Sept 12th, 2023
At the start of this past week, when we had some cloud cover, our anglers experienced some decent fishing which was encouraging! However 5 straight days of full sun and hot weather then followed, which slowed down the fishing considerably and we weren’t able to land as many fish as we would have liked to for this time of year. However we had a ton of fun as we hosted our first-ever women’s retreat which was a huge success and which will now become an annual event so stay tuned for 2024 dates!
Although the fishing was slow over the weekend, some of our female anglers were able to hook into fish and folks saw fish during many of the sessions. Most importantly however, everyone attending the women’s retreat and the Country Haven staff and guides experienced alot of great laughs, shared stories, had birthday celebrations and discussed fly fishing and the state of the Atlantic Salmon fishery. Above all else wonderful memories were made that will last a lifetime and it is precisely this type of special event that Country Haven Miramichi hopes to do more of in the future … perhaps beginner anglers, maybe parent and child events, maybe introducing kids to fly fishing or couples weekends … we are always open to hearing from folks with possible ideas!
Country Haven would like to thank the cast of characters that made this women’s retreat possible and ensured that it was such a successful event. One of our guides and good friend of the lodge, Ian Cavanagh proposed the idea of a women’s weekend last year and along with the Country Haven team made it a reality! The event leader, ASF’s (Atlantic Salmon Federation’s) Deirdre Green was fantastic and her commitment to Atlantic Salmon conservation and introducing women anglers to fly fishing is relentless … without her efforts and time this event simply would not have been possible! Alongside Deirdre was an amazing support team of fly fishing instructors including Julia Carpenter, Jacqueline Girouard, Cathy Colford (fly tying instructor) as well as our guest speaker Holly Labadie from the Miramichi Salmon Association (MSA), who provided an awesome overview of the lifecycle of the Atlantic Salmon and the good work that the MSA undertakes in support of the Miramichi River System. In addition, we would like to thank photographer and videographer extraordinaire, Tim Myers who has taken some amazing photos that we will be sharing in the days and weeks to come! We would also like to extend appreciation to many of our partners who kindly donated items that were used as prizes during the event including Far Bank Enterprises (Fly Water Travel, Sage, Redington, and Rio), W.W. Doak Fly Shop, ExploreNB, Loop Tackle, the Atlantic Salmon Federation, the Miramichi Salmon Association, Rocky Brook Fly Shop and Country Haven Miramichi. Lastly, but notably, we would very much like to extend a thank you to our pwn Country Haven Miramichi team who made this possible… our guide team (Tyler, Jeremy, Jamie, Colby, Ian), our kitchen and cleaning staff (Terri-Lee, Sharon, Angela, and Bernice) and our boss and biggest cheerleader for this event, Byzie Coughlan! Thank you to you all for making the women’s weekend such a wonderful event!
The start of this week has some cooler cloudy weather which should result in an uptick in fishing as water temps drop and the fish get some relief from the full sun-hot days. As we look forward to the latter part of the week we are keeping a close eye on Hurricane Lee to see where it will land and how it will impact us … it is currently projected to directly hit Atlantic Canada bringing both high winds and heavy rains however we only hope that damage from this storm will be limited. Unfortunately, we know the impending storm will impact some of our current bookings however we trust that the anglers who are impacted will appreciate and understand that we must put the safety of our guests and staff first. We will certainly have lots to report next week after the storm has passed and hope that once again our guests can be back on the river enjoying all that the fall Miramichi salmon fishery has to offer!
