A new friend, Charles @ Dr Ordi PC Dr, interested in going fishing with me asked about the cost of a fishing license here in New Brunswick Canada. A few others have also asked about the cost, especially those that are non-residence that I have extended a fishing invitation to.

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 WikipediaI live in Moncton, New Brunswick and love it. A small enough city that I still enjoy it. New Brunswick has a lot of lakes, beaver ponds, rivers and streams that makes fishing here so great.

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.

Over the past thirty years of fly fishing in New Brunswick I have found may great hot spots for Brook Trout. I like to think these are my very own little secret hot spots. I even have a few that my closest fishing buddies aren’t aware of.

Excuse the poor quality of my photo I shake a lot. I do have a new digital camera this years so I hope to take better and less shakey pictures.

New Brunswick has a large number of Beaver ponds that make for great trout habitat. They are not always easy to get to, which is great for those willing to fight through a few bushes for a great day on the water. The spot in the picture however isn’t one of those hard to get to spot. It’s visible from the road and has an easy path right to the water. You can even drive down to the water to launch a canoe.

I had driven by this spot hundreds of times but this one particular day it was almost windy enough to push my car off the road so I was heading to a more protected spot to fish. As I was driving by I of couse glance through the trees to look at the water but something else caught my eye this day. I thought I saw water further back in the trees.

Well I hit the brakes, backed up and waited for another gust of wind and sure enough I did see water. I got a little excited but I have been fooled before after a good rain fall only to find a big water hole.

It was not easy to get through the trees. They are thick and the branches go almost to the ground making it tough to get through, but I didn’t mind as most people tend to be lazy and wouldn’t struggle to get to a fishing spot.

The little trek through the bush wasn’t a disappointment and it was worth every scratch across my face. It was another Beaver pond and it was only a couple of minutes further through the bush and yet in all the years I have fished this spot I never knew the other pond was here. Cool.

Later I found that if I followed the brook from the first pond for a few yards I could get to the new pond easier and I could come back the same way.

Even though this beaver pond was a bit smaller that the first pond it was all mine. I walked around the pond and never saw another human track which made me really excited.

I wonder how many other great fishing spots are just out of view?

Like I said at the start I have been fishing in New Brunswick for more than thirty years and I find at least one new spot to fish ever year.

My best fly fishing buddy Roland and I headed out for a day of brook trout fishing in a few beaver ponds just outside the north end of Fundy National Park.

There are 5 or 6 ponds that I know of but I am sure there are more. We try not to point out their location as they are small and can get fished out pretty easy.

We used to take my canoe back in and that was always a job that had me exhausted by the time we fought our way through the thick brush. Then came the float tubes and that part of the trip got a whole lot easier.

What used to take us at least a half hour to get in there was now cut down to about 10 minutes or so and I would arrive in a better mood and not so wiped.

I actually dragged my canoe in there by myself a few times and was so angry and beat that I had to sit down and wait until I was more relaxed before heading out on the water. Always better to fish with friends anyways.

We have had a few nice feeds of brookies from these ponds.

This one year, about 10 or more years ago now, where the water was much higher than we had ever seen it.

This particular place I am talking about has two beaver ponds with a water way between them just big enough to take the canoe through and deep enough so that it doesn’t freeze to the bottom in the winter so the beavers can still get around.

So, like I said the water was high and it was early spring so we didn’t have the canoe this time. If we had I would not be telling you this story.

We walked into the first pond and started walking around it amazed at how high the water was. It was like a totally different place. More like a lake now instead of a pond. Okay maybe not that much bigger.

We wanted to get to the other side where we could get a better position to fish for a while. With the water so high it was going to take us another half hour or so to walk around it but we were eager and decided to cross at the little water way between the ponds. It was normally about 3 feet deep at the most.

I tried to step in slowly but couldn’t quite reach the bottom but I was sure I was only inches away but didn’t want to take that first step of faith so we had this ‘you go first’ thing going for about 10 mintues before Roland decided to be the brave one and stepped in.

Quickly the water was right to the top of his waders but he made it to the other side with only the top inch of his getting wet. I laughed and thought to myself how happy I was that I was a bit taller than him.

Well I wasn’t standing two feet from his left arm when he crossed and thought I would be fine. Well I wasn’t fine and that water was freezing cold.

I made that first step, right where I thought Roland did and instantly I was right up to my neck. Even though Roland was right their and grabbed me I was very wet and his laughing didn’t help.

I had to strip off and get the water out of my everywhere but fortunately the day was wasted because the air temperature was a whole lot warmer than that water and after a few minutes of grumblin’ and complaining I stopped shaking so much and got dressed again.

A couple of minutes back in my waders and the temperature all evened out and I was fine.

In fishing, trout are one of the favorite “fishing friends” of most anglers. These crafty fish are abundant anywhere. The native habitat of these crafty fish depends on the type of trout.

For brook trout, the native habitat includes the territory from Labrador westward to the Saskatchewan, while the rainbow trout is a native of the Pacific slope from Alaska to California.

On the other hand, brown trout has found its way into the waters of every state in the United States except Florida, Arkansas, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Texas. It has been reported in the waters of some of these states, but according to conservation officials, no authentic reports have been received. It is also found in many parts of Canada.

In trout fishing, there are some factors that need to be considered in order to have a successful catch.

1. For trout fishing, the leader should not be greased. It will not sink far enough to cause any difficulty when picking the line and lure from the water, but if it is allowed to float; it will cast a shadow on the bottom of the stream which may scare the trout.
2. The trout is one of the fishes that are usually secured through the use of the dry fly. For trout, the current as well as the pools should be fished. It may sometimes be a bit difficult to keep the fly from sinking or dragging because of the various conditions of the current, but this is a matter that the angler will have to figure out for himself.
3. It is not good practice when fishing for trout to fish directly upstream so the flies, line, and leader will float directly over fish. The fisherman should make the cast from one side of the stream so the fly will only float over the fish.
4. It is important to make the first cast the best. A feeding trout will usually strike the first lure presented if it is cast so that it will float over his private domain. The angler should never fail to fish the lower end of the pool first even if the trout are rising in the middle or upper end.
5. Trout are sometimes very moody or selective and will try the patience of any angler; hence, possibly a fly with less hackle will do the trick or it may be necessary to use a spent-wing fly or a fan wing.

Indeed, catching trout fishes can be lots of fun. The anglers just have to remember these tips in order to have a happy catch.

I have been fishing trout in Canada, mostly New Brunswick, for more than 30 years and to this day my heart pounds just thinking about it.

I do use a spinning rod when I can’t get through a stream with my fly rod but if I can see a path that my fly line can take I use the fly rod. It’s just so much more fun, for me anyways. Each to their own.

When I first came to the Maritimes I was only used to fishing catfish and pike but it was only a few short hours and my brother-in-law had me fishing for trout with a flyrod.

The learning process took about 10 minutes and I was up to speed enough to catch brook trout. They were a whole lot bigger and easier to catch 30 years ago than they are today but I still get out when I get the chance.

One of the most important things I learned about trout fishing and it goes for a lot of other species is:

• The big ones are there and if they know you are there you will never catch them. Stealth is the key and that is why I out fish my fishing buddies.

Sometimes, especially late in the summer when the water is low I actually crawl to the river bank and cast from behind a tree. I have caught my biggest brookies doing this. I can’t take credit for thinking of it as it was one of my college professors that showed me how to catch the big ones.