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Your monthly resource for MSA conservation updates, Miramichi Watershed Information, upcoming MSA Events and much much more.
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Be sure to stay up to date with videos and photos by liking us on Facebook on Twitter:
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MSA Receives Important 2016
Project Funding Support
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The MSA is pleased to report it has recently received some critically important 2016 Project funding support from a number of key funding partners.
The New Brunswick Wildlife Trust Fund (NBWTF) awarded a $9,000 grant to support the MSA’s electrofishing program which assesses juvenile salmon populations in the smaller tributaries as well as identifying locations of low density for follow-up stocking with first-feeding fry raised at the Miramichi Salmon Conservation Center. The NBWTF also awarded a $6,000 grant to support the MSA's Smolt Predation Study on the NW Miramichi, an acoustic tagging study initiated to better determine the survival rates of migrating smolts as well as locations of their high mortality.
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The
New Brunswick Environmental Trust Fund awarded a $6,500 grant to help underwrite the cost of conducting an on-site survey and follow-up project design for enhancing the cold-water habitat refuge at the confluence of Salmon Brook and the Cains River.
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In addition to the Salmon Brook cold-water project, the MSA also received a $2,500 grant from the RBC Blue Water Fund to help offset the costs of improving the cold-water refuge at the confluence of Parks Brook and the LSW Miramichi. Both cold-water projects will be undertaken later this summer/early fall.
To learn more about these and other MSA conservation programs and activities, go to the MSA website and click on the Programs tab.
The MSA would like to thank the NBWTF, NBETF and RBC Blue Water for their generous and continued support.
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Left to right:Award recipient Bryant Freeman, past MSA Chairman Doug MacDonald and current MSA Chairman Brian Moore
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It was a full house with over 200 salmon enthusiasts in attendance.
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The 16th Annual Freeman Dunnett MSA Conservation Dinner
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The 16th Annual Freeman Dunnett MSA Conservation Dinner was held on May 19th, 2016 at the ever popular Crown Plaza Hotel in downtown Moncton. This year’s dinner honoured Mr. Bryant Freeman for his life-long commitment and contributions to salmon conservation.
As in past years, this fun and entertaining evening was a great opportunity to visit with both old and new fishing friends and enjoy a delicious roast beef plated dinner, all while supporting the great cause of salmon conservation! The Live Auction featured many unique and special fishing experiences.
Thank you to all who helped support the MSA through donations and attendance at this event!
Be sure to check out our upcoming events by Clicking here and heading to events.
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Meet Our New Chairman - Brian Moore
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The MSA welcomed new Board Chairman Brian Moore in April of this Year. As editor of The Leaper, I had the opportunity to sit down with Brian, and his lovely wife Susan, when they were on their way through the Miramichi from a salmon fishing trip they’d purchased at the MSA Moncton Dinner, to Camp Bonaventure. Being new to the MSA myself I was eager to find out what this new Chairman’s vision for the MSA would be and I was not disappointed.
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A long time supporter and current Life Member of the MSA, Brian has chaired the Saint John MSA/ASF combined dinner for over 10 years. His involvement was clearly noticed as Vince Swazey, then MSA Board of Directors Nominating Committee Chair, called Brian on a Thursday evening, 9 years ago to chat about joining MSA’s Board of Directors. Surprisingly Brian and Vince had not met at this point but that wouldn’t last for long. Just two days later when Brian and Susan brought their mothers to Porter Brook to watch the salmon trying to jump up the falls, they came across Vin doing the very same thing. I’m sure from then on, for anyone who’s met Vince would know, Brian had no choice but to happily get on board.
Since then Brian has been a vocal and active member of the Board, including his first meeting where he couldn’t help but stand up and say “What are we doing for the kids? When I look around this room at the average age, I’m thinking we’re not doing the right thing here, we need to be bringing younger people along and making it a little easier to go salmon fishing. This is happening now as we’re spending more time and energy on youth mentoring programs, as well as helping to make it easier for people to identify and find the Public Pools.” Brian’s passion for youth extends far beyond salmon fishing and he and Susan have a permanently established endowment fund with the Greater Saint John Community Foundation where they have been particularly involved with causes that benefit youth, education and specifically the YMCA.
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When asked what he sees for the future of MSA, Brian mentioned being excited by the potential for new and innovative salmon conservation projects as well as developing and growing programs such as the MSA Trust, the MSA’s planned giving program, which he and Susan helped to establish. “We can’t focus on past successes or failures but only move forward.”- Kate Flanagan
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Brian, a Fredericton native, now resides in Saint John New Brunswick, where he established his company, Fundy Fencing in 1979 from which he recently retired after 36 years of ownership. He and wife Susan, a former elementary teacher, are both outdoor enthusiast who enjoy fishing, sailing, travel and skiing. You can often find Susan hosting “Girls Fishing Trips” at their camp in Hayesville, NB.
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Contibuted by MSA Member Gary Tanner
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I suspect that if you ask one more salmon angler what the best flies for summer atlantic salmon angling are, you'll get one more completely different answer from the last person you asked. The one constant, regarding "flies of choice", especially if you read Doug Underhill's weekly report will be the cursed Green Machine, the fly many of us love to hate. I have never fished it, never will. Just one of those quirks some of us carry around. But enough of that. Here are the only summer flies I need:
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The Cutty is the creation of my good friend, Bob Warren. I'm on pretty solid ground when I say that it is, for all intents and purposes, the only fly he fishes when he's on the Miramichi for a couple weeks every July.
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RBM stands for Renate Bullock's Muddler.The RBM is one of the few three-season flies I know; Spring, Summer and Fall, it takes fish. Here's a grilse she landed in August 2015, on it:
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The Glitter Bear, originated by ASF's Bill Taylor, made me a believer in 2008. I think I might have been
top rod for the entire season that year at Bullock's, due completely, I'm sure, to the Glitter Bear. I had a
tough time keeping them off the hook that summer. I really like to switch to it when the light starts to
flatten out in the evening.
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The Green Picasse:
Quebec guide and prolific fly creator Marc LeBlanc designed the Picasse (it is tied in several color variations; I like green the best). Picasse translates to "anchor" in French. One of LeBlanc's guide friends named it that when he saw how quickly it sinks, thanks to its vinyl D-rib body. It started life looking more like a streamer than it does now, sort of a "spey style." I hooked 4 fish with it within a few days of Hurricane Arthur's devastation last summer,
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The "Locator" Bomber:
Tied on anything from a number 10 to number 4 hook, the Locator is hands down my favorite Bomber.
Renate always calls it the Locator, so there you have it. I was lanked for hook-ups during my trip to the
Miramichi this past July; the only fish I brought up came to this fly, dead-drifted and skittering on the
surface.
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There you have it: the only five flies I need for summer atlantics on the Miramichi. Like so many of us, I may only need those five, but I still show up on the river each day with four or five fly boxes. Hey....you never know!
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The Celtic Beauty I derived the CB from my streamer, the Deep Green Beauty over the winter of 2010/11. I was looking forward to giving it it's first swing in the Miramichi in July, 2011, but my hip had other ideas about going fishing, so I mailed a batch of them to Renate, asking her to pass them out to her sports as she saw fit. Long story short: 3 anglers hooked 16 atlantics over the course of the first day the fly ever swam. Granted it was 2011 and there were plenty of fish around, but I still consider that a pretty auspicious start for the fly. It is named in honor of my lovely Irish partner, Briget:
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with MSA Biologist
Holly Labadie
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The last few weeks have been very busy here at MSA for our field crews – we had four smolt wheels (two on the LSW and two on the NW) fishing seven days a week, for four weeks, to collect 5000 smolts for a new adult rearing research program; these fish will be held at the Miramichi Salmon Conservation Centre in South Esk. The wheels were taken out of the river on June 2nd and 3rd and the collection is complete for 2016. The fish are being fed a special semi-moist food diet and chopped krill to get them accustomed to feeding in the hatchery, and are eating really well! Check out this great video to see the new fish.
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Our smolt tracking project with ASF is underway, with 240 smolts tagged between May 17th and 20th. The tags were evenly split among the NW and SW branches, and were also divided into 3 groups per branch as follows:
NW: 60 wild smolts collected, tagged, and released May 18th – 20th.
30 smolts collected in October 2015, held at the hatchery, tagged and released May 18th – 20th.
30 smolts collected in October 2015, tagged at the hatchery in early March, released May 18th – 20th.
TOTAL: 120 smolts
SW: 60 wild smolts collected, tagged, and released May 16th – 17th.
30 smolts collected in October 2015, held at the hatchery, tagged and released May 17th.
30 smolts collected in October 2015, tagged at the hatchery in early March, released May 17th.
TOTAL: 120 smolts
Each fish received a unique tag number, and they were divided into daytime and nighttime release groups (at Miner’s Bridge on the NW and Rocky Brook Camp on the SW), so we can compare surgery techniques and survival of fish tagged in March vs. fish tagged in May and day vs. night release. Our exchange student from Belgium, Thibaut, will be working hard on this project with us. There is lots of great data to be collected for 2016! Click here for more information!
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"Fly Fishing the Atlantic Salmon of the Miramichi River, Revisited
", is the second book in the series by Editor Squirrel Tail Vickers. This 152-page soft cover book offers readers a wonderful collection of well-written short stories, essays and how-to instructions by individuals who share a common goal; preservation and protection of our cherished Miramichi salmon. This must have book features 40 plus coloured photos and illustrations. Priced at $25.00 plus shipping and handling. Add a copy of the first edition, entitled
"Fly Fishing the Atlantic Salmon of the Miramichi River"
for only $15.00 more. To order (click here) or call 1-506-622-4000.
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Update from
Antóin O'Sullivan
Jack T. H. Fenety
2016 Scholarship Recipient
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Named after its long time former President, the MSA annually awards the "Jack T.H. Fenety Conservation Scholarship" to a graduate student who is conducting meaningful research about wild Atlantic salmon and/or its habitat which will have relevance to the Miramichi Watershed. (Photo to right: Antóin O'Sullivan, PhD Candidate at UNB)
2016 gives way to our first field season in search of an answer to the question – ‘Does the landscape influence water temperature?’ To date most of our work has been at an office desk, so getting out into this beautiful watershed is a welcome change of scene. One of the most striking aspects so far has been witnessing the sheer size of the Miramichi system. We spent 17 hours driving and only covered the Cains, Southwest and Little Southwest rivers. Another fascinating observation was how unique each river is. For instance, the Cains is akin to rivers and landscapes we have in Ireland, while the Little Southwest is like nothing I’ve ever saw; its banks tell a story of ancient river that once carved its way through the landscape.
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Bank erosion at Burntland Brook on the SW exposing fractured bedrock. Fractures like these may allow groundwater to surface and provide cold-water refugia.
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Field work on the Cains river. The river is unique within the Miramichi watershed as it headwaters in the low lying Maritime Plains.
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In relation to our research, we are in the process of coupling areas which have similar bedrock geology, surficial geology and relief into Hydrological Landscape units (HLU’s). By doing so we are hoping to compare stream temperature within each HLU; if differences exist within HLU’s we can rule out bedrock geology, surficial geology and relief as a cause of varying temperature. This would allow us investigate other landscape variables which may be influencing stream temperature, such as land-use, river morphology, forest management practices, solar radiation exposure, etc.
Hopefully next year we will have a few answers that might give us an insight into what governs river temperatures within the Miramichi!
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The MSA still needs you to share your best photographs!
You could win one of 20 prizes and/or have your photo included in the MSA’s upcoming 2017 MSA Calendar.
The photos have been really rolling in and we appreciate you all taking the time to submit via our website. With over 40 entries to date we are anticipating that MSA's Photo Contest will prove to be a great success.
Looking forward to many more submissions over the next few months as this year's fishing season really gets underway.
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The 7th Annual MSA First Cast June 25-26
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Do you love fly fishing and have a child or grandchild with whom you’d like to share the fun and satisfaction of the sport? Have you a friend who has often said, “I’d love to take up fly fishing for Atlantic salmon, but I don’t know where to start”? If so, on Saturday, June 25 and on Sunday, June 26, the Miramichi Salmon Association will host its 7th annual First Cast MSA, a free event for everyone (young and old) who is eager to learn about the sport of fly fishing for Atlantic salmon. Registration is free but space is limited. Note: There is no need to have your own equipment, as MSA offers the use of theirs for this program. For more Information click here!
To register, please contact the MSA’s Kate Flanagan at 506-622-4000 or at kate@miramichisalmon.ca for more information.
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The MSA Salmon Classic
The Miramichi Salmon Association’s 11th Annual Miramichi Salmon Classic, a four-day event with three days of fishing on the Miramichi River, will be held from
July 10th– 13th, 2016
. The fee is $350 CND for first time participants and $450 CND for returnees.
Over the course of three days you will have the opportunity to fish various pools located throughout the Miramichi River Watershed representing a rare mix of public and private water. A special treat this year will be the serving of lobster at the opening night banquet on July 10th.
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MSA Welcomes New Members - May 2016
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“A true conservationist is a person who knows that the world is not given by our fathers,
but borrowed from our children”
–
John James Audubon
T
he Miramichi Salmon Association was excited to have welcomed
eight brand new members into our ranks during the month of May.
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Thibaut Bournonville, Meux, Belgium
Iris Cieko, Granby, MA
Bruce Gans, Townsend, MS
James C. Graybill , Anville, PA
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Ronald Lord, Grande-Digue,NB
Clare, McQuaid, Miramichi, NB
Robert Nutten, Fredericton, NB
Ashton Nutten, Riverview, NB
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Still not a member of the Miramichi Salmon Association?
Membership in the MSA is the perfect way to express your passion and support for the Miramichi River, for the Atlantic salmon who make it their home, and for the vital work being done by the MSA to protect and conserve both for today and tomorrow!
Click here to sign up today!
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MSA Events You Do Not Want to Miss
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