In 1999 a very interesting and informative article was written for the Atlantic Salmon Journal entitled The Case for Releasing Grilse by Atkinson and Moore.  These men were DFO scientists who did a lot of work with the Miramichi’s Atlantic salmon by reading the growth rings on the scales of 11,500 salmon sampled between 1994 and 1998.  Nathan Wilbur of the ASF recently brought this information to my attention because of the ongoing debate, …Read More →

I came back Friday from three days on the Miramichi and Cains Rivers fishing for spring salmon.  I always love this experience, even though….and this year the even-thoughs constitute a fair list.  Even though the highest temperature for the period was 43F during rain on the last day of fishing, even though it snowed two out of three days – it rained the other, even though it was well below freezing every night and, …Read More →

Late on Easter Sunday Jason Curtis sent me the link to a drone video by Ashley Hallihan.  Frankly I’ve never seen anything quite like it taken on the Miramichi.  The video begins with Jason’s Sharpe canoe moored in the confluence of the Cains and Miramichi Rivers.  After a lovely panning of the area that shows some views that few people have ever had the pleasure of witnessing from the air, the canoe heads up the, …Read More →

  In my last blog on 3/31 I noted that the river was at a recent low of 1.5 meters, and that the first sign of ice out would be rising water.  That day the river began to slowly rise with warmer temperatures and rain.  On 4/3 Jason Curtis sent me an e-mail with a picture of tiny spot of open water at the mouth of McKenzie Brook across from his home in Blackville. , …Read More →

I recently received courtesy of the Miramichi Salmon Association a report by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans “DFO” entitled Indicators of Atlantic Salmon in Gulf Region Salmon Fishing Areas 15-18 for 2016.  This region is the Gulf of Saint Lawrence from the Bay of Chaleurs down to the north coast of Nova Scotia, and it includes Prince Edward Island.  The principal Atlantic salmon rivers in this region are the Restigouche, Miramichi in New, …Read More →

Fishing Friends – For years now I have kicked off the Atlantic salmon fishing season with a couple of weeks of fishing in Scotland.  Some of the best and earliest runs are in rivers located in the Northern Highlands.  Names like the Helmsdale, Brora, Thurso, Naver and the larger Dee and Deveron have fish entering during virtually every month of the year.  Mid-March, though, seems to be the generally acknowledged start of regular availability., …Read More →

It is great to be able to say that it is late winter. In another week or so the daily average high temps will begin that slow rise towards spring, and we will be moving out of the heart of winter. We all know that there is more cold and stormy weather to come, and that the Miramichi is frozen sold – as it should be – but we have passed the crest of the, …Read More →

As you can see by the pictures it is mid-winter on the Miramichi and my home in Maine. The amount of snow and temperatures have been more or less in line with the long-term average, but with the active storm pattern there have been several periods of really cold temperatures broken by warm spells.  This sort of unremarkable weather has had the benefit of not creating any big raises of water, and that is, …Read More →

While I wasn’t in Canada over the weekend of December 10, thanks to the modern technology being used along the river I feel as if I personally witnessed the Miramichi freezing up for the winter.  Through the eye of the webcam at Renee Bullock’s Lodge in Boiestown – which I have watched from time to time all season long – I saw the river ice up severely on Friday, then saw it completely frozen, …Read More →

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans uses trap nets set in the Miramichi estuary to estimate the run of salmon and grilse running into the river each year. Each day from June through October DFO employees go out to the net strung on poles driven into the river bottom and count the fish trapped in the net. These fish are alive and unharmed. The fish are counted, weighed, measured, a small metal tag with, …Read More →