Welcome to Brad Burns Fly Fishing
Nov 21 2024 – Letter to Minister re Request for Immediate Action – Science Based Plan to Save Miramichi Atlantic Salmon
This website offers the books On the Cains and Closing the Season, and shares with my fellow Atlantic salmon devotees information about the Miramichi River’s Atlantic salmon fishery. Other books by me such as Maine to Montauk and Black Spruce Stream can be purchased through my “author’s page” on Amazon at this link.
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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 →
Millerton and Cassilis Fish Traps The Province of New Brunswick estimates the salmon run in both branches of the Miramichi River each year by maintaining fish trapping nets located a short distance below the head of tide at Millerton on the Southwest branch, and at Cassilis on the Northwest. These traps capture the salmon and grilse live without injury, and they only capture a certain portion of the fish going by. Their efficiency, …Read More →
An Odd Season for Weather The 2016 season is now history, and putting everything in the perspective of modern times the size of the salmon run this year was quite good in terms of multi sea winter salmon. But while grilse totals were far above the scary low numbers of 2012 and 2013, they were less than last year and only about half of the long term average annual return. I’ll do a separate, …Read More →
I returned to Maine on Sunday after spending the last two weeks of the season on the Miramichi and the Cains. I’ve got a lot of experiences and information to share with you about that trip and the entire 2016 season. It will be a little while before I can get that all together, but we have all winter now to reflect on the past season. I’m still excited about this great Cains River cockfish,, …Read More →
Another Week of Back to Back Raises We had 40mm of rain over the Miramichi and Cains River watersheds just before last week’s trip, and it brought the water level to 1.6 meters on the Blackville gauge. That was the most substantial raise in a while. The water then dropped fairly quickly only to receive a half inch of rain again on Friday. I’m not saying this is all bad, but every weather, …Read More →
Fishing has been generally slow on the Miramichi, with tiny amounts of rain and mostly dry and sunny conditions. The second half of this week, though, saw a decent amount of fish moving up the lower river. Some with sea lice were reported, but many of the fish were dark and getting them to take was no easy task. We did manage to hook a few of them including this nice 14-pound fish that took a smaller, …Read More →
Recent Fishing Okay, but Not Remarkable I just spent 3 days at camp in Blackville fishing the Miramichi and the lower Cains. We had a decent raise of water from what seemed like quite a moderate rain, and I guess the ground up there – unlike here in Maine – was soaked from various rain events in late August. In our section of the lower river there has been a fairly steady trickle of, …Read More →
Hitting it Right! The Miramichi is blessed with a 16 week season during which one can reasonably hope to hook a bright salmon. That’s the longest Atlantic salmon season in North America, and while it is a wonderful blessing there are some issues to deal with during the middle of most seasons. The most important of these issues are warm temperatures and water height. All those who regularly fish the river try and end, …Read More →
The 2016 season so far and the coming fall run This morning, Tuesday August 10th the water temperature from the automated station in Doaktown is a relatively cool 67F. After an even cooler start yesterday the temp reached about 74F, and that is not too bad for an early August mid-afternoon reading. It will be warm the next two days, but then it looks like much needed rain for the weekend – and hopefully, …Read More →
Fishing Friends – Early last week I canceled my planned fishing trip to the Miramichi. I follow a number of the websites that I list on bradburnsfishing.com that show current water height and temperature and recent rain at various points in the Province. I put that info together with the Canadian Govt. weather forecast and try to estimate what fishing conditions will be like. The weather looked far too warm despite the encouraging reports, …Read More →