July 2nd, 2022
Fish, fish and more fish is how guest Nigel Croft described it this week on the Southwest Miramichi! In all of his years of fishing on the Miramichi, he said he’s never seen so many fish in the river system, even the years when he landed over 30 fish during his stay. And no matter which pool he went to, he saw fish rolling and jumping. Although fish actually taking the fly and being landed has been a different story altogether! While the salmon are active, rolling on flies and chasing them, they really just seemed intent on taunting most of our fishers this week. And for the majority of the salmon that were actually taking the fly, they weren’t staying hooked long and there were many long line releases to the disappointment of many guests. Hard to say that is because they are soft takes or a function of barbless hooks? Flies of choice this past week have been peach bombers, white tail green machines and undertakers.
The word from folks up and down the river system is that the numbers of salmon seem really strong so far this year and anglers fishing in tidal water are also reporting healthy numbers of both large salmon and grilse. Our friends in Miramichi City also tell us that they are seeing salmon and grilse jumping every day which is really good to hear for the bright summer run. Importantly, there also seems to be good number of parr around in our stretch of river, which creates alot of optimism for future salmon seasons on the Miramichi system.
The warmer days of the past week didn’t seem to impact the numbers of fish coming into the system as fresh fish were reported arriving daily on the lower stretches. But the heat certainly did slow down the number of aggressive takes for the fly. The short term forecast calls for warm but not hot days, along with cooler nights and some showers so the take rate of the salmon should hopefully increase and we will see a few more fish being landed by our sports. Looking forward to keeping you updated as the summer season continues to unfold on the Mighty Miramichi!
