Fishing Friends – I’m going to illustrate this blog post with some photos from 2024 that may have no relationship at all to the nearby text – but hopefully you’ll enjoy them!  Happy Holidays!  Thank you very much for reading my Miramichi Salmon Blog, and most recently for supporting the auctions that fund the conservation efforts on the Miramichi.  I know that many of you have sent the two letters that Save Miramichi Salmon, …Read More →

To supporters of the Save Miramichi Salmon litigation strategy: You are receiving this e-mail because you expressed an interest in being kept abreast of SMS’s progress on its potential litigation with DFO.  In May of 2019 the FOPO Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans in Canada produced a document that instructed DFO to balance the populations of Atlantic salmon and striped bass in the Miramichi.  They made this point clearly and strongly.  You can, …Read More →

On 11/22/24, attorneys for SMS sent DFO a Demand Letter that can be read at this link.  In this letter we spelled out the basic approach that must be followed to begin the turn-around of the Miramichi salmon population.  We said that if DFO did not contact us and make a good faith effort to meet and begin negotiations toward these management measures that we would be forced to file litigation against them. So, …Read More →

  Fishing Friends While the early part of this fall was quite mild, the last couple of weeks have been substantially cooler.  This week it has been freezing 24 hours a day with temperatures consistently below normal along the Miramichi Valley.   As the photo below from Boiestown shows most of the river is already frozen.  It was well into January before this pool froze last winter. Twenty years ago, I remember feeling optimistic during, …Read More →