Typically the ice runs on the Miramichi River
in mid April. This year the river ran
on the 22nd of March. On only
two other occasions since 1830 has the ice run this early. The age old standard maintains the best black
salmon fishing is during and immediately following ice out. Spawned out Atlantic salmon overwinter in the
river, holding in back channels and bogans, waiting for the spring freshet to
flush them back to the ocean. There are,
however, other factors in addition to ice run which influence the salmon
exodus. Water temperature and photo
period also interact to stimulate the migration back to the ocean, which is
timed to meet the influx of sea smelt ascending the river to spawn. With the fishing season opening on the
fifteenth of April most of the black salmon could have already returned to the
ocean. Would water temperatures in the
mid thirties and short overcast days hold the fish until the season
opened? Would the fishing be as good as
it normally is or would it be poor due to the lack of fish left in the
river? These were the million dollar
questions.
For almost a decade we have made the
annual pilgrimage to Upper Blackville to fish for Miramichi black salmon. We fish the Upper Blackville section of river
for several reasons. Large numbers of
fish overwinter here because of the abundance of back channels and islands
which provide the slack water they need to rest in. Unlike areas farther upriver which lose their
fish earlier, the fishing in Upper Blackville remains good longer as waves of
salmon descending from upriver replenish those fish which have already left for
the ocean. Perhaps the biggest draw for
us is the cost to stay here and fish.
Because we have friends with camps on the river who allow us to stay for
a nominal fee without hiring their guides, we can fish for half of what other
people pay. We bring our own canoes, motors, gear, and food. Four of us have New Brunswick guides licenses
so each boat has the requisite guide.
Most importantly we can come and go as we please and not have to follow
someone else’s camp routine which limits our time on the water. On a typical day of fishing we will be on the
river at 5:30 am and return to camp at 7:30 that evening. If the weather permits we will stop for a
brief cook up on one of the many islands.
Late
in the afternoon of the fourteenth we arrived at the Upper Blackville Bridge
after a three and a half hour drive from Fort Kent. The locals had already begun to burn the
grass on the nearby islands and the air was tinged with the acrid smell of
smoke. A few early blackbirds
tentatively cackled in the alders along the river bank. The river ran low and clear. With great anticipation we carried our canoes
to the water and hung our motors. Several locally built plywood skiffs were
already tethered to the bank, waiting for the season to open the following
morning. We stood quietly savoring the last of the sun’s warmth before it fell
behind the adjacent hill. Another winter
was behind us and in a few minutes I would again feel the familiar throb of my
Johnson outboard as we motored along. |
| "Motoring Up To Mercury Island" |
The Miramichi is a riverman’s dream. The water runs deep. The channels and bars are well defined. The
bottom is beautifully cobbled. Skeg
breaking boulders and rock piles are scarce.
As we turned into the current and headed upriver I thought of all the
water we had covered through the years, the salmon landed and the salmon lost,
and of the new adventures ahead of us.
Josh turned his Scott canoe down river and headed to the camp to begin
preparing supper (homemade fries and a seventeen pound turkey cooked in hot
oil). John and I would make the run
upriver past Donnely Brook to the old Sweat homestead to look things over. Water levels on the Mirimachi fluctuate a
great deal and strongly influence where the salmon lay. A quick look at the river would make finding
fish easier in the morning. On the ride back down to camp we saw good fish
jumping at the Government Pool, Mud Pool, and along the Pines suggesting there
would be plenty of salmon around for opening day.
Supper proved to
be enormously satisfying. Josh’s
culinary skills were impeccable as always.
The Peterson’s rottweilers lingered on our camp porch well into the
night, snuffling lustily amongst our coolers, hoping for more leftover fries
and crunchy turkey skin.
 |
| "An Early Start" |
At 5:30 the next morning a good frost had settled on the
thwarts and gunwales, but the outboards started crisply and were soon pumping
warm water as we rigged our rods and loaded up for the day. Josh and Tim pulled a hole shot and were off
to the Fork and the Knife Pool before John and Barry climbed into my
canoe. We eventually motored past them
to the bar at the head of the Mud Pool and set the anchor. The Mud Pool is more than a pool. It is a long run of 1000 feet where the main
flow of the Miramichi swings into a broad bend leaving a curling seam of slack
water along the southern shore. Salmon
traveling down river sweep across the bar at the head of the pool and hold in
the current seam. There are two ways to
fish the Mud Pool. It can be trolled or
you can drop fish it. Drop fishing
simply means anchoring and casting (with a sinking fly line), lifting the
anchor after a while, drifting back a few feet, resetting the anchor and
covering the water with more casts.
Trolling usually produces larger fish but will put the fish off after
more than three successive passes. Drop
fishing does not disturb the fish as much and typically produces more fish, but
the fish are mostly grilse, not the larger adult salmon we enjoy catching the
most. I wanted to drop fish first
because it sometimes just feels nice to cast a fly with a good rod. My ancient Sage eight weight comfortably
launched sixty feet of sinking line into the main flow to my left. I settled into the old routine: bracing my knees against the canoe seat and
slowly twitched the Renous Special back to me with short strips.
We were there
only a few minutes when Luther’s head guide motored up with his usual sport (an
attorney from Massachusetts) and dropped anchor two hundred feet below us. Within two minutes the sport had hooked his
first fish, a grilse. The fish was
played, landed and released quickly. A
few more minutes of casting and another fish was hooked and landed. And then he hooked another fish. “You know, he’s not stripping that fly on the
swing. He’s letting it dead drift,” my
always insightful cousin John commented from the canoe seat behind me. The sport’s raucous laughter and bean town accent
irked me. Each time he hooked a fish he whooped and laughed loudly. I watched him disdainfully; a city boy
fishing from another man’s boat. But he
was good. His casts were relentlessly
efficient and precise. He was
disciplined. He fished the close water
first and gradually fanned his casts out covering the farthest water last. He was using a light rod (not a spey rod) but
could easily pick up forty feet of sinking line and with two strokes lay an
eighty foot cast. His technique
suggested he had spent considerable time on the water. He was more than likely a
man of means whose flies had plied the renowned waters of Labrador’s Pinware
and Eagle Rivers. He had probably tamed
many Restigouche, Matapedia, and Bonaventure salmon. So I did exactly what he
was doing and I started catching fish.
When you fish away from home it always pays to beg, borrow, and steal
ideas from the area’s experts and this guy proved to be a big help. A dead swing with no retrieve was just what
the fish were after. Within an hour I hooked, landed, and released six
grilse. Each fish took on the swing, no
twitching or stripping was necessary.
Because the water was so cold the salmon took gently and
lethargically. Most of the time I
noticed a vague resistance and raised the rod tip to find that I had a fish
on. The fellow from Boston continued to
rack up fish. He had caught at least a
dozen grilse by the time I landed my sixth fish, but he had hooked only one
mature salmon and had lost that fish on the second jump. Barry had been casting unsuccessfully from
the front of the canoe and John had not yet wet a line. It was time to move on so we pulled the
anchor and headed upriver to the bridge.
 |
| "Josh Tails A Good Salmon" |
 |
| "Tim Holds The First Fish Of The Season Landed From Josh's Canoe" |
Just below the
Upper Blackville Bridge salmon will commonly lay along either shore, but with
the low water it was impossible to troll there without immediately putting the
fish off. When we motored through the
previous evening we swung out into the slack water behind each of the bridge
piers and noticed conditions were ideal for fish to hold there. Normally with higher water there is too much
current behind the concrete piers for the fish to stop and rest for any period
of time. There was now a comfortable six
feet of water and enough of a lazy back current to appeal to a salmon. I lined the canoe up with the seam between
the main flow and the back current. Barry and John stripped out their sinking
lines and settled down for a good slow troll.
As I drew up to the pier and began to creep under the bridge I jokingly
cautioned Barry not to break his rod against the concrete abutment when he set
the hook. Somewhere eighty feet behind
us his Golden Eagle lazily cruised the edge of the eddy behind the pier. A few moments later the tip of his eight
weight Sage dipped as a salmon took the fly.
He set the hook with whole hearted, lip ripping commitment. It was a good salmon, not a grilse, and it
immediately took the remaining turns of fly line off his reel and surged into
the backing. His rod buckled deeply,
bending down into the cork grip as he tried unsuccessfully to put the box to
her. It was a magical moment of
helplessness as a good fish makes its first seemingly unstoppable run. We have a trick we use when a salmon becomes
uncooperative. Instead of trying to drag
her back upriver to us, we back the canoe down to her recovering line as we
go. When we draw alongside the angler
drops his rod tip and applies pressure to the side of the boat away from the
fish. This pulls the salmon out of line
with the current and forces it to turn and continue fighting. Barry did this and that got that fish pretty
riled up. She came up hard and
fast. She didn’t shake crazily like a
smallmouth but that yard of salmon came down with a ponderous thwack. It looked like a large toilet had been flushed
where she hit the water. We were in like
Flynn. There was considerable give and
take over the next ten minutes. There were a couple of close calls. Once, when I was trying to tail her on the
motor side of the canoe (always a bad idea) she dove, surged under the boat,
and started to thrash and jump on the other side. I had to lift the foot of the outboard and
feed the line out and around the rear stem so Barry could continue fighting
without breaking his rod tip. Eventually
he drew the salmon alongside and I was able to tail her, remove the hook and
release her. We continued working the
edges of the slack water behind each pier and landed several more good fish,
all of them between 31 and 34 inches in length.
 |
| "Barry With A Representative Fish" |
Just above the
bridge is a large island that is nearly a half mile long. At the foot of this island is a stretch of
calm water that is a common holding spot for traveling fish. Usually several local boats are anchored here
drop fishing. Today was no
different. A thousand feet above this
island is a second island where Barry landed his largest salmon ever, a few
years ago. I have never seen a local
boat fish this spot. I can only surmise
that no one bothers fishing here because they all focus on the mouth of Donnely
Brook (a very productive but heavily pressured location) a few hundred feet
upstream. We headed up to “Barry’s”
island. We had also checked this spot
out the night before on our reconnaissance run.
The ice run had been particularly violent this year due to the sudden
spell of extremely warm weather in mid March. In several places the plowing ice
had changed the pools and runs the salmon lie in. Behind Barry’s island was one such spot. The deepest cut of calm water was no longer
centered below the island but had moved fifty feet to the right (as you face
upstream) against the edge of the right hand channel. I motored up the left channel and sneakily
side slipped the canoe over to the very foot of the island. Barry quietly lowered the anchor and we sat
there for a few minutes anticipating what was to transpire. I took my rod, turned to the back of the
canoe, and set my knees against the rear seat.
I shook out a few coils of line and watched it snake through the
guides. I flicked a few short casts out
the left side, first covering the nearest edge of the most promising
water. The blue smelt drifted through
unmolested. On the third drift I felt
the line tighten and I set the hook. It
was a two foot long grilse. He gave a
good showing of himself but I had him alongside in a couple of minutes. The next cast produced a carbon copy of the
first fish. This one was also landed and
released in short order. By the next
cast my fly was drifting through the middle of the best water and a good salmon
struck solidly. As I brought up the rod
tip she turned and bullied her way out of the slack water. As soon as her flank caught the main current
she took off like a kite in a gale and burned out fifty feet of fly line and
backing. She didn’t cotton to being
attached to me and came up in a classic Atlantic salmon leap; standing on her
tail and throwing the hook. “Those stupid
barbless hooks,” Barry offered from the front of the canoe. Even though you plan on releasing all your
fish it still hurts to lose one. Feeling
the thickness of the tail as you grasp a salmon between its adipose and caudal
fins and support its head and front shoulders in your other hand is a sublimely
satisfying feeling of completion. That
wasn’t going to be happening with this fish.
My hands had just been deemed unsuitable for the task. I resumed casting and in a few minutes hooked
and released another grilse. Things got
quiet after that. After thoroughly
covering all the water on both sides of the canoe for another half hour, the
urge to find more big fish prodded us onward.
We continued; alternately trolling and drop fishing as we made our way
upriver toward Mercury Island. We fished
Donnely Brook, the Stop Sign Pool, the Ledges, and the Sweat homestead. At noon time we stopped and briefly conferred
with Josh and Tim. They had been having good luck as well, landing mostly adult
salmon. Tim was using a dark fly pattern
called the skunk. Between both canoes we
had already released more than thirty fish not including the occasional brook
trout which were becoming collateral damage to our salmon flies. Tim had landed and released a handsome hen
that was 38 inches long (a bologna).
 | |||
| "Tim Holds A Bologna" |
By mid afternoon the fishing had slowed considerably. The salmon were short taking and most were
getting off before we could land them.
We expected things to improve as evening approached. We had managed to land and release twenty one
salmon and grilse from my canoe thus far.
At six o’clock we met up with Tim and Josh. John climbed into the monstrous Scott square
stern. John was in charge of supper for
the night and the guys would run him back to the camp so he could prepare the
evening meal. Barry and I motored back
up to the bridge hoping to dredge up a few more fish before dark. On the first pass behind the piers Barry
hooked another good salmon just as we drew up under the bridge. This was another 36 incher and I encouraged
him to go easy on her. She surged out
into the backing. Barry didn’t like the
look of lime green backing on his reel spool and he palmed the reel
aggressively trying unsuccessfully to break her run. “Let her do what she needs to. This is the last good fish of the day and we
should savor the fight,” I suggested.
The sun had settled behind the nearby hill and a cool chill consumed
us. Tendrils of mist were settling over
the water. We had entered the bewitching
hour. For salmon fishermen and deer
hunters it is the last mystical hour of the day that holds the greatest
promise. Far behind us Barry’s salmon
leapt into the air and crashed back into the river. It was a beautiful thing to see. The only thing that could have made a more
perfect image would have been a steady, light rain breaking the surface of the
river with a myriad of raindrops. I
shifted the motor into reverse and slowly backed down to the uncooperative
fish. Barry played her hard and fast
just like he always does. I tailed her,
removed the hook, and as I was lifting her for a picture she gave a desperate
lunge and twisted free, falling out over the gunwales into the river. “That’s nice.
My two best fish of the day and we have no pictures of them,” Barry
complained. “Listen, I would have been the
one holding them and no one would have believed that you caught them anyway,” I
quipped. We picked up two more salmon
(both were 32 inchers) and a grilse before we turned the canoe down river and
headed back for supper. The final total for my canoe for the day was
twenty-five fish. Even a twenty fish day
is a good day of spring fishing on the Miramichi. We were pretty satisfied with the results and
we had two more days to fish. We made an
honest effort and we had been reasonably rewarded, something that doesn’t
happen all that often back at home in Maine.
 |
| "John Lands A Good Fish On The Second Morning" |
 |
| "A Handsome Hook-Jawed Male" |
As
I motored through the Mud Pool in the twilight my thoughts drifted back many
years to a large salmon we had lost there on a similar evening. Tim had hooked her in a steady rain. Barry was in the front of the canoe playing another
salmon at the same time. Tim’s fish was
much larger and I was focused on helping him first. She was a ponderous hen comfortably over
forty inches (one of the very best we had ever hooked). When he finally drew her alongside I reached
down to tail her but the neck in front of her tail was too large for me to
firmly grasp. She took to thrashing and
sprained my wrist as she crocodile rolled free, tumbling under the canoe and
cutting the leader on the kevlar skid plate covering the rear stem. We never got a picture of that fish either. But we were okay with that. Tonight after our bellies were filled, the
dishes were washed and the camp windows were steamed up we would talk about
that fish.
 |
| "Playing A Salmon At The Mud Pool" |
