Mostly Salmon being Hooked on the Miramichi

Colfords Atlantic Salmon Fishing for the lower stretches of the South West Miramichi River August 10th 2009. There is know way around it and we are getting very use to saying high water on the Miramichi River. Yes! the river is still very high for the lower section off the river. But the good news is that there are good numbers off fish and most pools (if you where they are from all the high water) have fish holding in them.

The past few days we have been hooking mostly salmon and not seeing to many grilse. Good friend Joel Kitchen still has that horse shoe in his vest and the last 3 days has 11 salmon and two being grilse out of the 11. Most of Joel's fish were hooked at our two lower pools the Half Bar Pool and Vickers Bar Pool. Rick Trenholm, Joels son in-law also landed four fish the past 3 days at the same pools. They were fishing all from boats and hooked there fish on green machines and bombers. Jason Curtis also has been hooking a few fish at Wades Fishing Lodge just above our pools. His client landed four today using green machines. Jason had four big fish the day before yesterday all estamated over 20 pounds each he told me, and the fly again was a green machine and all from casting from the boat. The same went for me tonight, I started fishing tonight around 7:00PM and I landed a 15 pound salmon using a number 4 white tail green machine. I raised a few more but they would not hook up. Rick Trenholm netted the fish for me and said he was rolling a few above me from his boat also on a red butt green machine. I rolled another as well on a christmas tree bomber number 2 hook.

Fisherman at the mouth of Cains River were hooking fish and said they were seeing most of the fish on the Cains River side. One guy said they saw several fish jumping up in the Cains. Good reason why there jumping on that side I would think.

The fish we were catching all week had no sign of sea lice and were dark in color but very aggresive when they took the fly. These salmon were out into the backing before you could say salmon!

The water was in the low 60's this morning at 62F and this evening 67F below the mouth of Cains River. The weather for the rest of the week looks good except for a few showers but the temperatures are in the low 20's until Friday where they are reporting some hot temperatures up into the 30's! Maybe we will see some summer!

Back in a day or so!
Tight lines,
Rodney Colford
Guide for the lower section of the Miramichi & Cains River