Brad Burns Fishing

Fishing Friends – Ted Williams White Birch Lodge  – Many of us who fish the Miramichi are fascinated by its history of attracting some remarkable people to its waters. At the top of that list stands Ted Williams who was not only a very high profile personality, but someone who became much more involved with the river than simply spending a long weekend at an outfitting camp. Ted’s popularity is particularly broad based because, …Read More →

The raise of water from Dorian gave us the fastest fishing of the fall.  I hooked 7 one morning on the lower Cains.  They were all grilse.  Here is Jason Curtis handling one of them for release.   If you turn on the volume you can hear Jason mutter that the one in the next video was nearly 20 pounds.   Here is a nice salmon going back at Doctor’s Island.      , …Read More →

Every fall I’m struck with the beauty of the wild flowers that grow all along the banks of the Miramichi and Cains Rivers. There are definitely some nice ones during the summer too, and in both cases they are a bit of a surprise when you look at the April banking, scraped clean of all soil by the ice during runoff. The autumn flowers, though, have a special appeal, perhaps born by the knowledge, …Read More →

Miramichi Atlantic Salmon Run Final Counts for 2019  The final numbers for the DFO salmon counting traps used to estimate the number of fish returning to the Miramichi each year are in for the 2019 season. These numbers are available at this link https://inter-j01.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/asir/report/count in case you want to study them for yourself. The trap numbers are posted for the fifteenth and last day of each month June through October.  You can select from, …Read More →

Fishing Friends – the 2019 Atlantic salmon season ended on the lower Miramichi and Cains Rivers on October 15. I’d been in Blackville since September 5th, and while that is a long time to be in camp, I enjoyed every minute, and the unbroken stretch provided a good perspective of how the fall run developed on these rivers.  I had a line in the water some portion of every day during that period. I’m, …Read More →

Late Summer Fishing: Miramichi and Newfoundland – On Tuesday 8/13 I drove from Falmouth, Maine to Blackville and fished the Miramichi at Doctor’s Island that evening. Conditions were not good with low and warm water, and I knew it, but I was itching to cast a fly into the Miramichi.  As anticipated there were few to no salmon holding there with evening water temperatures around 22C/72F, but we did see one jump, and that, …Read More →

Fishing Friends – Recently the New Brunswick Department of Fisheries and Oceans published the July 15th fish trap numbers for the Millerton trap on the Southwest Miramichi, as well as the counts for a number of other locations in the Province.  As a general statement the numbers were quite positive.  The Northwest Miramichi was the only notable exception to trend.  Larger salmon – as opposed to grilse – numbers were up marginally on the, …Read More →

Fishing Friends – The early season in review – I’m back from nearly a month in my camp at Campbell’s Pool in Blackville – the joys of retirement…  In summary the run of salmon through the first few days of July on the Miramichi – the early run – felt more substantial than recent years, but the fish weren’t any easier to catch.  In June we had the seemingly wonderful scenario of a moderate, …Read More →

For six days ending on May 28 Dawson Hovey of Fredericton and I fished the Cains, SW Miramichi, and NW Miramichi with guide Jason Curtis for the various species of game fish that are all available at this stage of the season. We caught both sea run and river-resident brook trout, lots of striped bass, and danced with salmon, but were unsuccessful in boating either a kelt or a bright fish.  It was very, …Read More →

Last of the kelts and early brights – Looking back at last year’s blog I see that I called this time of the season  “the tipping point” and in fact it is.  Most of the kelts are gone from the river now, though there are still some, and as I reported earlier it wasn’t a bad season all things considered.  Country Haven reported releasing over 1,000 spring salmon this year – which is well, …Read More →