September 23rd, 2022
The most recent week on the Miramichi certainly had its highs and lows in terms of water height and angler success. The start of the week the water on the Cains River stretches that we fish and the upper stretches of Miramichi were at their lowest of the season but each day there seemed to be more and more fresh fish coming into the system. Many of us were feeling that it was one of the better years in terms of the number of fish we were seeing in the start of the fall run and then bam … we were hit by heavy rain on Thursday and then Hurricane Fiona in the early morning hours of Saturday. In spite of the system receiving upwards of 50 mm of rain and experiencing high winds, our anglers persevered and some were able to hook fresh fish in different stretches on the river.
With this significant raise of water many of the fall run fish will continue their journey up river which will improve the fishing in the higher stretches of the Cains, Renous and Main Southwest Miramichi rivers. The fresh rain will also jumpstart the holding summer fish that weren’t moving much and it should make for a lot more takes for anglers as the water begins to drop to fishable levels.
This past week we welcomed back a great group from “Tight Lines Fly Fishing” based out of New Jersey. Andrew and Nancy Moy have been coming to Country haven for many years now, hosting groups of anglers from their region and putting on spey casting clinics for their clients and our guides. Andrew is among the best spey casters in the world and if anyone is interested in spey lessons, angling travel adventures or fly fishing equipment we’d be happy to connect you with them. They enjoyed some decent fishing this past week and will be back again the first full week in October with another group!
After the big raise of water, the rivers are once again receding at a good rate and we are relieved that Hurricane Fiona is now behind us, with little to no impact on our local communities or the river. However, our thoughts certainly go out to those folks across Atlantic Canada who were less fortunate in terms of damage from the Hurricane and we hope that everyone is okay and that they can all recover and rebuilt as quickly as possible.
Reminder to click on the fish pics below to view in larger format!
