31st March 2010

(click on picture to enlarge)

This is what we have been waiting for - the upriver ice - it's been running now for over three hours which means the majority of ice between Boiestown and the head of the river has worked through, lets see, 15mph x 3 = roughly 45 miles of ice.

30th March 2010

Into our second day of rain which brought the river up and moved a lot of ice.  I don't know how much ice is left up river but I think you can rest assured it will all be gone by April 15th and maybe the salmon migration with it, we will have to wait and see.

25th March 2010

I'm in there somewhere :)  (click to enlarge)

Temperatures have returned to normal for March and we have had two days of snow and freezing rain.  Melting process has slowed and although there are open patches of water, there is little ice movement.
An up date as 1800 hr. a report of channel open from Clearwater to Rocky Brook and a good portion of the ice has moved out through Hickey Pool down river from Porter Cove Bridge.

On the critter side:

We watched a house cat and otter stare each other down on the river ice, both finally went their seperate ways which was probably a good thing for the cat.  Dozens of robins on the river ice eating sap flies I presume. A visitng eagle drops by daily to lunch on some unfortunate critter  (probably a deer)   who didn't make it through the winter and whose remains are on the ice.

Our cottage bookings are picking up, check our calendar for available dates.

18th March 2010

One mild winter although lots of time for the odd snow storm.  If this trend continues the Miramichi is going to open early, as you can tell from the attached photo taken today in front of our house.  The Nashwaak is open and low, the Saint John below Mactaquac Dam is open, the Miramichi is melting out so far with very low water.  Although there will be a little run off, the snow pack is not high and this will probably lead to low water conditions, which may directly impact on fishing this year, we will have to wait and see.

For those wondering, this may be one of those years we see the Miramichi River open before the start of salmon season April 15th.

Cottage bookings are picking up, we had three today and I haven't had the opportunity to start promoting it yet.  Again we have a healthy booking of fishermen, but also clients staying with us for a variety of other events, canoeing, visits, weddings etc.  Our hunters usually book a year in advance.  We have been unable to accomodate a lot of requests for fishing, prime summer time was booked last year, although there are still some Fall dates that could see decent fishing.

I have attached a photo of a 16ft. canvass/cedar my neighbour has up for sale, It appears in good shape, I don't know the make and I know it's "purple" but that's the colour she liked and this gives the purchaser the opportunity to paint it any colour they wish :)  PS: It's posted on Kijiji.