Another run to the Hammond

I made another run to the Hammond yesterday with 2 targets in mind, smallmouth bass and a big bag of garbage - not much of a difference between the two.... I started up by the French Village bridge as there is a school of bass that hang out under it - I caught several before moving further down river. The long pool before the deep hole seemed to have fewer bass in it - I believe they all moved down into it as the river just keeps dropping and getting warmer....

As I got down to the run above the deep hole I noticed 2 Off Road Enforcement Officers were keeping an eye on the river crossing. I went over to chat with them for a while and we discussed all the trash and idiots crossing the river with their bikes and 4x4's... They were working with DNR on the river crossing issue. No sooner had they left a bike appeared and proceeded to cross... I heard through the grapevine later on in the day that they had this guy pulled over -- good stuff!

The idiot in question:

So I fished away, did some good work for the salmon and trout. There are so many bass in this river it's disgusting ... I hear people talk all the time about going to these far out of the way places to catch bass and all they have to do is drive 10 minutes from Saint John and you can catch all you want.. sure you need to use a flyrod after July 1st in the Hammond but they'll take a fly just like any other fish will... 

So after fishing for several hours it was time for a little cleanup.. there was a party recently and the assholes who threw it decided to also throw their garbage, break glass bottles and leave a huge mess down on the gravel bar. In a normal summer this bar would be half sumberged. Warning to anyone going down there with bare feet or pets -- be very careful or you'll end stepping in glass and who knows what else.

Before:

After:

One of the young lads down swimming asked me what in heck I was doing and I told him, cleaning up after ignorant pigs... he said 'Cool!' -- not sure of the sincerity level but it may have gotten him thinking?

Another passerby caught this pic of me scaling the rocks across the deep hole -- I was trying to see if there were anything else in the pool besides bass and a few suckers .... the answer "NO, not a thing!"
The good news is I didn't spot any pickerel either.

After finishing up there I deceided to hit the graveyard pool on the way home... there are 2 large schools of suckers and some other kind of fish hanging out there... the other kind of fish is smaller and hanging out closer to shore than the larger (24"-ish inches) suckers. Everywhere else -- bass and pickerel.. and lots of both. I counted at least 6 pickerel and bass, well I can't count that high... all age classes and sizes up to at least 16-18"... I finished the day there and by the time I arrived home realized I had way too much sun...

Why people are worse than invasives....

With all the warm weather and lack of rain up on the Miramichi, I've been spending a bit of time on the Hammond lately:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammond_River_(New_Brunswick)

http://www.hraa.ca/

It's been a while since i've fished this river and what i've noticed is the extreme amount of garbage and the complete disregard people are showing for aquatic life by creating a virtual highway through the river to Porter's Hole. They've even resorted to partially destroying the signs placed on the telephone poles by DNR stating that it's illegal to drive in the river....

I headed down this morning for a few hours with smallmouth bass and pickerel being top of the agenda (please note the live 'round' in the chamber: olive wooly bugger)

I started at the Island pool and worked my way down to Porter's Hole, tripping on garbage all the way.

There were a couple of these things and a couple dozen smallmouth bass... neither species belong here. I can't say that they were placed here by people, they are more than likely making their way into the warming Hammond due to widening of the river from bank erosion from poor farming practices...

There's a ton of illegal river crossing going on, right in the middle of prime spawning ground. In fact there are a number of lamprey redds right where the crossing is going on. People really are worse than invasive species....

There were hundreds of fry in the tire ruts #depressing ... people are so ignorant .. and I hate most of them.. I just scheduled a garbage pick up with my son and daughter for Wednesday evening. Stay tuned for updates.