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My First Atlantic Salmon


Here is a story of how I caught my first Atlantic Salmon in the spring of 1999.

Left to right Brett Silliker Camp Mgr, Dale and Debbie Norton Camp Owners

 Upper Oxbow Outdoor Adventures

by Lee Goldsmith
Lee's Fishing Page

With much ado 8 people, one SUV and a Mini Van left Dover New Hampshire around 6_AM to head up to Upper Oxbow Outdoor Adventures. This is the fishing camp on the Little Southwest Miramichi River in Northeast New Brunswick that we worked out of for this fishing trip. The camp is run by Debbie and Dale Norton, who by the way are exceptional people. The trip up to camp takes about 9 hours of travel with a late breakfast stop at Dysart's just outside of Bangor Maine. We arrived at the camp around 4_PM ADT. I got to meet Debbie and Brett for the first time since this was my first trip to the camp. I was not sure how to take Brett at first because when I showed him the flies I was going to use (Saltwater deceivers in red, green and blue colors) he stated (a little smug) "they sure have long tails". But in time I found that Brett is as nice as they come and a great camp manager

Return to camp after a good day of fishing.
After the introductions and such we got down to business, unpacking and getting ready for the evening meal. The way this group works is we cook our own dinner and lunch and have the camp prepare the breakfast. After supper it was time to get our license so we can get to fishing first thing in the morning. We got a 7 day license for we were going to fish for 5 days.

Morning came and it was frosty and windy. We all got ready and met at the camp kitchen for breakfast. Eggs any way you wanted with all the bacon, toast, coffee and juice you could hope to eat and drink. For $6 canadian it was great.

Meeting my Guide (Wayne Ward)

This is Wayne Ward my MicMac Indian Guide
Breakfast over and the time fast approuching 8_AM it was time for me to meet my guide for the week. His name is Wayne Ward who is a local MicMac Indian, a big man but very nice and polite. We are using Wayne's own boat, not one from the camp. It is fiberglas and very stable so the fishing from this boat was easy to do with the windy conditions we had that day. Wayne and I start out by going down river on the Little Southwest and continue to the Northwest Miramichi. This is about a 4 or 5 mile ride. When we reach the Northwest Wayne finds a good spot to stop and he anchors the boat so I can try my luck at hooking a Salmon. At this point Wayne asks me "what fly are you going to try Lee". I replied with "I think I will try this red and white deceiver that my buddy tied for me". Wayne I believe had never seen a deceiver so he said "well if that does not work I have a few flies here you can try". He had a little brown paper bag with about 6 local flies in it.

We tried several places along the river as we worked our way up stream. With no hits or strikes at this point we pulled anchor again and moved up river some more.

I hook my first Atlantic Salmon

My First Atlantic Salmon A 34 inch male
We anchor in a spot along a very big hole near the Indian Camps, Wayne called it Big Hole but I was told later that this was not big hole. Wayne had a very hard time getting the anchor to hold with the wind, but finally he was able to get it to hold. I made about 6 casts, towards shore and you let it drift back and then do a slow retrieve. All of a sudden I had a fish on, it was not a hard hit but just there. With the high spring water these fish have plenty of fight and it was about 10 minutes before we landed the fish. After a couple of pictures and the release of the fish Wayne looks up at me and said "you knew you were going to get a good fish on that fly". The fly was the red and white deciever.

Wayne Ward holding my 36 inch female Atlantic Salmon.
All tole it was a very good trip for the first time out Atlantic Salmon fishing. The weather was crazy, snow showers one day and 65 degrees the next. In the five days of fishing I was able to hook and land 18 fish, 16 grilse (fish that are less then 25 inches in length) and two Salmon. As well as the first fish that was a Salmon (a fish oveer 25 inches in length)I also hooked and landed another Salmon that was 36 inches long and was a very heavy hen fish. I also hooked and lost several other fish.

It was a very nice trip and the experience was great. I recommend that everyone give it a try, it is not that expensive, about $1000 US for 6 nites and 5 days of fishing.


by LeeGoldsmith

After my service time (4 years active) I went to collage and obtained a Masters degree in Forestry from UNH but never really worked as a forester other then to process data from other foresters using a program to calculate volume of standing timber. From there I became a self taught programmer in FORTRAN and have worked as a programmer for a manufacturing company then got into tech support now working as a test engineer for a small company that does contract work for Hewlett Packard. Lee's Fishing Page has grown from a simple site hosted by my internet provider to being hosted now by TotalChoiceHosting and being built with Geeklog and its many plugins. LFP is now on glFusion and I believe will be for the rest of time. I hope everyone likes the site and will contribute to it.
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Dave V

Thursday, June 07 2007 @ 08:16 PM EDT
Looks like you had a blast, I have always wanted to fish there. What weight rod did you catch it on ? When is the best time to fish ?

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Eat Sleep Fly Fish

LeeGoldsmith

Saturday, June 09 2007 @ 03:34 PM EDT

Dave I used a 9 ft 9 wt but would recommend a 9 ft 8 wt in the future.  Best time to fish is spring for the black salmon.  You can catch about 10 to 12 a day in the spring.  When the bright fish are in you are lucky if you catch one fish a day.

Lee

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Lee Goldsmith
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