What more could we ask for this third weekend of May on the Banks of The Miramichi River. Well I bet if you ask just about any Atlantic Salmon angler, that first catch of the bright's, on a new season are remarkably one of the greatest hook ups one can have the honour off catching. This beautiful chrome football shaped animal that swims our mighty rivers are amongst the King of the sport fish of our wonderful planet. And people all over the world have this same religion for the Atlantic salmon as you do. And yes this is the weekend the past 3 or 4 years to start the ball rolling.
For many anglers it's all about the take when you have that lucky chance of seeing the roll or swirl as it takes your fly and then like a bolt of lightning your reel is screaming out into the backing and just when you think you have time, you see the end of the spool on your reel and your running out of line. And if your lucky, really lucky, you will have the chance to start running the shore line and retrieve some of the line before he (the salmon) takes control and does it all over again. What more excitement in fishing can you have than to have this happen on the first runs of Atlantic's.
Many fishermen and fisher-women are fishing for sea run trout coming into the system on the river. Anglers are catching a few trout in the 10 to 16 inch range. But no sign of any fresh trout yet from my contacts on the river. The gaspereau nets are down in the lower stretches of the river, the fiddle heads are up, so as we all know this is around the time the trout and salmon should be coming along.
And with the in between time laggering here on the Miramichi all we can do is wait for the salmon and trout to arrive. There is a very good volume of water and fish will have very little trouble coming in. And to some anglers on the lower stretches of the Main Miramichi this can be very tough as the fish can be just about anywhere. Most of the rivers like the Main SW, NW, Little SW and Renous are still high and could use a bit of a drop to help form the pools or have the fish hold up a little.
The weather has not been the best as we have been getting very high amounts of rain on the Miramichi over the past couple weeks. But the sky seems to be brightening up for the weekend and following week and should get the rivers into a great form for fishing.
Reports on the Restigouche River has over half dozen bright's landed that we know off. What more could get our hearts pumping here on the Miramichi than to hear about our northern river of the province hooking their first runs of bright's. Oh man, Oh man the season is starting.
Flies for the up coming weeks: Now that you can use singles and doubles with barbs as of the 15th of May you still should think about going barbless to help with releasing fish. I would suggest size 2 to 6 depending on the river your fishing you may want to go smaller sizes. Green Machines, Shady Ladies, Undertakers, Black Ghost, Butterflies and many many other great patterns.
Over the next week or the next few days someone will have the chance to catch the first Bright Atlantic Salmon on the Miramichi River system. And if you do please send us the picture and I will have it posted for you. All I need is a photo and or size of your catch, what fly, what river, we do not need the name of the pool or area you caught the fish. Just to know there in the system would be good. To view photos of my reports please go to my blog. You can contact me at www.miramichifishingreports.blogspot.com .
LOST BOAT AND MOTOR
Reward Offered
12 foot aluminium boat & 4 hp Mercury Motor
Boat lost from the Blissfield area.
If you have information please call 506-365-8940 or 506-432-0563.
Until next week may your reels be screaming on the Miramichi.
Rodney Colford Is a third generation salmon-fishing-guide and fly tier on the SW Miramichi River. I have guided fishermen ranging from greenhorns to some of the finest fly fishermen in the world for 27 years. Fly tying since I was ten years old and having the opportunity to fish with anglers all over the world. My favorite fishing buddies are my kids Laura (12) and Zachery(14) which both have caught there own Atlantic Salmon at age 4 & and 7. My fishing reports appear every Thursday in the Moncton Times & Transcript.
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| Pat Colford |
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| Clark Hallman |
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| Lunch break |
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| Ray Walker |
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| Ray Walker |
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| Rod on a nice rainy day |
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| My Daughter Laura |
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| Laura practising her guiding at age 12 |
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| Laura and friends |
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| Kyle Donovan's boys with a nice 3lb+ trout |
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| This trout a had nice rat in his mouth when they landed it, tail was still hanging out of the mouth! |
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| Same trout and rat and the ones that did not get away!. |
