Dave and I hit the inter coastal waterway this morning with Captain Ryan Dean of Final Point Charters out of Sebastian. He had his work cut out for him with winds that far exceeded the forecast. I bet nobody is surprised by a wrong forecast. We only had a half day because Dave had to work this afternoon.
What we had asked of Ryan was to give us an understanding of what he looked for and what types of baits he liked to fish. Surprisingly he preferred artificials over live bait for what we were looking for.
It was a tough bite with the wind blowing against the current but I caught my personal best Florida fish which was a big Jack Crevalle and Dave hooked and landed a half dozen spotted sea trout.
Overall it was a great day on the water...

David and I took a trip down to Stuart, Florida to try for Snook. The idea was to buy live bait but it turns out the bait guys don’t work until spring. We tried our hand with a cast net which is a whole other story and quite comical. It is not as easy as the pros make it look.
This was a new area for us and we were not having any success at all. Dave suggested moving over to the channel and hitting the bridge pilings and he gets a small Jack on the first cast. Nothing else as we moved across the different bridge piers until Dave saw the gulls diving into the water on the other side of the bridge.
We moved the boat over and for the next two hours it was absolute chaos with a school of Jacks and Ladyfish busting into bait. There were numerous times we were both hooked up at the same time...

Paul Dow holds an annual tournament in memory of fishing friends who are no longer with us. It is held every year of the Thanksgiving weekend. This year I thought it would be a different show if we filmed my day on the water with Shawn both filming and fishing. You don’t get to see him in the show because he is behind the camera or it is off and he is fishing.
The day started off cold, wet and windy but we had a great time on the water. Our first stop only produced a couple of small fish so we were quickly on the move. Our second stop put some fish in the boat but still not the big girls we were looking for. Shawn took a break from filming and put his share of fish in the boat as well as helping me with culling. We now have a five fish limit in the boat but not the size we need to win...

We had some great fun fishing with Monique and Herman Allain this week. Monique hadn’t been fishing with her dad for many years and it seemed fitting to get them both in the boat and head for the lake.
Monique started the day off with a solid 3.5 lb Smallmouth that turned out to be the biggest fish of the day by a little bit. Herman gave it has all and almost caught her but it was not to be.
The bite seemed off a little and I am sure that the 78 degree water had a little something to do with it. It took a slow presentation and most of the fish came to the boat today on a green pumpkin BPS Sticko fished Texas rigged.
Herman got quite attached to my 7’2″ M Cumara and stayed with it for the day. Monique and I were using Crucial 6’6″ MH. All of us were using 2500 Series Stradics with 20 lb...

Show six
Family trip
Got the Triton all hooked up to the Oleary Buick GMC Sierra and headed for the water with one of my all-time favourite anglers, my grandson Richard.
Today we are fishing up near Woodstock on a body of water that is primarily Smallmouth Bass and Eastern Chain Pickerel as well as an abundance of forage fish like Yellow Perch and Chub. We actually commented during the day that the forage base seems extremely strong but the Pickerel don’t seem to attain any size. They were mostly the “ hammer handle “ size with the odd one being just a bit bigger.
We were only fishing about two minutes when Richard set the hook into a nice 3 lb Smallmouth. He got it on an unweighted BPS Sticko on a 4/0 Gamakatsu EWG worm hook which was Texas rigged...

My buddy Herman and I hit the water to try and get him into some Smallmouth. Herman is an avid outdoorsman and loves to fish and hunt and to just plain enjoy the outdoor activities that New Brunswick has to offer. Most of his fishing is with a fly rod for Trout and Salmon but he is not a stranger to a spinning reel either. I fixed him up with a Shimano CI4 on a 7 foot Zodias fishing rod which he immediately fell in love with.
We started of with a surface frog and a BPS Sticko. The wind was blowing pretty good shortly after we started and soon picked up to the 30 k range which pretty much killed the surface bite. Herman’s first Smallmouth of the day hit the scales at 3.9 lbs and his first question was did Mike {Eagles} catch one this big when we were out...

The annual Kids Tournament out of Oromocto was a great success. This year we had a new record number of kids at 73 along with their families. The weather cooperates this time around and we had a beautiful sunny day and lots of fish coming in to be checked by NBSFA Tour Director, Jim Munn. The kids get to learn about the different types of fish while they angle for the biggest Perch, Smallmouth and Pickerel. All of the fish are returned alive to the river to fight again.
This is a fun day of fishing with a very mild competitive format and my experience tells me the kids want those top trophies as much as they want the prizes. This is pretty much a family day and hopefully leads to more family fishing days over the summer.
In addition to the Kids event our members also do some fund raising o...

When it gets hot it seems to happen all at once. The order of business today was lots of water and a generous helping of sunscreen The temps hit 31 by the time we got off the water.
I am fishing with my buddy Mike Eagles and his brother in law Mark Hegarty on the upper end of Spednic Lake and we are on the hunt for Smallmouth in this rock infested body of water. I don’t have a lot of familiarity with the lake so we are moving around quite a bit to hit likely looking spots. A couple of creek inlets provided several nice fish first thing in the morning but the bite got a bit tougher as the sun climbed and water temps were pushing 22 degrees at the surface.
We picked up fish on a Silver Blue Fox, Jackall Super Eruption Spinnerbait, Melon Orange Tube and Green Pumpkin Bass Pro Sticko’s...

Striped Bass fishing in the Miramichi almost came to an end in the late 90′s due to overfishing until the Department of Fisheries and Oceans stepped in and closed the fishery down. Jump forward to a couple of years ago when a trial season was opened and you have an unparalled fisheries success story with hundreds of thousands of Stripers moving into the river to spawn.
Two years ago I was asked by a friend to take the crew from Canada in the Rough up to the Miramichi for some Striped Bass fishing. I have caught Stripers before but only incidently and had never targeted them. A couple of phone calls later, Owen Newcomb from ON Sports agreed to take me up and show me around. I also took the opportunity to call our show producer, Shawn, and we took the camera gear with us...

Miramichi Striped Bass

We loaded up the Triton and headed for the Miramichi River for some Striped Bass fishing. This is something I have only done about four times but I am rapidly getting addicted to it. The Miramichi has long be famous for it’s Atlantic Salmon fishery but there has been a major resurgence in the Striped Bass population due to a successful intervention from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. The Stripers had been seriously threatened in the river and DFO shut the fishery down in the late 90’s when it was estimated that there were barely enough fish left to provide a breeding population. Now there are several hundred thousand Stripers using the river to spawn.
I met my guest, Mercury Regional Business Manager Blair Gallant, at the ramp in Miramichi city and...