Salmon sparks 4th’s fireworks Independence Day best celebrated hooking ‘king’

In the run of a year I do a fair amount of fishing. Handlining smelt from the wood-fire warmth of a shanty helps pass many a winter evening, and tending traps on various local lakes occupies a few days. Mid-April and May are filled with black salmon fishing in New Brunswick and Quebec, and ice- out trolling on regional waterways. Fly casting rivers and streams for brook trout, a few trips to the coast for stripers, regular smallmouth outings and a visit to Florida for tarpon fill the summer months.

Over the years I’ve managed to wet a line a few times in Alaska and Hawaii, Montana and Mexico, and have cast a fly in Puerto Rico and all the New England states. Of all my travels and exciting angling adventures over the last three decades, none of these delight and exhilarate me like my annual ventures to fly fish for fresh run Atlantic salmon on Canadian waterways. Just hearing names like Restigouche, Cascapedia, St. Jean, Moise, Upsilquitch, Miramichi and Bonaventure elicit chills and vivid memories. But no salmon river causes my heart and mind to race like the magnificent Matapedia.

A major tributary of the world renown Restigouche, the 50-mile river of the Matapedia is comprised of 104 recognized pools and many more productive pot holes and small holding runs. Most of the pools are open to public fishing, save for a few stretches controlled by private owners of the Restigouche Salmon Club, Tobique Club, and Cold Spring Camps. One particular section of the river, comprised of 26 pools and named Glen Emma, is controlled by the Quebec government, and considered by many the finest fishing on the entire river. Allocated by annual lottery, these popular pools come with a guide and canoe, but only 10 anglers per day are permitted.

Salmon are plentiful by North American standards and the chances of hooking a 20- pound fish are excellent. A few dozen rare 30-pound trophies are caught as well, making these pools much desired. On an average year, 16 percent of the registered salmon weigh 20 pounds or more! Up until last year, Glen Emma water was dispersed through a one day telephone call in. Its popularity is best explained by the fact that more than 100,000 attempted calls were registered each year during the one day the government water was offered for sale.

Fishing the Fourth

Throughout three decades I’ve been a guest several times at the trio of private clubs, fished hundreds of days on the public pools from top to bottom of the Matapedia and spent hour after hour dialing for Glen Emma water. Perseverance pays, and surprisingly I managed to get a couple of days each season, even more remarkable is the fact that often my dates were during July’s prime salmon fishing. Up until this year’s lottery by some strange coincidence my fishing days always fell within a day or two of July 4th or 28th, birthdays of the country and myself respectively. That I got any fishing dates from this year’s lottery was a shock, that my one day in July was the Fourth was uncanny.

Being selected to fish during prime time was just the first major hurdle to a successful outing on the Matapedia, the second question mark was which sector of pools would I garner by random draw and which guide. Certain pools are better during specific weather and water conditions. Top June and September pools may not even be worth fishing in July and August. Thankfully most runs have two to three pools, at least one of which is productive. All of the guides are top notch, but some have more experience, while others posses the rare ability of speaking English as well as salmon.

As always, my first stop on arriving in the village of Matapedia is at the small building where licenses, daily permits for public water and access papers for Glen Emma are procured. I exchanged pleasantries with Anne Tremblay, a fixture at the registry for all the years I’ve been visiting, as she issued my paperwork. I learned that I was assigned zone 10, which under present conditions of very hot days, rising water temperature and declining levels meant I got one pool -Glovers. I wouldn’t learn who my guide would be until arriving at the main camp on Home Pool the next morning at 8, when access papers are checked, and guides and sports are assigned and depart for their pools.

Fishing foreplay

After checking in at the Restigouche Hotel and transferring luggage and fishing gear to my room, I visited the lobby and lounge. Paintings, photos, carvings, mounted fish, rods, reels and flies adorn each and every wall, giving each angler a view of days past on the river and perhaps a hopeful glimpse of days to come. I enjoyed supper with Peter Dube, owner of the hotel, frequent fishing partner and friend.

Over the course of two hours company to our table were abundant. Visiting anglers who were longtime acquaintances, local guides I’d known for years and a few new, casting confederates passed some time with us and traded a few fish tales. General consensus was that fishing was tough currently. Thundershowers three days previously had perked up the action substantially, with eight of 10 Glen Emma anglers taking salmon on the following two days. This day’s success rate had been less than half.

I looked out the dining room window longing for rain clouds, or at least an overcast sky tomorrow. Atlantic salmon fishing is tough enough under agreeable conditions, another day in the 80s would be very detrimental. Hope springs eternal in every salmon fanatic however, so I excused myself, to go back to the room and prepare my gear for the morning.

Rods were assembled, reels attached, and lines were cleaned and coated with floatant. Each leader and knot was thoroughly inspected and box after box of flies perused. A size 4 double green highlander and a size 6 long shank double black dose, each a traditional feather wing pattern, were carefully attached to the 14-pound tippet of each leader.

Just like a parent caring for a child, my equipment got loving attention. The sights, sounds and smells of the Matapedia valley, ambiance of the hotel, the sportsmen and their stories and the gear preparation – for a salmon angler these are all foreplay leading to that first cast of a new season on a beloved waterway.

Whoosh

By the time I arrived at the guide’s camp just before 8 the next morning it was already 70 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. On the plus side I found out that Jean Paul Gauthier, a guide with more than 30 years experience on many salmon rivers, was to be my guide. We had paired up more than dozen times over the years and often taken fish, despite the fact that his English was as limited as my French.

As we made our way very carefully down the steep, rocky, narrow switchback trail to the gulch that forms Glover’s Ledge, my anticipation rose with every step. At the first sight of the pool I actually sighed, and as we moved up the beach and boarded the 22-foot Sharp’s canoe I was in heaven. J.P. poled us to the head of the pool and dropped the anchor, and I just sat there, not even reaching for a rod for a few minutes, enjoying the sight, sounds and smells unique only to an Atlantic salmon river.

Cast by cast, lengthening line each time, I covered the water on each side of the boat. A couple of times when the fly would swing over a likely rock or holding spot for a fish, John Paul would loudly say, Whoosh! It was his way of expressing the sound a big fish makes when it swirls on the surface to engulf a fly. But there was no whoosh on the first drop.

Cast by cast, drop by drop we covered the entire pool and saw not a fish, despite the occasional hopeful and helpful whooshes J.P. interjected. I worked the bottom of the pool near the ledge over with a top rate dry fly called a Crevette, which means “shrimp” in English, but still no takers. Back to the top of the run. It’s now 9:30 and nearly 80 degrees I change to a Jock Scott on one rod and a brown bomber with white wings on the other. We wet fly then dry fly each drop, but still no takers.

I’ve fished salmon too long to be upset or even surprised by the lack of action, but when a fish rolled above us, in a spot I’d already fished over, I was frustrated. During the next hour as we worked our way down the pool for the second time, no less than 10 salmon of every size jumped, splashed and rolled, but still no whoosh. Blazing sun, no breeze, and broaching 85 degrees, a little man called self doubt was jumping up and down on my shoulder. Change to a bright pattern, move the canoe to get a different drift, use a larger fly, try a single hook and a dozen more suggestions were whispered by the little man as J.P. poled us to the head of the pool just before 11 a.m.

I held a Frazier special and a rusty rat in my palm. I’d tied both to original guidelines, even down to the red head on the rat fly. Time was short, only one rod this trip and casts only to the left side of the pool. Rusty rat won out and I tied it on my new 111/2-foot, two-hand, 8- weight Loomis rod. The first drop was fruitless, and casting a very long line with only a cast or two left on the second drop I was rethinking my fly choice.

The line curled out and spit down the fly near the rocky shoreline, and it swung no more than six feet when with no warning a sudden surge tightened the line. No rise, no swirl and no Whoosh, but it was certainly a salmon, as the long run into the backing climaxed with a spiraling leap proved. For 15 minutes the hearty tug of war continued with two more long runs , several shorter ones, much head shaking and bull dogging and four more jumps. Finally Jean Paul slipped the net around a beautiful silver torpedo.

Of 10 anglers, only one other salmon was caught that Fourth of July morning. A week later, I’m still elated; what a fight, what a fish. In my opinion there’s no better way for a fisherman to celebrate Independence Day than casting a line in picturesque solitude for the king of freshwater game fish. Atlantic salmon fishing isn’t a pastime, it’s a way of life.

Outdoor feature writer Bill Graves can be reached via e-mail at bgravesoutdoors@ainop.com