Fall is in the Air!

At the risk of boring some readers,I must say this has been one heck of a year for our Atlantic salmon.It has been non-stop action for most of the season so far this year,and the fall run of fish has arrived on time.Some of the old-timers had voiced concern over the fact that the water has stayed good all summer and they feared that all the fish had entered the system and there would only be a trickle of fall fish.Not so! As I write this post,there are literally thousands of salmon,many of which are over twenty pounds,entering the Miramichi River and its tributaries.I just arrived home after a great trip with two close friends and we were not disappointed.Stafford B.of Storytown and good friend and fellow guide Allen D.of Chipman and myself had a great time raising fish and losing some,as well as landing a couple.Stafford landed a beautiful grilse,silver and fresh from the ocean.After the fish have been in the river for a while,they will start to darken down,so if you get one that is silver in color,you know it is a fresh one!I hooked and released a nice salmon of twenty lbs. and raised another half dozen fish that just wanted to take a look.Allen also had a few come up for a look,but they can be quite fussy about what they will take.Most of the action has been on small black bear hairs and large bombers fished dry.This is where your guide can make the difference in your sucess or not.The water conditions dictate fly size and pattern,and your guide should be able to assist you with your fly selection so you can increase your chances of a strike.But these fish can be very frustrating!.Can you imagine having giant Atlantic salmon jumping and rolling all around you in the pool and not getting a strike? Get used to it! It happens all the time,but with persistence and lots of patience,after a while a fisherman will be rewarded with a strike from the greatest fighting fish in the world! I have to laugh when someone starts comparing the different game fish and their fighting abilities.There is no fish that swims in fresh water that can fight like an Atlantic salmon.Period. That being said,the lowly chain pickerel provides many more hook-ups and I can honestly say I enjoy fishing for them almost as much as salmon,just because you are almost guaranteed to see some action. With a change in the air and fall slowly creeping up on us,we are getting our fire-arms ready and we are starting to do some serious scouting for big-game.My neighbor across the river held his hunt for field geese and his group harvested twenty-two geese.This is less than last years hunt at forty-eight,but they still had a good hunt.Although we have no tags for moose this year,my buddy George P. practically begged me to come to his moose camp and call for him! Don't worry George,we'll be out to visit you and I'll bring along one of the best callers around,Allen D. Allen was taught to call by an old-timer,Bob McBeth.Old Bob is gone now,but he taught Allen all he knew before he passed on and Allen in turn taught me how to call.I will have to talk more about Allen's exploits in the bush on a later post,but I will tell you Allen's biggest buck dressed out at three hundred lbs. Allen likes to take them in the neck and that's just what he did with this buck as it was running away from him looking back as it ran down an old logging trail.Allen is an excellent guide and a very good friend and I will be talking more about him in the coming weeks.The birds are starting to flock up and the bucks are starting to lose their velvet and are getting their hard horns.We will continue to make trips to the Miramichi for salmon,but we are also starting to set up for those big North Woods bucks,so keep posted aned give me a call or shoot me an e-mail for more information on what is happening in our beautiful part of New Brunswick!