Image via WikipediaFly fishing for the Atlantic salmon in New Brunswick can be quite frustrating when you can’t get any response after hours of carefully putting your artificial flies right on the end of their nose. But that’s Atlantic salmon fishing and makes it all the more exciting when that strike finally arrives, be prepared for it.

All those hours of holding your breath all pays off when your line goes tight and the fight is on. That fight is the reason I am still salmon fishing after 30 some years.

I have used a lot of Atlantic salmon flies over the years and most I would say I don’t have a clue about their names but there are a few that I do know the names.

Mickey Finn

One of first early spring salmon fly I was introduced to by my brother-in-law Joe and is still my favorite early season fly is the Mickey Finn. A great artificial fly for those spring black salmon. It has also hooked me up with a few nice sized brook trout as well.

Butterfly

The Butterfly is another Atlantic salmon fly I like using in the early spring right through the fall. I have three butterfly patterns that I use. They look the same but have different coloured wings (red or white) and the butt colour is either red, yellow or green.

Personally I tend to use a butterfly that has a red butt, I haven’t really noticed if the wing colour makes a difference but I have noticed that I get more stricks when the butt is red.

Brown Bug

The one I call a brown bug most likely has a real name, I just don’t know what it is yet. It looks very much like a Green Machine, which is another fly I like to use and have had much success with over the years.

Green Machine

I like using the Green Machine when the water is low. I like to let it drift right up to the salmon’s nose and then just yanking it away as if the bug had been sleeping and just realized it was in a dangerous situation.

It’s one of those flies that just seem to give me confidence in fly fishing for the New Brunswick Altantic salmon.

I couldn’t tell you how many Atlantic salmon I have caught using the Green Machine. Sometimes it just seems to be the only fly they are willing to smack.

I have tried to take some pictures of my flies but I really suck bad at picture taking. I will try again with a tripod and better lighting. At that time, if all works well, I will put up a picture of each of the flies mentioned above.

Here in New Brunswick the Atlantic salmon don’t always make it back to the ocean the same year they head up river to spawn. These are the salmon I am aiming for when fishing season opens.

The Atlantic salmon don’t feed when the come up the river and if you want to catch one you need to know how to get a predatory reaction or you won’t be fighting anything but time and black flies. Okay there won’t be any black flies, yet.

Today I am ready to tie a few of my favorite early spring in New Brunswick streamers, the Mickey Finn.

The Mickey Finn was just about the first Atlantic salmon catching fly I ever tied. It’s simple to tie and only takes a few minutes so I can tie a bunch in an evening and I can even tie them right at the waters edge and be fishing it in under 10 minutes. If I am really excited it might take me 15 minutes because I get real shakey.

The Mickey Finn I use to catch the hunger black salmon in the early spring.

The Ingredients that make for an early spring Atlantic salmon’s dinner.

Hook: Mustad #3665A, #38941

Sizes: 2-10 and maybe even a 12

Body: Flat silver tinsel right off your Christmas tree, it’s still up right?

Ribbing: Oval Silver Tinsel

Wing: Yellow bucktail for the bottom of the wing, red for the middle and then yellow again for the top layer of the wing.

Thread: Black

As you can see there isn’t a lot that goes into the Mickey Finn but the salmon love and destroy them even though they are very durable flies, so I like to keep a few extras on hand. My fishing buddies never have enough. I like to give them a hard time so I pretend that I don’t have any left and then I start checking my many pockets and before you know it I come up with one or two more.

FACT: Something I didn’t know until recently was that the Mickey Finn was made famous by John Alden Knight in the 1930s.

Image from WikipediaMy life isn’t just about fly fishing in New Brunswick oh no. I also love to bait cast and spin cast for early season salmon, trout, bass and pickerel.

I have a few friends that don’t fly fish but I still love a day on the water with them pretty much any time. Of course if I have been asked to go fly fishing most of the time fly fishing will win out.

We even fish for salmon in the early spring while the fishing rules have not changed to fly fishing only as they do after the middle of May. The dates are not the same for all our salmon fishing areas so you really have to know your guide and the rules.

I have about 6 spots that I like to try on opening day, or as close to it as I can, to see how I do compared to previous years. I have had a couple of great years but for the most part the open day has never been that great so when I get a year that rocks I remember it.

One year that stands out in my mind was a spot just about 1 hours drive from home. It is so easy to get to that I am surprised I don’t see more fishers out there. But then again the first year I found this place I had to crawl through brush and it was tough going.

On the way out I looked for a better way and that’s how I now an easy way to get to it. My lips are sealed.

Back to the story…

I found this spot in the middle of the fishing season about 20 years ago and thought it would be a good place to try opening day.

So April 15, about 1988 or so I headed to this spot which is right at where the lake empties into a nice little brook.

I was standing about 30 feet away from where the beavers had it damned up. I didn’t even get to the water and a snow storm hit. It snowed so hard I couldn’t see across this little brook that wasn’t much wider than rod was long.

I had the best day of brookie fishing I have ever had. The trout all seem to have a death wish and I could hardly get the line to the water before I was fighting one of these spunky little brook trout.

I admit they weren’t big but for the area 12 and 13 inch trout are a good size and in the early spring while the water is still cold they taste soooo good.

The lake was still completely frozen and only about a foot of ice was gone around the damn so getting a cast into the lake was out of the question.

I have had a few other opening days like that in different areas and its fun to get out and see if I can do better than other years.

Sport fishing New Brunswick is a lot of fun but it’s so much more fun when you take a friend.

Well I gotta go and tie a few more flies for opening day. I am going to start tying the Mickey Finn. An easy salmon fly to tie but a deadly one for those salmon that have been in the river all winter and are heading to sea.