Fishing the Miramichi Aug 1, 2016 to Aug 5, 2016

Itinerary was fish Crawford stretch Aug 1- Aug 3 2016 then of to Ground Hog Landing Stretch to fish Aug 3 to Aug 5.

I left Cape Breton to returned home to Moncton just in time to get ready for our fishing trip to the Miramichi on Aug 1 to Aug 5 2016. There was some prep work like co-ordinate the supplies, put the sides on the trail and repair the dry bags. My wife Sylvia made the Crawford Crew 10 year anniversary sign for the back of the trailer. This sign was to remind us that me and my three great friends Denis, Aaron, and Chad have been doing remote fishing trips for 10 years. We jokingly called ourselves the Crawford Crew because the Crawford Stretch is where we did our first remote trip 10 years ago. Somebody was looking out for us when on our 10th anniversary we were able to go back to the Crawford Stretch as this stretch has to be won in a government draw.

I stopped at Escape Anglers in Riverview, N.B. for some flies the day before but the boys wanted to keep the tradition of stopping at Trout Brook Fly Shop. I bought a fly line because I didn't like the orange one I had on. I was thinking that the orange line had something to do with my low catches I had since I bough it.  My suspicion were reaffirmed when I seen an underwater test some big outfit did and the result was the line was much more visible which could distract fish from the fly.

Reunited at the Crawford Camp Pool.
We arrived at the Crawford camp at 2pm. We reunited at the Crawford Camp Pool which is where we first started fishing together 10 years ago. We took some pictures and clinked our beer cans together to toast our 10 year anniversary. We unloaded our gear then drove our ATVs 10 km to the warden’s camp to get our camp key that was missing. The warden camps sits on the banks of the spawning ground so we looked into the water and seen many nice trout and salmon. Only the maintenance workers were there so we did not get the camp key. This was no biggy because we are so far in the woods that seldom anybody drives by.

A beautiful evening fishing.
We returned back to the camp and enjoyed a chile supper that Sylvia my wife sent with us. At 7pm we went fishing. Denis and I went to Split Rock Pool and enjoyed a great evening of fishing. We had many salmon go for the fly and ended up hooking 6 salmon(grilse) and landing 2 each. Denis also caught a nice 14 inch trout. We kept the trout but the salmon was catch and release. The weather was perfectly comfortable with not many flies. Few evenings have I spent with such great fishing and perfect comfortable conditions.  It is a terrible thing not to be thankful so Denis and I both felt blessed and thanked God for providing this incredible evening.

On the banks of Split Rock Pool there is a lean-to shelter with a big stone fire pit in front. Signatures and recorded salmon counts engraved into the walls gave testament that this shelter dates back to 1962 and many great fishing evening were had. As I read the historical engravings it seem to tell a story of 50 years ago. I wondered did the guys that stayed here have as much fun as we had. I suspect that some of the people that stayed in this lean to shelter have passed away or is no longer able to fish. Do they still think of the great evening they once had here? If their health allows do they come back to reminisce. Don’t they know that this place misses them?

In the mean time Aaron and Chad went to Black and White Pool and caught one grilse each.  Chad had a big salmon on but lost the battle. Man these big salmon sure do fight hard.

The rest of the evening was spent celebrating our 10 year anniversary drinking Glen Breton Whiskey, beer and eating more chile.

Day 2
Denis removed his waders from the wader rack and the camp key fell to the floor as if it were dropped to us from God. Perhaps a sign that somebody was looking after us.

Denis and I were fishing at 6:27a.m. at Black and White Pool and fished to 8:54 am. Denis caught a grilse.  After leaving Black & White Pool Denis and I stopped at every named pool on the stretch. We were exploring and not fishing much. The low water conditions rendered most of the pools only a foot deep. Even the bridge pool was low but the Black and White and Split Rock Pool provided all the great fishing we needed.

Day 3
We were fishing a bit after daybreak. More salmon grilses were caught. This was the last day at the Crawford Stretch before we moved to Ground Hog Landing. Instead of taking the time to pack everything tight I decided to make room on the trailer by driving my ATV 26 km to the next camp. The Crawford stretch treated us good but we knew Ground Hog Landing may not be as good because of the low warm water condition.on the Sevogle River.

We arrived at the Ground Hog Landing camp and was eating supper when I said,  "man I wish it would rain."  30 seconds later it clouded over and it started pouring. Aaron and I washed up under the down pour then the 4 of us went fishing. Aaron caught a nice grilse on his second cast at Peabody Pool.

The evening was spent eating one of the great meals that Chad cooked up. If memory serves me correctly, it was a steak night.

Day 4

We got up at day break and went fishing. We enjoy a glorious sunrise on our way to Peabody Pool.

 I caught a grilse in Middle Pool mid morning. A grilse is an Atlantic salmon which has spent only one winter at sea before returning to the river. Salmon grilse are often indistinguishable from multi sea winter (MSW) salmon except by scale reading.

Like most fishing trips we fish early morning return to the camp around noon, have dinner then sleep for a few hours in the afternoon. We are usually up until 3a.m. telling lies so if we want to enjoy the day we have to catch up on some sleep sometime so we sleep during the afternoon because the fish are less active. After catching up on some sleep, we then go fishing until dark. The evening fishing paid off for Denis because he landed a nice grilse in Middle Pool.

The night was spent eating great food and having a few cold ones and playing guitar and trying to sing.  Denis being smart went to bed around midnight, but Chad, Aaron and I went outside and watch the stars, told jokes and drank some whiskey until 3:00 a.m.. Getting up early to go fishing was a bit painful.

Day 5.
We were up again at 5a.m. and off we went fishing. We broke from the routine of fishing to light my wood rocket stove to boil some water to cook up a few meal packs. The meal packs come in all sorts of flavours and they are both tasty and filling.

Chad is no stranger to a fishing rod but the low warm water and very small time slot the fish were taking caused Chad to get skunked on the Ground Hog Landing stretch. He caught 3 or 4 grilse when we were on the Nor-west Miramichi Crawford stretch so it was not so bad. We all take turns getting skunked so there is no shame in it but we like to trash talk each other about it just the same.

The total salmon catch was 21 hooked 14 landed.

Leaving is never easy.
You would think 5 days would be long enough to spend with 3 other stinky guys but sadly we had to turn our trucks towards home. These great times we have on our remotes fishing trips are reserved for only those who know.


You can purchase the rocket stove by following the link below.

Bear Attack

Black Bear Attack.

If you have an encounter with a black bear, your best course of action depends on how the bear is acting.  It is a misconception that black bears attack only because you are in their territory, you are a threat and/or the sow is protecting their cub.  The most serious and fatal attacks is brought on by food stress and the male black bear sees you as prey.  A hungry male bear is more likely to kill you than a sow protecting her cub.  

Situation 1.  If the bear growls, paws at the ground, chop his teeth, makes short runs toward you then stops and appear to be aggressive,  you are in luck. He sees you as a threat and wants you to go away.  If you slowly back away he knows you got the hint and most likely you will never see him again.  Have your bear spray ready but do not make threatening motions to a bear that is acting aggressively.  Just back away and chances are you will be ok.  

Situation 2.  If the bear is being quite, calm and is approaching you, this is worse then if he is acting aggressively.  He is not scared of you and is stocking you because he is considering you pray. Over 90 percent of this type of bear attack is done by a big male and ends up being deadly if you do not deter him from attacking.  With this type of bear encounter, it is time to make noise, scream at him, show acts of aggression and deter him from thinking you are an easy pray.  Use sticks, rocks, noise makers and better yet, if the bear is close enough, it is time to use bear spray. With this type of attack, bear spray or a gun is your best defence. 

 It was said before, “If a bear attacks, lay down. He will leave as soon as you are no longer a threat”.  Well if you are food it doesn’t work like that.  As for me I think I would at least try to fight. A big strong surveyor in my home town got attacked and tried to fight and remembers being hit so hard he went flying and doesn’t remember anything after that until he was at the hospital.  He crawled out of the woods approximately a mile and was picked up on the side of the road all scratched and beat up.  It was assumed that once the bear deemed him no longer a threat, it left him alone. The bear did not see him as pray so did not eat the surveyor but  I hear that he has some very big claw marks scares on his back.  

Because of the extensive time I spend in the woods, I have seen over 5 bears including the one I hit on a 3 wheeler. My most dangerous bear encounter comes to mind.  I was salmon fishing in the Nor-West Miramcihi when a bear crossed the river less than 300 meters upriver.  I just waited for about 5 minutes and thought he would be long gone so I started working my way up river to fish the pool.  After fishing my way up river 100 meters, I looked up and seen the big black bear had silently works it’s way down river towards me and was now less then 100 meters away standing on the bank. He was on his back legs peaking over the thicket looking down at me in a curious way.  Maybe he was just curious, maybe not.  He disappeared behind the thicket as he went back on 4 legs.  I heard him work his way farther downstream on the path and I screamed to my buddy Denis that a bear was coming down the path.  Maybe it was this scream that deterred him but I never seen him again. Trust me…. I didn’t miss not seeing him again.  

The best two ways to avoid coming in contact with black bears is make lots of noise as you travel through bear county and don’t camp beside your food.  A noise maker, like wearing a bell is a good choice.  Also If you are camping hang your food in trees away from your camp area. These methods usually keep you from coming in close contact with bears. I carry bear spray just in case. 

Here are some other facts about bears:

• Bears that kill before are much more prone to kill again. 
• There is around 800,000 black bear in North America.  A bear is not a violent creature or there would be more attacks.  Many, many unreported encounters resulted in the bear running away.  I am just glad that Donald Trump is not a bear. 
• Around 70 percent of fatal attacks the victims were alone with no bear spray.  Less than 10 percent of the fatal attacks occurred if there were three or more people present.  I suppose you could be selfish and think I cannot outrun a bear but I can outrun my buddies. Well if you stay together, you are way less prone to attack.  

I hope this helps you play safe.  

Here is a link to a guy that had a narrow escape with a bear. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PWHNIbS8cE

P.S. Kinda wish I didn’t write this today.  I have to go timber cursing tomorrow and all this bear talk is giving me the willies.

Cain River Trip 2014

After a long hard Canadian winter, the warm sun on our backs was welcoming and brought on a flood of river memories and emails. Our cravings to indulge our thoughts deeper into a trans of the coming river trip dictated that we meet and spend a few hours together for some planning. Well as usual laughter and beer over shadowed our planning process and a couple of hours later we walked away not knowing what the hell our plans were except that our busy scheduled coincided on June 15 to June 19 of 2014.

June of 2014 arrived and with it organizing, planing and training had to begin. My training aids was my pipe, pipe tobacco and beer. I had to build up my endurance for I knew I would be exposed to more of the same during the trip..

After performing a refit on my canoe(patching a hole and repainting), I carefully organizing my supplies into the dry bags and felt I was ready to go. Now the challenge was to endure waiting for three more days until we set sail.... a feeling that a small child has for his wait for Christmas day.


We arrived at the put in under the Doaktown Bridge on route 123. We bid our driver Albert farewell(which is Chad's good friend)and guaranteed him we would meet him at Salmon Brook Pool at 7:00 P.M. five days from now. Albert knows his way around this neck of the woods and we could trust him to find his way into Salmon Brook Pool through old remote logging roads that were barely on the map.

The Cains is a slow moving river. To canoe it without scraping on rocks, water levels has to be above summer levels. The excitement of fast rapids and falls is non existent from the Doaktown Bridge down to the mouth but it is a river where you can enjoy the scenery, friendship and fishing without having to break for precariously navigating through white water rapids riddled with boulders and big drops.

Typically, we like getting our tents set up around 4:00 pm cook some trout then have the evening for fishing, camp fires,lies, guitar playing, and a few refreshment well into the night. Our energy runs out long before our conversation and laughter,  but as soon as we awake we start all over again. The first night, June 15,2014, was no exception. Around the Upper Trout Pool Area, under the comfort of the hardwood trees and a roaring camp fire, we partied well into the morning before cashing in and calling it a day.

The second day was colder then average for this time of year - around 15c. Early morning a moose crossed 150 meters downstream from where I was fishing. The day progressed with lots of stops and the cooking of freshly caught trout. The day came and went in a flash and before we knew it we were setting up camp again. We tarped our tents to shelter us from the rain.
A few showers didn't stop us from the usual guitar playing, having a warm fire and cold beer. We all slept well and stayed dry.

We awoke to a warm hot day. Mid morning Aaron's neck was getting burnt so he borrowed my hat. Denis's forearms were getting burnt so he borrowed some wet grass from mother nature and tied it to his arms. Our third night camp was near Blackville at a pool I think is Dr. Island Pool. The camp spot was up a hill about 150 meters away. Dragging the cooking gear would of been a task so we cooked and ate our supper by the river's edge. Despite the dropping temperature, we had a bath in the icy water. I am not sure what was worse, the cold water or hauling the camp gear up the hill. It was however a nice place to camp and worth our efforts.

The forth morning greeted us with a bright sunny day. I dressed light thinking it would be warm. It started to rain, the temperature dropped and we all got wet and I got very cold. The down pours caused the day to be rained out as far as fishing was concern. We paddled hard for several hours until we got to Fin Pool where we found a wet campsite up on a hill. We pulled our gear up the bank and about 100 yards into the wood, quickly got a fire going and pitched our tent complete with an over head tarp. I changed into dry cloths and put on my rain gear and started cooking supper. The rain let off and although it was not an ideal camp site we though it would be decent spot to spend the forth and last night of the trip. Well we got more then what we bargained for because about 3:00 a.m. we all awoke to strange screeching noises and branches being broke by an animal that would have to be as big as a bear. Now folks we are not new to the woods so we figured the screeching may have been an owl, but the breaking of big branch and trees had to be by something big. I joked a big foot but the boys settle there minds to be a simple old black bear with no claws and dull teeth. The sounds seem to go away and we fell back to sleep for another couple of hours.

The 5th morning was cold and I dressed for it. I used my neoprene waders, a sweater and an oil skinned rain jacket. Despite the cold and rain we were all fairly comfortable and enjoyed the day fishing and floating down the river. Early afternoon the temperature dropped again and we had one heck of a hail storm. The pellets were bouncing off my hooded rain coat like a rubber ball on pavement. We sat in wonderment of the storm and somehow enjoyed it's splendor.

After the storm we continued our way downstream. I spent an hour or so fishing at Pickards Pool which is about 1 km upstream from our take out at Salmon Pool. I caught a few small trout and like most of the fish we catch, I released them back into the river to live another day.

We arrived at our takeout at Salmon Brook Pool. We walked our boats up Salmon Book about 100 meters to a steep embankment where we unload our gear. Off in the distance we heard our drive coming up the woods road. The timing was perfect so it wasn't long before we had our boats and gear loaded on the trailer and heading back to Moncton. The trip back home was endured with many colourful stories each replete with exaggeration and humour.  I am not sure when we will be back but I will sure miss this 40 km, 5 days on the Cains River.
This book will surely kindle your sense of adventure.

The last 6 years

My previous fishing group fell apart since Marvin's death. Life took us separate ways, Denis C is out west and Demien is somewhere in Fredericton.
Life has it's ways of taking and giving back and fortunately I was recently given the best three fishing friends a guy could have.

Friends and co workers of 15 years namely Chad, Denis D and Aaron are blessed to share several fishing excursions a season. This year's plans are shaping up all ready. We applied for a crown waters draw and planning a 3 day canoe and fishing trip down the Cains River which is the biggest tributary of the Miramichi system.

We mostly fish the Miramichi river systems. I also take trips to my homelands in Cape Breton Nova Scotia where my mother and I fishing countless amount of days from as long back as I can remember. Moms favourite pools is Harris Pool on the Baddeck river. At certain times of year the trout fishing was good but most days we went more to enjoy the trans that the smooth flowing river put us in. Now when fishing Harris's my brothers, sisters and I all have a strong since of nostalgia and a flood of memories. These fishing memories with mother will hold me in her arms for ever. Man I miss the old girl.

Cabot Trail

For those of you who traveled the Cabot Trail knows just how beautiful it is. Here is a few items off the beaten trail.

Fishing Albert County, NewBrunswick, Canada

There has been some decent bass and trout fishing in the Petitcodiac System. Some trout and bass are moving into the tributaries of the Peticodiac. The fishermen I have talked to seem to believe that the schedule for migration is a bit off but there are some bass and trout being picked up in the lower parts of some of the tributaries.

For more information visit my web-site at www.lostcaper.com

Miramichi

Unlike the Nor-west Miramichi, the Main Southwest Miramichi is doing
well. The Trout are gone by Querryvillle and has been reported as being
far up river. The main flow of salmon has not yet hit Querryville. Down
stream from Querryville there is some salmon being picked up.

For more information visit my web-site at www.lostcaper.com

Salmon

When the leaves fall from the trees in fall, the salmon settle into their winter home on the upper reaches of the salmon rivers. They spawn and house themselves under the shield of the winter’s ice. In spring the adults head down river to the ocean and feed for the summer. Some make their way to the coast of Green Land then back to the very spot where they were hatched. On the way down the river these fish are easier to catch because they are hungry and feeding at every opportunity. They are referred to as black salmon or slinks, etc... because they are dark in color due to water staining and skinny because of the lack of winter food supply and their spawning ritual. These black salmon heading down river do not fight as good as a salmon that just returned from the sea because the black salmon are worn out. If you decide to fish these worn out salmon I highly recommend you try to capture the salmon quickly, take a picture and release it back in its realm as quickly as possible. A speedy capture and speedy release helps ensure the fish’s survival; they are already in a week state so a lengthy fight on the end of a line will surely be it's death. A quick capture and release gives it a chance to survive and maybe next year you will catch it again after it gains 15 pounds.

A Tribute to Atlantic Salmon

When the leaves fall from the trees in fall, the salmon settle into their new home on the upper reaches of the rivers. There they spawning and house themselves under the shield of the winter’s ice. In spring they head down river to the ocean and feed for the summer. They make their way to the coast of Green Land and back to the very spot where they were hatched. On the way down the river these fish are easier to catch. Being a guide I can take you to these incredible fish. I practice catch and release and try to capture the salmon, take a picture and release it back in its realm as quickly as possible. A speedy capture and release help ensure the fish’s survival on its journey to Greenland. Maybe next year you will catch it again after it gains 20 pounds.