25th April 2010

Not a bad evening, nice on the water.  Saw a number of fish rising and slapping the surface along the shore and a few grilse jumping.  Maybe it's time to try a floating line and bombers!

Hooked into two grilse and a salmon in under an hour. The salmon ran for the shore and ended up in about 6" of water. I half expected to see it leave the river and head across the intervale toward the highway.  I had BEN (the dog,) all primed for a foot chase, he was disappointed when the darn thing got off in the weeds.  Smartest fish I ran into all evening. 

Report from down river, the boys tied into some (fish I mean). Well at least JASON broke the ice and landed his first ever salmon and a grilse, his  partner, well that's another story.  If Debra ever found out they are not working on the farm house there'd be hell to pay :)  Guess if you have lots of $$$ that's what contractors are for.

21st April 2010

Gorgeous day, just had to go fishing this evening. 

Wendy & I hooked/released (4) nice size trout and about a 14# salmon.   BEN - the dog - just sat in the boat eating peanuts, what a mess the shells are all over the boat, we usually feed him bananas not as messy, but the Irving Garage was all out.

20th April 2010

Nice day to be on the river.  Still a few salmon and 14-17" trout around, the motoring is getting difficult.  One boat tried to run the rapids as if it was higher water and lost the bottom end of his motor - better to take it easy - those parts are expensive.  A good set of chest waders and you can fish along the shore line often with just as good the results.

18th April 2010

(click on photo to enlarge)

Lika with a salmon.

Greg, his first catch with his own fly, tied moments earlier on the shore of the Miramichi. Had to keep that one the fish died of laughter.

Cold raw day with rain bordering on snow.  Spoke with some guides who report the fishing has slowed in this area but they are still taking salmon, no grilse. Some nice trout hooked, season doesn't open until May 1st. 

16th April 2010

A little late getting this out but the Miramichi calls:

To our surprise we still had fish in the river, considering it's been open for over 3 weeks prior to the April 15th season.  We experienced decent fishing on the 15th and a little slower on the 16th.  Our group hooked into a dozen or more on Thursday and 8-10 Friday.  Checking with a local guide and they took 17 yesterday and 8 or 9 when we spoke with them around noon, as with us all fish taken were salmon.  I have only seen (1) grilse taken so far.

Water is very clear and continues to drop.

13th April 2010

Two more sleeps :)

Miramichi has been dropping for past couple of days, dropped 6-8" overnight.  I had the boat for a run this afternoon, at the rate the river is falling navigation through some of the rapids will soon be difficult.  The water is very clear. 

On the backside of one of the islands in one small area, I counted 13 eagles in the air and trees, two or three were large adults and the rest juveniles of varying sizes. This is an exceptionally large group for this area, they must have had a good winter.

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.