My LAST weekend fishing report for 2012.....(part 1)

I'll be honest, getting up to the camp this past weekend was a bit of a bag drive.... I wasn't terribly enthusiastic about it and the thoughts of fishing in the cold, wind and rain wasn't terribly exciting. In fact, I was more interested in birds so I made sure I picked up a hunting license and dusted off the trusty old Remington 870 Express - is there a more reliable utility grade pump gun? The plan was to duck out a wee bit early on Thursday and drive to the camp via the back roads from the 123 a.k.a. the Grandlake Road so that I could do some 'hollywood' hunting before it got too dark. About 2 kilometres on the Chipman side from the Cains river bridge there is a logging road called the Acadia Road. This road meets the South Cains road some 40-ish kilometres is the woods - great chance to drive along and scope for some birds. When I made the turn off the pavement and started seeing some of the fall colours a change began... my less than chipper mood about this endeavour began to be pushed aside as I remembered how much I love the fall and everything to do with it... This season has been so terrible fishing-wise that I became obsessed with the weather details and river levels to the point that I forgot to stop and smell the roses... I've been so worried about something I can't control ... I suspect I'm not the only NB'er or salmon fishermen to have had suffered the same affliction this 2012 season!

Inspiring Fall colours (yes, the 'U' belongs)

I made my way through the Acadia road and finally got to the South Cains road - no birds sighted. I decided to stop at Salmon Brook to check the river and boy was she high and dirty! There were a couple fellas pounding her anyways -- the lads were troopers! Please note the only patch of red in the trees on the right --- you'll be seeing that a little later in this report ;-)

So I finally made it to the camp, it took me almost 4 hours to get there - it's normally a 2.5 hour drive. I really enjoyed my tour and it certainly put me back into the right frame of mind. I lit a fire and had a couple 'sodas' while waiting for Paul to give me a ring. When he called we discussed our plans for the next day -- the plan was to do some pool hopping on the Northwest in the AM and the Renous in the PM. I was to meet him at Debbie & Dale Norton's place "Upper Oxbow Outdoor Adventures"
If you ever need a place to hunt or fish from I highly recommend the Oxbow. They can accommodate any type of fishing or hunting adventure available in New Brunswick!

6 AM came early and I was surprised when the alarm went off. The morning was cold and there was rain in the forecast... what would today bring?

Breakfast by flashlight:

I arrived at Debbie's place shortly after 7 in time for coffee. I chatted with some of the regulars and Paul Sr. was there as well. It's always nice to get up there and see everyone - it feels just like home!
We loaded our gear into the 'little tank' and headed north, pool hopping here we come! We saw a nice buck and doe whitetail on the drive.

We hit 3 pools by noon and pool 4 was to be a coin toss and we decided to hit one that I haven't fished in a while. As usual before we started through the pool Paul and I discussed what fly each of us would use... when we fish together we try to not fish the same pattern so that we can cover a wider spectrum of flies and presentations to increase our odds of finding what the fish will key in on during that particular day and for those conditions. Being fall, marabous were high on the rotation - it was just a matter of colour. I started each pool with my favorite fall marabou - the canary. I think it was midway through the first pass that Paul mentioned the fish are likely sick of looking at yellow and red because of all the leaves in the high water... I took his theory and decided to change up midway.. I normally like to complete a pass before changing flies but this just seemed to make so much sence that I busted out the 'showgirl'. If there are fall leaves in the river that look like a showgirl I'll eat my hat! I continued down through to the slower, bottom part of the pool and that's when the trout parade began:

I was starting to think to myself, alright - this is getting annoying! But surely these pesky critters are holding in similar places that salmon would, aren't they? Somewhere in between trout Paul stepped out to warm up and he tied on another uniquely coloured marabou pattern and stepped back in above me. He made 1 or 2 casts and came tight on a salmon! It wasn't meant to be and the hookup wasn't solid and as I was turning my head up stream to yell and beg him for a fly of the same colour I felt a BIG PULL!! No way!! Fish on!! It wasn't 30 seconds after what just happened to Paul so we almost had a double header!! Paul yells back, "take your time and enjoy!". It had been a while for me so I really did have a great time with this fish. She jumped a bunch of times and didn't just roll over and play dead. She wasn't my biggest fish ever but she was certainly my best of the season (spring fish don't count). She also bent the hell out of my hook - a number 4 mustad 3665a.

The battle:

Getting ready for some tail ;-)

Tailed!

With Instagram filtre:

The release:

A few more pics  *we finished here for the day*

Paul throwing some line:

Dave checking things out:

This is exactly how I wanted to finish my season, fishing with the Nut. I had zero expectations of fish and she was certainly a bonus. Thanks again for the great day on the river bud, I can't wait for our next trip. Good luck silver bass fishing if you manage to get out!

This pretty much wraps up Friday. I'll get Saturday's update done soon. I managed to get out with my cousin Doug on Saturday -- He's the guy who got me into all this foolishness in the first place! ;-)

The last hurrah.... Er I mean the last HURRAH!!

I drove up to the camp this afternoon via the Acadia road and took in some beautiful fall sights ... I was driving through around 5 and the sun was just right to illuminate the beautiful fall foliage. If anyone comes through there in the near future from the 123 side of things just watch there are a couple deep puddles you must drive slowly through -- I was putting along through one and it suddenly dropped another 6 inches so it would have been an ugly bump if it was hit with any speed. I stopped in at salmon brook pool and it seems the Cains was also hit with the thunderstorm we ha province wide last night. It's high and dirty with lots of debris and leaves. A couple gents were fishing and had been all day with no luck, apparently. I'm not sure what tomorrow will bring when I meet up with the Nut but I came prepared this time with my 870 in tow ;)

A few pictures from the drive up:

 

 

A few more pics from Moose hunting...

Here's a few more pics from Dad's camera from our great outing for moose last week.

Next on the agenda, bird hunting!

The Mother Of All Blinds or MOAB for short..

In my last 2 posts I referred to the MOAB which is short for 'Mother Of All Blinds'... last year we needed to rebuild Tom's number 1 blind so we decided to make one that was big, comfortable and would last a long time. The first version of this blind was build up at our deer hunting camp and it has stood the test of time so we decided to make a mirror image of it 8'x8' and 12 to 14 feet to the floor up on moose mountain. Here's a few pictures of the process.

We prefabricated it at home and folded it up and brought it to Tom's in a trailer:

And that's the deal on the Mother Of All Blinds.

Moose Season or: How I learned to stop worrying and Love the Hunt - the conclusion

We were almost back to the camp when Rick's phone rang, it was Tom and he had a moose down, he was also out of shells! Ha! So we headed up the hill to the MOAB - everywhere you go on the mountain is up hill in both directions - even when you go down hill you still end up walking up somewhere along the way!

As Rick and I reached the MOAB we looked to our right and this is what we saw:

He was right where Tom emptied his rifle into him, about 30 yards from the blind! As we skinned the old brute we saw that 1 shot would have more than likely done the job but as my grandfather always told me, do what you got to do to knock him down -- even if there's only enough left for hoof soup!

Tom excitedly told us the story about what had happened and this fellow came down right from where the neighbors are -- which was a bit of poetic justice really, based on the previous day's shenanigans of them driving all over the place calling within earshot of our 2 blinds -- take that, neighbors! =)

Yours truly:

Tom and Art:

Rick and Art  are father & son -- a couple of really great fellas too - i'd hunt or fish with them anyday!

Dad, Tom and I:

The view from the blind of where the moose dropped:

The view from the blind of where he came from:

Tom and his John Deere:

Genuine Ford Parts -- and he sure is!

Dad, Tom and I:

Worn out hoof:

It was a great hunt, spent with a good old friend and a couple new ones. I look forward to spending time at Tom's place and wish I had more time to go more often. He's always an incredible host and makes us feel right at home. Thanks again, Tom! Art and Rick, it was a pleasure to meet you gents and get to hunt with you. I'd jump at the chance to do it again!

Now that the hunt is officially over I have to say how lucky we were to have a day like Friday... the weather was perfect, the neighbors had screwed off somewhere and that old bull cooperated. A lot of things had to happen just right for the day's events to turn out the way they did. As with most things in life there are no guarantees, especially on a moose hunt. If you look at the weather for this years 3 day event, Thursday was windy as hell and Saturday was windy AND rainy all day. Thank goodness for Friday!

I'm not sure how the hollywooders on the base made out, but I am both relieved and happy that Tom was able to connect at his place instead of having to join them.

What a great hunt! And I never thought of salmon fishing the whole time =)