The Miramichi River, New Brunswick

I drove down to the Miramichi from Matane, at the base of the Gaspe Peninsula in Quebec, on a Wednesday night. My GPS, set to take the most direct route, chose that I should travel southeast on old Highway 108, A remote two lane road that travel straight through the Canadian Bush, the Forest primaevil. I was very excited about this route, thinking that this was finally my chance to see a moose again, all the signs were there, Literally.
Well I saw a moose and, I hope I never see one so close again. I had to slam on my breaks to keep from being killed by the furry, forest giant. I thought that a moose was about the size of a large horse, but that is far from reality, that first moose was so large that I am sure that with careful practice and cooperation on both of our parts I could have driven that rented Toyota Corolla right through his legs, and have tickled his sensitive belly on the way through, using the sun roof.

More likely scenarios have the moose crawling off the road with broken legs and damaged ribs, looking for a place to die and I would just float there watching the seen from the spirit world. Any way, it turned out to be a long stressful, terrifying ride in which I saw about a half dozen Moose, none as big or as close as the first.

So, I made it to Miramichi and met with a customer who has a plant right by the river, Good stuff, good stuff. And then I was off to Blackville, for my license and groceries, and then to the lodge were I would stay in a separate cabin and do my own cooking. It was truly and amazing cabin.

The first night I had trouble getting to sleep as I kept thinking about Moose and Bears, and how I was afraid of the on that night. Yeah, I used to sleep in an army tent when I was guiding the Talachulitna, saw bears from it a lot and I slept just fine at nite, but now I am a citified chicken.

The first morning of fishing started at 8 am, and we took the boat up to where the Barthalomew
River dumps into the Main Southwest Miramichi, here we cast from the boat using truly giant (5/0) salmon flies. I was using my 13’3” 7wt two hander, and I am not used to fishing with a two hander from a boat. We fished from spot to spot, doing the same thing until just before lunch we let out a lot of line and trolled around the river a bit.

After lunch my guide, took me to a run just down from the camp called Mountain Channel, and we trolled it. Then it was down to White Rapids, Which had beautiful shores for wading on each bank and awesome step and cast water for a good two hours on each back. We fished from the boat! But, we got a salmon. Then I asked that I be dropped on shore. My guide conceded and took me over to the inside bend.

I started at about the middle of the run, working a major current seam, and I mean rough water with standing waves meets smooth soft inside flow. It took about twenty minutes to get a grab once I was calf deep and fishing how I was comfortable. That first grab was a good sized hen, around 34". This fished jumped at least six times made strong, fast runs, I think more than that and it's body was rock hard, this fish was definitely a Kelt, but "black" really does not decribe this fish.

From that point on the trip totaly turned around. My guide, Jeremy, saw that I was happier wading he was all for it and we started looking for runs that would fish from shore at high water levels, and we found them. I really thought that lots of people would be fishing kelts with two handed rods already but aparently it is really an almost boat and one handed afair, but really I think that the early season is great for our style of angling, since the whole river is open for anyone to fish, while it is mostly private pools once June comes, and the fresh salmon fishing begins.

Anyway, I landed a grilse just after the first salmon on the same run. That was it for the first day.The next morning started out great. I hooked a salmon at the very top of White Rapids, but it came off right away. Then I landed a big Sea Trout (Sea Run Brook Trout) and Grilse, both on the hang down. Then at the very low end of the run I got a solid grab mid swing and then saw my backing head through the guides, on out for a solid hundred yards, followed by several
minutes reeling it all back in with a large salmon in tow. The fish rolled several time and made several other short runs, but never jumped. I got the fish in, and removed the hook which was in the fishes tounge. This fish was the biggest of the trip at, 36".

I landed another salmon on the outside bend, below White Rapids. It grabbed on my first stip as I finished the hang down. another Hen of around 34". This was it for the trip for me. My guide, Jeremy, landed two grilse from the boat one at White Rapids and one at Mountain Channel.

The Miramichi reminds me very much of the upper stretches of that great river in Wisconsin where Angler X guides smallmouth. Now it looks like the Menominee in may when the water is high and form the pictures I've seen, It even resembles the menominee in low water, which is most of the season on the Miramichi.I think I would like to try the Miramichi in summer for the bright salmon, but it sounds like it will not be remotely similiar to the spring. low water and tiny flies are apparently the rule.

New Brunswick Flag

Bristol Bay, Alaska

The Naknek River:

Flowing west from Naknek lake for 35 miles before dumping into the Kvichak Bay Branch of Bristol Bay. The river is known for having the largest run of Kings in Bristol Bay and this is probably due to the rivers emmense size. There is also a great population of large Rainbows.

I headed for the Naknek in July of 2003. My Wife and I made a visit to Rapids Camp Lodge for the second leg of our honeymoon. We landed in King Salmon which is several miles down stream of the lodge and then took a long van ride down the dirt road (King Salmon has no paved roads) to the lodge.

We took several day trips to other rivers and streams, taking one of the lodges float planes to rivers such as the Lower Morraine, and several others, but nearly every evening included fishing the Naknek with two-handed rods. Most of this was for Kings on a run across the river from the camp, usually fishing until midnight. While I really didn't land any big kings, I did hook a few big guys and I brought a few smaller fish, up to about 13lbs, to hand.

Even the Smaller Kings fought incredibly hard, incredibly similar to bright steelhead. They would go on screaming runs and jumped with abondone.

We also fished two handeders for the rainbows of the Naknek. One evening, I fished with Clayton, one of the guides, in the rapids that the camp is named for. We landed lots of rainbows in the low 20" range as they chased down bait fish. Mostly the evening fishing on the Naknek was for King Salmon, that despite being late in the run for most rivers, were vry bright and aggressive. There was a run just across from the lodge. This was a nice long run.

I also Fished one morning with Scott O'donnoll the Head guide, we fished runs up river from the camp and Got some really great fish including one truly big bow that he landed.

Scott O'donnell lands a solid July Rainbow

The Naknek has a considerable bear population, as does the whole area of Bristol Bay.

The Lower Moraine River:

This is a small river that flows into Lake Illiamna. We flew into to the river from Rapids Camp Lodge and then floated several miles of river in inflatable rafts called Water Masters, I have since bought three of these wonderful little boats.

We fished big rainbows on swung flies. The largest fish that I got was about 26" and the fight was great.

Chris Anderson and Scott O'donnoll guided my wife and I down the river and fished with us.

We saw lots of bears.

Headwaters

The Coast

In four days of fishing Rusty and I covered a lot of ground, going from the Sandy to the Coast.
Rusty and I started our trip fishing the Sandy River. We rolled tent camp and Fished the runs around the Ox, but we just weren't feeling it, even though all the talk was that the river was fishing. So we called up Kaufman's to see where the run was hot. Dude there turned us towards the Oregon Coast and a no name river there, said he had just had some great fishing there and, since we were up for adventure, we headed to the coast.
On the first afternoon on the coastal river, we stumbled around looking for good water, and we eventually found it, and on our second run I got a tug. On our third run I hooked steel and it broke free. Then it was dark so we headed for the City and got a motel in town. Great town with one of the coolest rock island right off the coast, called the haystack.
Our second day on the river went real cool. We drove from Pacific City to the run I hooked up on the evening before on some increasingly snow covered roads and ours were the only tracks. Rusty led the way and half way through the run he hooked and landed a solid wild hen.
We then fished a few other runs, aand next we headed over to the rivers around Tillamook. Both those rivers had so many private property signs and it seemed impossible to get on decent water with out a raft, so we hit a run on each and head back to the our previous coastal river.

We hit some real small spots, 10-20 cast runs. I got a reel zipping grab on one but no fish. Rusty and I headed back to the run where he got his fish that morning, I led this time. I worked through the run and when I got to the spot where rusty hooked up I got a grab and again no fish. Rusty followed me through and picked up the fish 20+" wild buck. I had been using Gami B10S size 6 hooks on all but the fish that broke me off, so I switched to dropshot no.2 hooks.

The fish seemed to be holding in pretty slow water, so we headed for a run below an old defunct bridge, that had a heavy head and a good sized creek dumping in on the wadable bank the other bank was an unfishable sheer cliff. I was able to pick up a decent sized hatchery fish, the hook worked out. That was it for the day and another night in Pacific City.

The next day we hit the river early. No fish on Rusty's hot run, which we called "Red Hook". I did get to watch a large, 15-20#, beat up buck partol up and down the run several times. He stay close to shore in shallow water to he was easy to see with battle scars and all.
We hit another favorite run to no avail, then we hit the short runs we check out the day before and again I got a solid grab and no fish, I checked the hook and, guess what, B10S. Then we went back to the run where I got the grab on day 1. I worked the same far trench as before and fish on, drop shot awesome. then, fish off.



From here we headed up the coast to check out the the Little Nehalem River, it was a bust. So we set up camp at Nehalem Bay State park and we called it a trip.

Well, we got nine grabs in less than two full days of fishing, not bad. There are so many rivers to fish on the coast, I have only seen a few. One thing I really have learned from the ones that I have fished, is that if a person shows up with the wrong gear fishing can get really frustrating. There were runs that we fished where you would be waist deep in the river with your butt touching the bank and trees a few feet behind you, and the far slot that you know holds fish is an 80' cast away. Thank God for Airflo Compact Skagits and the new rio Skagit Shorts, I have been using a 540 grn Compact on my 13'3" Burkheimer 7wt, I might change to a Sage 6126 or 8110 as it seems that shorter rods are easier to use in such close quarters.

Thanks to Rusty for taking the pictures.

The Menominee River

This is one of my home rivers and this last season its the one I put the most time on. About an hour north of Green Bay, WI, it cuts a course along the boarders of Wisconsin and the U.P. of Michigan. It is, I think the largest of Wisconsins steelhead rivers with a flow of 2000-2500 CFS in the fall an daround 3000 in the spring.

The section of river in which you can fish steelhead is pretty short, maybe two mile long, and most of this is not all that fishy, but the runs that are, are. There are only limited runs on the river and it gets crowed some times.

The river receives planting of steelhead and seeforlen brown tout from both the Michigan and Wisconsin DNRs. This can lead to some really great fishing, although I have had some very depressing years on the Menominee.

We only started fishing two handed rods on the Menominee River in 2000 and didn't really learn the short rivers potentially until 2001. We have some really good and really shitty years since.

As far as steelhead go, the rivers south of Green Bay seem to consistently fish better when the water conditions are right. So it i9s usually a better better to go south when the rivers are in, but the runs on the menominee are big and deep compared to most of the runs in the state and the Menominee is the only river in the state where I have been taken into my backing by a steelhead, and that has happened many times.

The Skagit & The Sauk Rivers

In early April of 2005 I fished the Skagit & Sauk rivers in Washington. It was an 8 day beatdown. For the three out of the first four days I fished with the stickiest of the ickies, the mega-mykiss him self, but for proprieties sake I'll just call the guy "E-dub", so he can enjoy true anonimity. E-dub guides these rivers in the spring and knows them like no bodies business, but despite this we both rolled no fish in four days, other than Dollies. The river was really low and really clear.

I had two days to explore the river on my own and was able to find some really sexy water road side, especially on the Sauk. E-dub and I also looked around up there using his boat.

Then on day five BR showed up and we spent three days fishing. Day one with E-dub and days two and three on our own.

On Day one E-dub schooled us, getting two skagit fish to the bank. the second one was a straight up pimp on me, I mean right out of my back pocket. Both fish came out of runs that anyother angler, and I mean every other, would over look.

For day two, BR and I fished on our own, but hit some key spots E-dub had keyed us on to. Our first run Chuckacabra, there was a key bucket right at the top of the run. I got a little weasely and convinced BR not to fish the first bucket but to let me have it and he headed down to a point down stream were ther was a break. Not five minutes later BR was fighting steel. I got weasely on the next run too, and again BR hooked steel this one got away. That should teach not to be a prick.

On day three, our last day of fishing things were slow. Br and I had been up and down the Skagit and the sauk hitting any key water we could find, but no more since BR's second hookup early the first morning. We hiked out to the Mixer on the afternoon of the third day and fished through behind a guide and his client, we got some nice dollies and I finally hooked a steelhead, and lost it on a bent out hook, shit. two days later I lost a fish on the Vedder to a bent out hook again, now I keep a closer eye on that.

E-dub, BR, and I stayed at both the hotel in Concrete or at Howard Miller Steelhead Park in Rockport. Howard miller had great structures to stay in. and Br and I stayed one night on a rock bar by Chuckacabra, the first van camp.

To checkout the Skagit & Sauk you can get the Steelhead River Journal on these rivers by Dec Hogan, But I know that on our trip it was all about being able to search for and identify good water, and alot of local help. A guide would be a key element for a newbie.