Ice Fishing Coming to a Close

Winter is slowly winding down for another year here in New Brunswick,and none too soon! This year it seemed as if we were getting a storm every second day. The northern half of the province bore the brunt of the snow storms we had,with some areas piling up snow banks ten or twelve feet high. This does not bode well for the deer herd up north,with the deer biologist's predicting heavy losses in the northern reaches of the province. We are very lucky to have escaped the worst of this severe winter weather and the damage it does to the deer herd. The weather we had this winter affected the amount of ice fishing on the Grand Lake system.It kept even many of the die-hard fishermen home,but not all of them.In the photo for this post is one of those dedicated ice fishermen who refuses to be forced to stay at home. Louis L. from Rogersville has been retired for several years now and has routinely travelled back and forth from his home in Rogersville to Chipman and to the province of Quebec for the ice fishing.Now the trip from Rogersville to Chipman is around one hundred kilometers each way and Louis was making the trip two or three times a week. Why? Because we have some of the best fishing in the whole country,let alone the province. I said to Kenney the other day that we really don't appreciate the fantastic hunting and fishing we have in our back-yard. Louise has been fishing about five hundred meters from where Ken and I live,so I guess that would qualify as fishing in our back-yard. How good is the fishing? Well,as you can see from the photo,Louis has forty or fifty yellow perch that he caught in a few hours,and Louis does this each time he goes out. He is also catching chain pickerel,although he isn't targeting this species. Thats pretty good fishing in my book. The limit for yellow perch is one hundred per day and I can personally guarantee any sport can catch a limit any day of the week,during the summer season. As a matter of fact,I'm so sure of this fishery that I can say that any sport who books a fishing trip with us during the summer and doesn't catch a limit of perch will get to go again,for FREE! How's that for a deal? Although I'm talking specifically about yellow perch,the fishing is also excellent for chain pickerel,white perch and shad,when they are running,regular brook trout and sea-trout and of course Atlantic Salmon. The spring salmon fishing on the Miramichi is nothing short of world class! It's the only time of the year when you can routinely hook and release dozens of these mighty fish. Of course there are some days better than others,but overall it is still a fantastic fishery that can only be found in this part of the world.You can catch other species of salmon in other places ,but not the elusive Atlantic salmon with such consistency.If any of you sports would like to experience any of this fishing,single species or multiple,just contact Ken or myself and we'll have you hooking up in no time!

Dale's Biggest Bucks

Whenever someone askes me what was the biggest buck I ever killed,I always say it was a nine point buck that dressed out at 230 lbs. Now that is a pretty big buck even for our standards up here in New Brunswick,but as you can see from the photo in this latest post,I've killed deer with much better head gear than the deer I always say is my biggest.The horns are big enough for entry in the New Brunswick record book as a non-typical.But that buck only dressed out at 192 lbs. and I never think of it as my biggest buck. I've killed several bucks that dressed out over 200 lbs. and I even threw the horns away on some of them because I just considered them to be average 7 or 8 pt. racks. So I guess it's safe to say that quite a few hunters consider the dressed weight of their bucks as the guage as to whether its a trophy or not. The 17 pointer that I'm holding was killed in Coal Creek, 7 kms. north of the Pioneer Lodge.This was and still is a great area for large white-tail bucks. There have been a couple of Boone and Crockett bucks killed in this area,both typicals and non-typicals. Old Charlie M. of Coal Creek has killed some great bucks in his back yard,literally. His mother,who homesteaded on Coal Creek and used to spear Atlantic Salmon every fall,killed her best buck when she was 80 yrs. young,a huge ten pt. that dressed out at 240 lbs. This buck was just shy of the B&C record book as a typical. But if you asked Charlie or his mother what her biggest buck was they always say 240 dressed,even though this buck had a great set of horns. With the winter slowly starting to turn to spring,we are getting some reports from the DNR biologists and they say we will experience winter losses of 10-12% of our deer herd.These are fairly normal figures and small deer will make up the largest share of the deer that don't make it.So Ken and I are looking forward to looking up those big bruisers that we have been chasing around and we are predicting another great deer season in 2008. We'll see you all there!

It's That Time of Year Again!

Yes,it's that time of year again.You know,flu season and the time of year when ol' wiley coyote is up to his dirty tricks.I have been out of commission for about two weeks now with a flu that kept me on my back and and out of the bush.I've just been nursing myself back to health by sipping broth and eating Tylonol.But Kenny has been out and about and he tells me that the deer are herded up now because of the snow cover and the coyotes are starting to move in on them,hanging around the edges waiting for a chance to pick off any young ones or those that are showing any weakness. I got one report from the village of Doaktown,which is about 40 kms. to the north,that a pack came right into the village and killed one of the town deer that the locals had been feeding.This is not the first time this has happened,but it's been a few years since the last time. I think when the snow pack reaches a certain level,they find it easier to move in on these town deer and pick them off. The next six weeks will be a critical time for our deer herd here and all we can do is hope for mild weather to take away some of the snow.Ken and I will also be organizing some hunts with the locals to try to thin out the numbers of those howling devils.Our motto up here is kill a coyote,save a deer. That's just the way it is.We have long held the belief that our coyotes up here in the Northeast are more wolf than coyote and recent DNA testing has proven conclusively that these animal are indeed approximately 65% red wolf, 35% coyote and 5% domestic dog. Its too bad the price of fur isn't higher,because we have some very capable trappers up here that wouldn't be long thinning their numbers out,but the price of fuel just doesn't make it profitable enough for serious trappers to go after them. One good thing the deer have going for them is they went into the winter in very good shape,as can be seen in the photo in this post.So we'll be keeping our fingers crossed and we'll be out there trying to call up some of those dirty buggers and try to provide some relief for our deer.The last two weeks of the 2008 deer hunt has been booked,but we still have some good time slots left for any sports looking for one of our big Northeastern Bucks.Just send an e-mail or give me a call and we will fix you right up.