Two Very Important Miramichi Salmon Developments – Plus Spring Salmon Updates

Fishing Friends: 

The first piece of important news is the formal adoption by DFO of what was apparently the Draft Wild Salmon Conservation Strategy that was aired last July.  At the time we remarked at what an incredibly disappointing document it was, especially since it has been many years in the making.  It was most disappointing because it held no specific action points at all.  There was a great deal of talk about who DFO would consult with, and how they recognized the importance of the salmon, even calling them iconic, and they acknowledged that modern hatchery work was an important tool for salmon recovery, but really there wasn’t much if any more to it than those platitudes.

The recent press release by DFO did say that they were going to pursue a river-by-river management philosophy.  That is vitally important because while DFO has tried to say that the catastrophic decline in the Miramichi was in line with other Gulf of Saint Lawrence rivers, that is proven to be absolute hogwash.  All of the independent scientists we have talked with, will privately – and in some cases publicly – tell you that it is crystal clear from the preponderance of good evidence that the Miramichi salmon are being destroyed by the out-of-balance population of striped bass consuming an unsustainable number of outgoing salmon smolts during their oceanward migration in May and early June.

The time for developing more frameworks and philosophies passed years ago.  The striped bass population must be netted down and then managed for a population of less than 100,000 spawning adults or there will very soon be no salmon at all left in the Miramichi system.  Just consider for a minute what a disaster that would be.  Additionally, once the bass population has been reduced, we must use all the modern hatchery techniques at our disposal to rebuild the Miramichi stock.  It can be done, and I know that the MSA and its friends have the basic tools to do it, but it is going to take a lot more than the $1M Canadian that DFO is talking about providing to support all new Atlantic salmon programs combined.  That is really an insultingly tiny amount.  Literally hundreds of millions have been invested in salmon on Canada’s west coast.    

The second piece of important news is that on March 14, lawyers for Save Miramichi Salmon filed a lawsuit in Canadian Federal Court to compel DFO to cease its improper and illegal management of striped bass and Atlantic salmon in the Miramichi, and take all necessary steps to restore and protect a viable salmon population in the river system.   A complete copy of the complaint has been posted to my website at this link.   I would ask you to read it, then fire away with any questions you want to ask me.  You can post your question at the end of this blog so all can read it and the response.  If you would prefer not to have your name shown you can send me a private e-mail at bigbass@maine.rr.com.

A full-blown trial with document discovery and expert witnesses could take a long time, and if that’s what it takes, we’re there.  There are possible tools for bringing this to a head much earlier, and SMS’s lawyers are exploring those avenues.  The Miramichi’s Atlantic salmon simply don’t have years to wait.

I just returned from a week on the River Naver in Scotland.  I’d had reports from rivers to the south of the Northern Highland’s Rivers, and they were quite good.  The good reports were especially true of the once very prolific River Dee which has had some notable catches this spring.  The Naver, it turns out, though, has been quite slow, and despite a great height of water all week the 12 rods fishing the river’s 6 beats managed only 3 fish, and I was not one of the lucky ones.  I did have two takes from what I am certain were salmon on both of my last two days.  I say that because of what I was fishing and where in the pool the strikes came from, but it was very slow overall.

The nearby Thurso, which because of its greater length has a much larger rod catch most years than either the Helmsdale or the Naver, has yet to produce any springers in 2025.  In any case, we had a great time on the trip.  Perhaps too great, as in spite of the Highland’s fishing style of walking miles up and down rugged hills and river banks each day and making hundreds of casts with a two-handed rod with sink tip, I gained back three pounds of the weight I’d lost in two months of being really careful this past winter.

There was one man in our group who was fishing one of the multi-density heads.  He did catch one of the river’s three fish and lost another and he only fished for three days.  Was there something about this shooting head that made a difference?  The man is an excellent fisherman, no doubt, but the pools aren’t deep, and I doubt that the height of the fly in the water column made the difference – though it might have.  The body of the head which had a floating base, then a fast sink section followed by an intermediate tip was probably a bit more submerged than a regular floating head with tip.  This may have made a difference in the speed of the swing because the more fully submerged head would offer more resistance to the water and therefore move more rapidly than a floating head which was slipping along the surface.  That’s really all conjecture on my part, but I am going to try a head like that more on my next trip to the Helmsdale next week.

Here at home, it looks as if the river ice is not far from the running on the Miramichi. The SW Miramichi river has risen

from a winter low of 1.2 meters on the March 6^th to 3.2 meters on the 9^th, it dropped all last week down to 2.3 meters on this past Saturday.  It is now rising again, and with the additional rain we’re having I expect to see it go over 4 meters.  As the river rises the ice rises up over the points of land that hold it in place and it starts to move down river.  It pushes against the land and itself, and it breaks up into smaller pieces.  I just looked at the MSA webcam in Boiestown, and where there was a fair-sized ribbon of water between the shore and the ice last night the river is now better than 50% open and flowing strongly.  There is no return to cold

in the forecast, in fact every day but one for the next week is well above the daily average high.  It looks like there will be no ice in our way for the opening day of spring salmon fishing.  Thanks to Eddie Colford and Darrell Warren for the pics.

 

 

 

There are two major salmon rivers that run into Ungava Bay.  These rivers are the Whale and the George.  I went to Pyramid Mountain on the George a couple of years

ago and had excellent fishing.  This year I got an invitation to fish a prime week on the Whale and decided to take it.  A number of my friends have fished the Whale over the years, and in some years the catch is truly remarkable.  One can never count on any particular catch in fishing – especially salmon fishing – but in these northern rivers the timing of the run is very compressed compared to rivers in the Southern Gulf of Saint Lawrence where bright fish enter from May to October.  When essentially the whole run enters during the month of August you know when to be there!

There is one more rod available when I am going during the week of August 17.  The price is expensive, but the outfitter’s costs are very high to run a camp in these latitudes and the season is very short.  The head of the group that has had this week for years sent me this link which will tell you a little bit about the trip.  The article was written by David Ledlie, a very experienced salmon angler who made that trip for years.  David was also the editor of the The Fly Fisher, the magazine of the American Museum of Fly Fishers.   A trip to Ungava Bay for salmon can definitely be a great salmon fishing experience, but it will unquestionably be an adventure that you will never forget.  Just send me an e-mail at bigbass if you have any interest.  As always in these things, I have zero financial interest in any aspect of someone taking the trip.

I’m heading back to Scotland on Sunday for two weeks on the Helmsdale.  With 20 years of fishing there under my belt, the Highlands of Scotland, along with the friends I’ve been able to make there, feel like home to me.  You can bet I’ll fish my ass off in hopes of putting a couple of springers on the board.  Beyond that, though, I’m looking forward to seeing stags walking across the road, having fish and chips at La Mirage restaurant and listening to my incredibly knowledgeable ghillie, John Young, tell me that he knows more about my casting abilities than I do.  Of course he’s right.

Best fishes, and thanks for reading.  Brad Burns