Miramichi FishPal Website Now Available

Rivers Tweed, Tyne, Dee, Deveron, Findhorn, and Spey – what do these world-famous salmon rivers all have in common?  They each provide information on their fishing through a FishPal website.  Using a very attractive format the FishPal site provides links that will show you fishing conditions, forecasts, recent catch statistics, detailed information on the river’s fishing lodges, their availability for you to book a trip, and a host of other handy information for prospective anglers. Here is the link to the new FishPal Miramichi website.  Save this to your internet favorites and let all of your fishing friends know about it.  If you click Rivers from the menu bar at the very top of the Miramichi Fishpal website, you will see that the Miramichi shares the FishPal platform with many of the world’s other top salmon rivers, providing you with the same information on each of them.

I’m going to give you a brief tutorial on how to use the site.  Don’t hesitate to e-mail me with any questions that you may have about FishPal Miramichi or any of the content.

First, here is a screenshot of the website’s home page.  Forgive the quality, it will look great when you view the real thing on your computer.

Please look at the long, vertical, blue menu bar on the left side of the page.  The top category is Salmon Fishing.  Under salmon fishing are categories named About, Where to Fish, When to Fish, Fisheries, Map.  I think you’ll find these categories self-explanatory, and I hope that you’ll simply read through each one for information and entertainment.

If you are someone who is considering booking fishing trips to Miramichi lodges, you will want to pay particular attention to the category Fisheries.  If selected that page will look like this:

Next, you click on the individual fishery/lodge, and you will find a ton of information including photos of the lodge and water, rates, available amenities, contact information, and a way to look at current availability.  Here is what the availability section looks like:

 

While there is a lot of information available now on the site about each Fishery/Lodge, not all the lodges have availability listed yet, and there is no historical information on catches.  When the season begins we hope for each of the lodges to record its daily catch information.  This will provide a near real-time image of how the fishing season is progressing so that busy anglers can effectively organize short-notice trips to the Miramichi.

The category Other fishing provides some information on the Miramichi’s sea run brook trout and striped bass, though the FishPal site really concentrates on salmon.

Booking Fishing is the next category down.  The most important section here is called Find Fishing.  This does for the river as a whole basically what the software does under each fishery, but it searches for everything available under the selected dates for the entire river.  In the example below Country Haven comes up again because they have been the first lodge to load in availability.  Others will follow soon.  One of the most important abilities of FishPal is to allow online booking.  That feature is not available right now, but it will be in the not-too-distant future.  Right now you still need to phone the lodges to make your reservation.  That information is provided on the website.

The next section is Current Conditions and Weather.  A click on this box will find links to water levels and temperature, and weather reports.

Catches is the name of the next category.  According to FishPal’s analytics this is the most selected category of information.  Fishing Reports will be a weekly report on the fishing all over the river.  We are looking for a local person to write this catch report, but I will be doing it until we come up with someone.  Latest Catches is the single most viewed category on FishPal, and this is where the guides on the river will be posting each day’s salmon catch.  Staying in touch with the water level, forecast weather, the fishing report and current catches, will allow you to have your fingers on the pulse of the Miramichi from hundreds or even thousands of miles away.

The last two categories are called When You Come and Helpful Information.  These will provide you with lots of helpful information including where to stay if you are booking an independent guide and not going to a fishing lodge, where you can eat out, things to do for non-fishing days.  Helpful Information has FAQ, largely to do with the Miramichi’s fishing regulations,

Those of you who are interested in reading more about what is happening with the efforts to conserve and enhance the Miramichi salmon population will also find under Helpful Information  information from FishPal Miramichi’s host the Miramichi Salmon Association or MSA.   You can see their page on the site by clicking on MSA.  Reading through these pages, or following the link provided to the MSA’s organizational website will also provide some good entertainment during the offseason.   If you aren’t already a member of the MSA, or wonder if your membership may have lapsed, you can sign up or renew through this link https://miramichisalmon.ca/membership/.  Everyone who fishes the Miramichi should make the investement of an MSA annual or life membership.

2022 Spring Fishing Update Opening day is now just 25 days away.

This MSA webcam photo from last evening in Boiestown shows a river still covered in ice, but there are lots of chinks in the armor.  You can see wet, rotten spots in the ice, and even an occasional seam or pothole of water.  The temperature for the next two weeks is more or less normal in terms of daily highs, but is four or five degrees F above normal for nightly lows.  The ice condition will maintain or slowly deteriorate, and if we get a decent rain the ice could start to move at any time.  Water level has increased a half meter or so in recent days, but is likely to level off with no real rain and nighttime freezing temperatures forecast for the foreseeable future.  At this point it is hard to imagine that we won’t have open water for the start of spring fishing on April 15.

There is still time to call any of the lodges listed on FishPal and get in on the spring season.

Thanks for reading.  Brad Burns