Salmon fishing improves

With water levels being very low over the past week on the upper stretches, the lower stretch from the Mouth of Cains River down to Quarryville had perfect fishing conditions.

The river temperatures were from 62 Fahrenheit (16.6 Celsius) in the morning to 74F (23.3C) in the evening and featured some of the longest days of the year for fishing.

With last week being a good week for fish coming into the system, this week had even more fish showing up and many more being hooked.

On the lower stretches of the Main Southwest Miramichi River, we had over a foot raise in the water level on Monday from the rain. And there was a great run of fish on the move from it. A lot of anglers were hooking grilse and salmon up and down the river. Marty Marshall's 10-year-old boy hooked two grilse below the Mouth of Cains River on dry flies.

Glen Keenan landed his first salmon of the season, Ed Colford and his son Alex were catching fish, Lester Vickers landed a nice salmon, Louis Cormier landed a salmon and his buddy Tommy landed his first after a two-year drought and notice I did not mention his last name!

Joel Kitchen landed a couple of salmon and a couple of grilse, Lanny Burke landed an 18-pounder, Darren Sullivan

landed a grilse, Bliss Arbeau and a few other local anglers landed some grilse in the Upper Blackville bridge pool.

I also landed a grilse and lost another on a Green Bomber with orange hackle and white tails.

On the upper stretches of the Southwest Miramichi this past week from Wilson's Sporting Camps: We had several fish on but very slow takes under these conditions. There seems to be a decent number of big salmon on the move and of course with a rise in water last night and cooler temps we are expecting good fishing this week.

Reports from the Cains River said the fishing was slow on the lower stretches of the river. Renous River anglers are hooking a few fish and with the rise in water it should produce some better fishing this weekend.

The Northwest Miramichi had a good number of fish in the system this week with anglers hooking a few grilse and salmon. On the Little Southwest few fish were showing.

With a little rain in the forecast for today and some mild temperatures in the lower 20's for the rest of the week we should start seeing more fish and more anglers. I would recommend green machines, undertakers, moose hairs and some bombers.

Tight lines.

* Rodney Colford is a third generation salmon-fishing guide on the Miramichi River and has been guiding fishermen ranging from greenhorns to some of the finest fly fishermen in the world for 27 years. His fishing reports appear every Thursday in the Times & Transcript