26th August 2010

Slow fishing doesn't hinder this guy.

An excellent  time for the bird-watchers, a good variety of birds of prey around. This blue heron spent the afternoon visiting.

Main Southwest Miramichi is very low.  The nights are cool and there are a few fish moving pool to pool.  We haven't had rods on the water since last weekend so it's difficult to get a reading for the area. I've seen a number of fishermen at the Porter Cove Bridge but I haven't witnessed a lot of  success.  They are hooking a couple of fish each morning in the Salmon Brook area.

22nd August 2010

Lots of activity on the Main Southwest Miramichi today.  Kevin demostrates the art of casting to Lika. 

Lika's approach being that you can only catch a fish if the fly is in the water, as you can see. 

An eagle takes the intimidation approach to fishing by trying to take a fish away from an Osprey and our local connector flight between Boiestown and Doaktown looks on.

21st August 2010

Kevin out practicing his casting.

Kevin took a grilse in the slow water yesterday evening. He seems to be able to take fish when there are none around.  Nights are cooling down lots of water and lots of fish yet to come in so it's shaping up to be a decent Fall.

Mark won the "horse shoe competition" I've yet to determine the prize - tell the wives not to worry tonight's 45's.

Fish in the pool this evening, the boys raised at least one and are still at it.

When booking Moonshadow Cottage we often get requests for more information and pictures than this log will accommodate, which leads to another social media of the day Facebook.  For those who want more information  specific to the cottage click on the icon to the right or go to facebook.com site  type in Moonshadow Cottage Rental and feel free to add pictures or comments.

19th August 2010

Hermel and his brother relaxing on the Main Southwest Miramichi.  Thanks folks, we appreciated your consideration, the cottage was as clean as a whistle when you left .

Main Southwest Miramichi River is at it's summer low and although we have had cool nights the river is relatively warm.  Fish are holding in the cold water pools with the odd one traveling at night. Early morning is the best time to hit the water as the days are warming up quickly into the mid to high twenty's.  The pool infront of Moonshadow Cottage is not a cold water holding pool but salmon do hold at certain temperatures and times of year often moving out late morning.  Our advice at the moment until conditions change is to be prepared to find other entertainment, the water is warm, the fish not moving and the days too hot to stand on the river.  This is normal for late August.

We had a bird watcher visitng from out of province who was able to add a number of sightings to his list. 
Some of the birds we take for granted along the river are rare sighting in other areas such as downtown Toronto :)  The "nighthawks" continue to make their evening runs upriver, has anyone ever seen them come back down river?  The Humming Birds are attacking the feeders in droves, preparing for the migration which will begin in a couple of weeks.  We witnessed female Hummingbirds attack and kill a young male a few weeks ago.

As of this date Moonshadow Cottage is completely booked for July 2011.  On occassion we do have cancellations so do check our calendar. 

15th August 2010

A Moonshadow Cottage update - sounds a bit verbose! I've discovered that the various "web browser search engines" pick up specifics, thus our site gets more attention if I use Miramichi River rather than just  the word "river", makes sense.

The Miramichi River :) water level is low but navigatable to the  fish and although it has been warming we have seen fish working up river.  A friend fished a down river cold water holding pool yesterday and felt there were 100s of salmon in the pool with some very nice trout.  Needless to say I won't be anymore specific than that or those 100s of salmon may dimish overnight.  The nice part of this report is that there are a lot more fish headed our way.

Tubers:  As I sit on the deck overlooking the Miramichi River typing this log, a white plastic jug floats by. CBC radio carried a report highlighting our concerns about the amount of garbage that seems to be accompanying the new found sport of tubing.  CBC interviewed a tubing business on the Nashwaak River where the owner has made efforts to reduce the garbage from his clients.  Garbage in the river problem is not unique to "tubers", a trip down the Cains River, a non-tubing  river, was heartbreaking, plastic bags could be seen hanging among the shoreline highwater mark, bottles along the shore. Hopefully the Miramichi River will not suffer the same fate and Moonshadow Cottage is requesting that NB Tourism include some educational material regarding littering of our rivers and roads.

Special message for Carl Urquhart MLA and a family friend.  I recently read the Daily Gleaner article on your intention to donate a kidney.  That takes a lot of grit my friend and we are very proud of you.

Our visitors from Kingston are heading back today after spending a week at Moonshadow and we have a series of returning clients coming in.  A few days in September remain open, please check our calendar "moonshadowcottage.ca"

14th August 2010

Lika started the day off right with this salmon on a "brown/bomber". He rolled another fish just prior. 

Sorry for the blur, fish splashed the camera while netting it.  As you can see from the water, a pair of chest waders is more appropriate for the water level at this time of year.

(click on pictures to enlarge)

13th August 2010

Another one of 2010's nice summer days.

After Lika took a grilse on a green/white bomber in the slow water, we all loaded into the canoes and basically walked to the footbridge where we took out, the water being that low,

We continue to see fish moving. The fishing is turning more toward that seen in early fall where the fish are paying attention to bombers and dry flys on the slow water. 

Calls keep coming in for the cottage on short notice. At this time we don't have any dates open until September.  Check out our calendar.

10th August 2010

Back into the hot weather.  We have a heavy downriver run of "Tubers" and not much showing in the way of upriver fish although I did see someone with one on at the Porter Cove Bridge and Jean Guy e-mailed us advising that he tied into a grilse in Quarryville yesterday.  Weather prediction is for hot weather right into the weekend.

Tubers:  Enjoying the pristine river.  If only we could convince them to take their cans, bottles and plastic bags home with them.  Instead of measuring the water temperature this morning I conducted an alcohol check of the river water, 5% by vol - must be all that Budwiser Beer :)

Dale still owes Don $20 on the largest fish taken and don't forget, "cross below the rock".

8th August 2010

Please bear with us, we are having some technical problems with our main computer and working from a laptop.  We are accessing our e-mail through web-mail.  If you have not received a response to your e-mail please phone us at (506) 369-9880 or cellular (476-6757)

Not cool but a cold night, much akin to a fall day (cold night, warm days).  The pool hasn't been fished much so I cannot provide much for a fishing update other than we are seeing the odd one jump.We gave it a try around 6pm even with the heavy wind, saw two grilse & a salmon, hooked/released grilse taken on #10 green machine/white tag.  A bit of a circus as the backing line let go where tied to flyline so had to hand line the fish while rethreading and retying the flyline to backing.   Fish was so patient it deserved to continue on it's way.

5th & 6th August 2010

Kevin hooked into a salmon on the morning of the 5th (shady lady) and we saw the odd fish moving through during the day.  We didn't have the hits or see many fish as on the 4th and the morning of the 6th was a total wipeout, never saw a fish, although around 11am they started picking fish up at a pool below us, so a run may be coming in.  We will be giving the pool a rest at least until evening.

I have a raccoon problem. If any one is interested in owning some cute but nuisance critters.  I can round them up for you along with a small bear who thinks he's a raccoon.

It has been one busy summer and we have had to turn away bookings almost daily.  The only time we can accommodate last minute bookings during peak season is when we have a cancellation. 

We hope that our clients understand why we stick to our max 4 adult policy. The cottage accommodates 4 nicely more than 4 leaves clients with a bad impression and results in excessive wear & tear.

4th August 2010

Cloudy with lite overnight rain.  Water in good condition.

Fishing:  Fish showing this morning but not taking.  Around 12 noon heavy run of fish went through, lost a grilse, landed about a 13/14 lb salmon, raised six fish, some as often as 3 times all on a # 10 white tag green machine.  Placed some rods on the water around 3PM, raised three and saw a few on the surface. Same in the evening, raised a number of fish Aaron landed/released (1) grilse on blue smurf.

The past few days there have been fish runs from around 11 am - 1 pm.

3'd August 2010

Cloudy with lite rain, cool night, good water.

Stephen ending his day early with one headed for the BBQ.

Fish running all day, raised about 6 fish before we finally hooked into two.  One on a green machine/white tag and second on a modified shady lady.

2nd August 2010

Another nice day.  We had a colourful motorized para glider cruise up the river after a flock of ducks & Canada geese. The pilot make a wide turn around fishermen in the pool which was very curtious and appreciated.  I wish I could say som e tubers were as appreciative.  Yesterday and today we watched tubers drift down river surrounded by a sea of empty plastic pop bottles and beer cans :(  We even had a kayaker in the water snaring this trash as it drifted into the pool.

By 11:00 hr we have seen a few (3 or 4)  fish moving, not a lot.

10:05 Lika took a nice grilse on a green/white bomber in slower water.

1st August 2010

Hot day, lots of canoes, kayaks & tubes of every varity. 

No rods on this pool most of the day. As we had been seeing salmon jump from time to time all day so gave it a try in the evening, saw one fish and it wasn't interested in us so we packed it up and everyone went to the parade and fireworks in Doaktown.