The Joy of Fly Fishing in New Brunswick

This is one of my favorite spots to fly fish for Atlantic salmon and brook trout. To the right of the bridge a nice cool brook flows into the Marimichi River making for a great spot to catch the odd monster brook trout.

The last time I fished here they were just starting the new bridge and the old one vehicle steel bridge was still there. It was nice to use the new bridge without waiting for the on coming traffic, which could get pretty crowded at certain times of the year.

My wife and I stopped here on our day of fishing and I noticed that the big boulders that used to be along the river at this point, just off shore, have gone. This is going to definitely change this stretch of water.

We stayed there for a couple of hours and saw absolutely nothing moving. The water was still a little high here but in past years I have fished here this early and caught Atlantic salmon and trout.

I certainly hope this was just one of those days and that the fishing at this spot comes back. Maybe I will get back there this weekend to give it another go.

It just shows how man can mess things up when they are trying to make things better for us humans.

Here is a list of fishing license fees for New Brunswick in 2008 I found at Goverment New Brunswick Services. This is only the fees so you may want to follow the link and read the entire page:

Non-Resident - Salmon

Season (class 1)
$105 legislated fee + $5 fish stocking fee + $30 conservation fee 140.00
7 day (class 2)
$57 legislated fee + $5 fish stocking fee + $20 conservation fee 82.00
3 day (class 3)
$29 legislated fee + $5 fish stocking fee + $10 conservation fee 44.00

Season - Live Release (Class 13)
$105 legislated fee + $5 fish stocking fee + $30 conservation fee 140.00
7 day - Live Release (Class 14)
$57 legislated fee + $5 fish stocking fee + $20 conservation fee 82.00
3 days
$29 legislated fee + $5 fish stocking fee + $10 conservation fee 44.00

Non-Resident - All Species - Except Salmon

Season (class 4)
$30 legislated fee + $5 fish stocking fee + $20 conservation fee 55.00
7 day (class 5)
$20 legislated fee + $5 fish stocking fee + $10 conservation fee 35.00
3 day (Class 6)
$15 legislated fee + $5 fish stocking fee + $5 conservation fee 25.00

Resident - Salmon

Season (class 7)
$20 legislated fee + $5 fish stocking fee + $5 conservation fee 30.00
Kids 10-15 years or Seniors 65+ (class
$8 legislated fee + $5 fish stocking fee + $5 conservation fee 18.00
Live Release (class 16)
$20 legislated fee + $5 fish stocking fee + $5 conservation fee 30.00
Live Release - kids 10-15 years, 65+ (Class 17)
$8 legislated fee + $5 fish stocking fee + $5 conservation fee 18.00

Resident - All Species - Except Salmon

Season (class 9)
$10 legislated fee + $5 fish stocking fee + $5 conservation fee 20.00
Seniors 65+ (class 10)
$0 legislated fee + $5 fish stocking fee + $0 conservation fee 5.00

Ice Fishing

Non Resident (class 11)
$10 legislated fee + $5 fish stocking fee + $5 conservation fee 20.00
Resident (class 12)
$0 legislated fee + $5 fish stocking fee + $5 conservation fee 10.00

I am really glad they have included an extra $5.00 as a fish stocking fee. So much has happened over the past 100 years to do major damage to stock and habitat it’s good to see we are correcting our past mistakes.

Image via Wikipedia

Atlantic Salmon - My favorite species to fish in New Brunswick has to be the Atlantic salmon and the salmon is the main reason I moved to New Brunswick from Ontario. I certainly had no shortage of species and locations to fish in Ontario but the Atlantic salmon is a powerful reason to move.

Trout - Even though I enjoy fly fishing for salmon I also enjoy a few other species, like brook trout, brown trout and rainbow trout. Most places here you can fish trout with a spinning rod or on the fly but if it’s fly fishing only don’t get caught with a spinning rod.

Nothing is more fun than using your favorite dry fly for trout.

Smallmouth Bass - I also fish smallmouth bass and for bass there isn’t much more fun that throwing a few top water lures that cause the bass to go bonkers. The explosions are heart stopping.

I love taking new friends bass fishing because we are almost never skunked no matter what the weather conditions so my friends are very seldom disappointed.

Chain Pickerel - From a float tube you can’t beat the fun a pickerel will give you, quite often spinning you in a few circles before you land it.

The pickerel is very similar to the pike I used to fish in Ontario but they don’t grow as big, they only fight like they are that big.

Sturgeon - The dad of big fish here in New Brunswick. The strugeon is so prehistoric looking that you will have to look around you once you see one to make sure you haven’t been transported back in time a few million years.

You don’t want to be fishing sturgeon from a float tube because they may just run you right out to sea.

We also have rock bass, sun-fish, perch and other species that don’t get fished a lot by me. When my son was little we fished more small species but when I am with my fishing buddies we fish the species mentioned above.

Fishing in New Brunswick has been exciting for the past 30 years or so and I don’t see it stopping any time soon, as long as we protect our waters.

When we visit family in Ontario the subject of fly fishing in New Brunswick comes up. All the guys in our family are fishermen but I am the only one that fly fishes. In 30 years I have not been able to convince any of them to come down here to New Brunswick and do some fly fishing with me.

They don’t know what their missing. Instead they just sit in the middle of the lake where our cottage is and dangle their lines and drink beer. That’s not for me, plus I don’t drink until after the fishing is done for the day.

I still enjoy getting together with my relatives but I don’t enjoy their fishing strategies, or lack of them.

They are going to read this post and most likely be a bit annoyed with me but hey, I get under their skin all the time. I am the youngest of the bunch at 55 and don’t plan to change.

I don’t care to tell people where I do my fly fishing. New Brunswick anglers can be pretty tight lipped. I can tell you a few locations, just not specific enough for you to find my honey holes.

Just a little plug for one of my website design clients, Big Paw Outfitters. Kevin knows the best places to take his clients when they come to him for a fly fishing New Brunswick experience at their lodge. So giving you Kevin’s website may just lead to you finding a few of my best spots but when a fly fishing guide is taking you there I guess it’s ok.

Big Paw Outfitters is located in Renous, New Brunswick and is only a stones throw away from prime fly fishing for our great Atlantic salmon.

Check out Big Paw Outfitters website. Kevin also guides for black bear and moose, but I will let him tell you all about that.

It was my first time fishing the Renous river in a line-up of other fly fishers and I was a bit nervous about moving at the right speed. Some of the old guys, older than me that is and I’m 55, tend to get a little cranky if you don’t move your butt fast enough.

It was a nice day with a bit of a breeze blowing, nothing I couldn’t handle. Then things changed, the clouds moved in, the wind picked up and then it started to rain.

The rain was refreshing as it was pretty warm but the wind I could do without. I struggle with windy days.

I was moving up the river and the salmon were all along bank of the river jumping about every minute or so. It was pretty exciting.

The tide was out and there is a rock bottom like a sandbar my son was sitting on watching us fly fish.

Well as the wind picked up I tried moving my rod from my right hand to my left hand while casting and was doing quite well until on gust of wind that seemed to spin right around me caught the line and wrapped around my head and my neck and the fly went right through my earlobe.

It wasn’t painful at all because it happened in a split second. Some glad I always were a hat and glasses.

Well my son jumped up and started laughing. He did stop laughing long enough to say I finally got up the nerve to get an ear pierced, as the blood was running down my neck.

The blood wasn’t as bad as it seemed, it was more the rain making it look like that.

I never missed a beat, more out of being nervous with all the people around me, but I snipped the line, left the fly in my earlobe and kept moving as I tied on another fly.

It was easy to cut the hook because it had gone clear through so it was a plainless piercing.

My son wanted me to keep the fly in to show his mom. It brought back painful memories of her going to the hospital with a hook in her head.

Originally from central Ontario I had never seen let alone hook an Atlantic Salmon or any other salmon for that matter. I had fished for pike, catfish, bass along with a few other species but nothing came close not even the largest bass or pike, to the experience I had with my first Atlantic salmon. The salmon wasn’t even a big salmon and it still blew all the other fish I had caught right out of the water.

I still remember my first fly fishing for Atlantic salmon adventures a love to share them with others. When people see how excited I can get they tend to want to give it a try and that always makes me happy.

I even keep two of everything so I can take a friend fishing, that’s how much I love sharing the experience.