April 23rd, 2023
The big rain at the start of last week along with the melting snow unfortunately impacted fishing on the river for couple of days with grass and trees floating by. The river rose approximately 4 ft and but it cleaned out much of the edge debris and it should now be a lot cleaner for the remainder of spring. When the water started to drop and the clarity improved, the hooking really turned on and we had a lot of happy anglers enjoying the sunshine and the fishing.
The majority of our anglers all had great success on the water, with some doing better than others, but everyone hooking fish. Our guests seem to be hooking far more large salmon vs grilse which makes for a lot of fun fighting big healthy fish. With the cold water, these big salmon are putting up a great fight, and all seem to have great energy and seem a little fatter than in some previous seasons. This may be due to the lateness of when the river froze or perhaps it is just a function of a few late schools of fish coming in after the fall season ended. The word from anglers from tidal water all the way to Doaktown and above is that they are hooking solid numbers of fish. Many salmon are still well up in the river system and will have to work their way back down to the river and that fact, combined with a late ice out, should have our guests hooking decent numbers of salmon and grilse over the next couple of weeks.
It’s always exciting to see guests who hook their first-ever Atlantic Salmon, and this past week and weekend we had many in that category and they will now be hooked for life! The Cooper family had a very successful bachelor party trip and they had loads of fun on the river hooking fish and making memories that will last a lifetime thanks to this wonderful spring fishery on the Miramichi.
