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Jim, Ron and I made the trip up to Miramichi on Wednesday for another crack at the phenomenal Striped Bass fishery. It was blowing pretty good all day with 20 to 40 K sw winds but the fishing was good. Ron must be camera shy because this is the second trip that we didn’t get his pic with a fish. It did take us a bit of time to figure out what they would hit and the old tried and true , lightly weighted 7 inch flukes accounted for most of the fish. Our standard fishing setup is a Shimano 7′ MH rod, 2500 Stradic , Power pro Super 8 Slick. We tried both with and without a leader and it did not seem to make any differnce in the bite. I was surprised by how few boats were on the water. We spent all day in the stretch above Millstream and only saw six boats all day...

Here’s a couple from the other day on the Miramichi. We spent some time looking around downriver but the fishing was pretty spotty. We end up running up to the Millstream area. We spent the rest of the day there. We weren’t counting but i would say around 25 to the boat with the biggest at 87 centimeters. I don’t like handling the really big girls too much so no pics and right back into the water. Almost all of our fish were caught on Fluke style baits with a 3/16 weighted hook. A mix of Shimano 7′ MH rods and 2500 series reels with 20lb Power Pro. That combo seems to handle even the bigger ones without much fuss. Good fun with good friends on the best Striper fishery on the East Coast.
#fishshimanocan #anglersunite

Well, yesterday was a day of ups and downs. Ron and I landed 201 Smallmouth and lost a bunch more in the current. That was an up. We then went to the Hartland launch where we bent the axle on the trailer trying to get the boat out. That was a down. I knew my trailer had come to Phil’s from Woodstock and got the owners name and number from him. Dana helped me source a flatbed tow truck and Sharpe’s towing came and got the trailer. Good folks and great service. That was an up. We trucked the trailer to Baywood Enterprises parking lot and it was after hours. We stripped the boat down and headed for home. Dana saw us on camera dropping the boat off and called a staff member to put it inside the locked compound. Another up. At 930 this morning they called to tell me my stuff was ready to go...

The NBSFA draw for a jet boat fishing trip was fulfilled yesterday with Brian and Logan sharing the boat with me in the fast water. We ended up with around 125 fish to the boat with very few showing evidence of spawning. The lack of big fish remains a mystery to me. We were quite baffled about the slow bite on the second half of the drift and then I found out that Ray had already done that stetch. He sure didn’t leave many behind for us to catch. These guys were a blast to fish with and are welcome to come for a ride any time. We scrapped some paint on the Lowe and Logan had to suffer through pushing a hook through his hand and cutting it off. He is way tougher than I am for sure. In addition to the trip Brian received a top of the line Bubba Scale as part of the prize package...

Chrissie and I hit the Stick Marsh to see how it is developing after the draw down. The big fish of the day was 3.8 Lbs. We fished from 8:30 to 3:30 and put 23 fish in the boat. We did see one school of fish breaking out in the open water but we were to far away to get into them. There appears to be more eel grass this year than last but we didn’t find it fished well. Chrissie caught most of hers on a BPS black and blue Sticko and most of mine were on a lightly weighted Jackall Rhythm wave swimbait. I have all of my old waypoints on the HDS Pro and even with the changes in the lake a couple of them produced for us. We will most likely explore a new section on Sunday, weather permitting.
Today’s gear: Chrissie was using a 7′ Shimano Zodias MH spinning rod, a 2500 Stadic spooled with 20lb Po...

I have to say that this was the most impressive fishing event I have ever been fortunate enough to take part in. Anglers from Canada, Turtle Island First Nation, Wabanaki First Nation, United States, Puerto Rico, Columbia, Mexico, Dominican Republic and China converged on the Nackawic/ Fredericton area to compete on the Mactaquac Headpond.
For obvious reasons some of the out of country teams could not bring boats with them so the organizers requested volunteer boater/marshals for the event I was fortunate to be selected as one. I was paired up with Edwin and Turuki with Team Dominican Republic for the three official days and got the spend a day on the water with Dave Chong and Steve Nevue from Team Canada. We did one official day of practice and two days for the tournament.
The American t...

Backwater Casting hit the water yesterday with our guest Stephen Price for some crazy smallmouth action. We were fishing pretty good current all day and I was using a 20lb anchor to slow the boat down. Stephen hooked a good one on both his first and second casts of the morning and set the tone for the day. He started off with a Shimano Zodias 7′ Med, a 2500 Stradic spooled with Power Pro Super 8 Slick and a Shimano World Minnow Chartreuse head. He never put it down all day and he put a hammering on them. I mixed it up a bit trying to find what else they would hit but I ended up with the World Minnow-Chartreuse Back to get in the game. We had lots of doubles and when Shawn took a break from the camera we had at least three triples. As they say, “we were on em”...

Jet boat fishing adventures with Rick and Ron on the Saint John river. Phil got a call in to Mactaquac and got them to open the Beechwood gates to get some water in the river. We discovered that it takes about four hours for the water to come 22 kilometers. We grounded at at 345 in six inches of water and finally got it off at 845. A big thank you to the folks that stopped on the highway to see if they could help. A bigger thank you the to Florenceville and Hartland Fire Department staff for coming to check on us and make sure we were ok. Hartland sent a zodiac to see if they could get us off but Ron and I got it free about ten minutes before they arrived. It is never boring out there and yes we caught a bunch of fish before we got stuck..

My buddy Ron and I were out scouting for a show location yesterday and boy did we ever find a great area. We caught some tanks on the new Shimano World Minnow and the World Pop. Unfortunately Ron’s double on the World Pop was a 3.5 lb Smallmouth and his thumb. One hook right through and before I could get the cutters out he had jerked it out with pliers. WE slapped a bandaid on and went right back at it. Boat control became a real issue when the wind came up in the afternoon. The current was running 4.7 mph and the wind was terrible. We were dragging a big anchor to slow us down and with that and 50 percent power on the trolling motor we were flying down the river. Almost no boat control and that point...

Phil and I caught enough fish on Sunday to break the 30 lb barrier and moved up six place to end up 12th. It is very rare to catch 30lb and not get a check. The anglers are getting better and the fish are getting bigger. If there had been a multi species award it would have gone to Phil. On Sunday he caught smallmouth bass, largemouth bass, chain pickerel, white perch, yellow perch, a fall fish and pretty sure he had a muskie on as well. All on the same bait.
It was fun to fish a bigger event again and the credit goes to the directors of the New Brunswick Sport Fishing Association and the New Brunswick Bass Tour for coming together to make this happen. The weigh in was smooth thanks to Skippy and his crew.
The new marina and ramps in the Town of Nackawic are fantastic as was the Town’s sup...