It has been a busy but exciting, past two weeks as our first-feeding fry are now being released into their natal rivers. A first-feeding fry is a recently hatched salmon which has absorbed its yolk sac and has just begun to eat solid foods. The MSA’s trucks have been covering lots of ground delivering the fry to their new wild homes in areas of the Northwest, Little Southwest, Sevogle, Cains and Juniper. Though they may be quite small now, some of these fry will grow into the big fish we know and love. There is a great video on our Facebook page of these salmon fry feeling the rush of a natural river for the first time as they are released into the wild, click here to check it out!

Just under 40 sites have been stocked with fry already and we will be wrapping up our releases with remaining fish from the Sevogle and Cains during this first week of July. Additionally, we have delivered salmon fry to satellite rearing tanks managed by the Miramichi Headwaters Salmon Federation and JD Irving Ltd. in Juniper where those fish will be released as fall fingerling in the Juniper and Clearwater areas. 
 

As summer is now in full swing and warmer temperatures are upon us, we will soon be turning our attention to habitat work with our cold-water pool refuge projects. We will be revisiting our site at Parks Brook on the Little Southwest for post-work evaluation. Temperature profiles will be taken again now that the work has been completed and then compared to last year. This year we are heading to Salmon Brook on the Cains to complete our 7th cold-water pool project. We are going to do a pre-work temperature profile of the pool during the warmest period of the year prior to the actual work taking place later in the year. These cold-water pools are designed to give salmon a place where they can avoid thermal stress when water temperatures are at their warmest. For a complete listing of all the cold water pool restoration projects we’ve completed click here.

Although born in Saskatchewan in 1934 Mervin's family moved back to the River when he was just two years old. Mervin quickly decided to forge his own path when he quit school to work on a farm in Ontario at the age of 15 and tried his hand at being a cowboy out-west at 16,  only to find himself hitchhiking all the way back to his families homestead in Hayesville, NB. As early as 1951, Mervin has been guiding the River for Salmon Brook Camp. This proved fruitful both professionally and personally for him as he actually ended up marrying the camp manager's daughter, Myrna Calhoun, in 1968 and then becoming Camp Manager himself in 1981.

This was back in the days when you fished with bamboo rods, most fishermen coming to the camps "thought more of fishing gear than their wives" and you only fished with traditional Hardy's fully dressed flies. To read the rest of the interview with Mervin including his trek across Canada in boat race to celebrate the Centennial in 1967 click here!