Miramichi Salmon Blog Feb 6 2025

 

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 a couple of examples back in the Christmas auction and they were among the most hotly bid items.  I’ve noticed with these fly-fishing shadow boxes that people love the ones made with old maps.  Last year we auctioned off a 1930s map of the NW Miramichi crown reserve water.  We gave Gary the digital file we had made of the map.  For this auction Gary reproduced the map, added a half dozen lovely flies, and housed it all in a beautiful shadow box of his own creation.  You’ll find it among the auction items at this link.

Also, for this auction, Maine’s Jim Dionne, who is known for his classic salmon fly-tying talents has put together this shadow box with flies that is built around a 1973 Arthur Taylor salmon print of the once-prolific Hartland Pool on the Saint John River.  The print was originally commissioned by the New Brunswick Salmon Council.  There were 400 made, and I have not seen one for sale in a very long time.  This one was an artist proof and it is signed by the late Arthur Taylor who was famous for his Miramichi artistry.  It isn’t yet part of the auction since I need a few more details to list it, but keep checking back as it will be up there soon.

From time to time, we let our readers know if an interesting piece of salmon fishing real estate comes up for sale.  This property is called the Warren Pool, and it has riparian rights immediately adjacent to and upriver from the west side of the Black Brook Salmon Club’s water on the SW Miramichi.  There is a sizeable piece of land and a very nice camp that goes along with the whole package.  The listing broker is Carlie Hallihan, also from Blackville.    We always love to add a little story to these things, and the owners, Jim Paine and his wife Kathleen, were friends of Ted Williams and his girlfriend Louise.  Ted treated Jim the way he probably did rooky hitters and called him Junior…   For pricing and more information, you can reach Carlie here at carliehallihan@kw.com.

Also in the free services department, an old friend of mine Brian Noyes bhnoyes@rmdavis.com, has become involved with the Saint Paul River on the North Shore of the Saint Lawrence near Blanc Sablon where he has fished for many years.  He has let me know that they have a couple of openings this summer on this highly productive and attractive salmon river.  Available dates are in either the week of July 12^th or July 26.  This video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DI-j52V5GU gives you a look at what the river offers as does their website https://stpaulsclub.com.  I’ve had friends for 40 years who have been going to the Saint Paul, and they all seemed to become regulars.  If you have any interest in this trip, feel free to contact Brian.

Here’s a little rundown on where we are on the big MSA winter auction and raffles happening online right now at this link.  There are 50 items, so I’m not going to talk about all of them.  I just want to point out some of the great merchandise that has yet to achieve an opening bid:

• Excellent fly selections by Rudy Ciecko, Alex Swardman, Brian Sweeney and Matt Hughes that have yet to achieve an opening bid!
• Trap shooting at the Ledges Inn – No opening bid!
• Cheeky Fly Reel – No opening bid!
• 3-day trip for two to Country Haven – great price, No bids!
• North Shore duck hunting – No bids!
• 3 great John Swan prints – one salmon two saltwater, no bids on any!

• LaCrosse Alpha Burly boots at far below retail – No bids!
• Gary Tanner Cains River streamers on driftwood shadow box. Unbelievable!  No bids!
• Full days fishing, one at Upper Bridge Pool the other Ted Williams Swinging Bridge,  No bids!  These have been heavily bid in past years.

• John Rice beautiful, original salmon painting, framed, just $300 No bids!

• 3 days two anglers Ted Williams White Birch Lodge. No bids!
• Two days and nights of food and lodging at Weatherby’s. No bids!

Let’s get the bidding for these items underway!  Lots of raffle tickets are still available; here is a direct link to the raffles.

Meanwhile, on the conservation front we heard that a group from the Restigouche was at a recent DFO meeting of salmon stakeholders in Moncton.  Their complaints were very similar to those from the Miramichi.  All summer long there are lots of striped bass holding in many of the salmon pools.  Some striped bass retained have had lots of salmon parr in their stomachs.  The estimated Restigouche salmon returns in 2023 were about 8,900 fish, 60% down from about 21,000 in the 2018 to 2020 time frame.  I couldn’t find a number on the web for 2024, but I remember hearing that it was under 5,000 fish.  That would be a 75% drop in the last 6 years!

I remember reporting on the Delaware River when I wrote the LL Bean Fly Fishing for Striped Bass book back in 1994.  Striped bass numbers in the USA had staged a dramatic recovery and anglers in the know were fishing at night in pools way up the river, far beyond where any living person had ever previously seen striped bass.  There can be no question that the influx of striped bass in the Restigouche is the direct result of the explosion of bass in the Miramichi.  The point is that this completely out-of-whack striped bass population is already having serious impacts on other great salmon rivers besides the Miramichi.  What are the fishcrats at DFO thinking about?

Someone said to me recently, that they thought that perhaps DFO mistakenly believed that the striped bass were more economically valuable than the salmon fishery.  Actually, I doubt that DFO feels that way.  They have no economic studies at all to indicate it.  There is no licensing of striped bass fishermen, so they don’t know how many there are let alone how often they fish or how much they spend on their fishing.  They can’t possibly claim to have any idea at all of the relative socio-economic value of the two fisheries.  What’s more I doubt seriously that it matters to the DFO even a little, and for that I’m grateful because it is a very minor consideration compared to whether or not they are wiping out the premiere legacy species in a river system.

The question isn’t whether stripers or Atlantic salmon are more socio-economically valuable.  I understand that the man who runs the Miramichi striped bass tournament is big on talking about how much more valuable the striper fishery is than the salmon.  I doubt he is correct, and I’m certain that there is no socio-economic study that compares the two.  But true or not it is still not a valid issue!  What price do we put on the Miramichi’s population of wild Atlantic salmon?  Atlantic salmon are wild and wonderful creatures in every sense of the word.  They inhabit and provide an excellent fishery in nearly all reaches of the Miramichi’s freshwater habit, 95% of which never sees a striped bass and never will.  Not that stripers are not a great fish.  They are!  I specialized in striped bass for more than 50 years, have caught thousands on every kind of tackle and written three books and dozens of magazine articles about striped bass fishing.  But there has always been room for both species on the Miramichi, and there is today too.  It just requires some decent fisheries management by DFO.

The plain truth is that there is no excuse for DFO not to immediately do whatever is necessary to balance the populations of these two species.  I have no idea why they have let it all come to this, but letting it happen knowing full well what was going on, is really a crime.  I do know that we have to do everything that we can to save the Miramichi’s salmon.  It also looks like the Restigouche and its tributaries may need the same help.

Time is getting short to buy your MSA US dinner tickets.  It’s shaping up to be a great evening.  We have some super people planning to attend, and we are honoring artists Luther Hall and John Swan.  Whether you are attending via Zoom or in person, you don’t want to miss this great gathering of the salmon fraternity.  Here is a link to buy your ticket today. 

Thanks for reading.  Brad Burns