Wild Atlantic Salmon Returning New Brunswick Rivers

Image by Chris Blanar via Flickr I am one who loves fly fishing but I also practice catch and release. In past years the wild salmon numbers have been declining mainly to due with poor fishery management. I was certainly sad about this thinking that my son and grand children won’t know the beauty and excitement the wild Atlantic salmon can bring, whether you are a fly fisher or not.

This morning I was listening to the news over my early morning coffee, mainly to find out what I should wear for my walk this morning as the weather this August has been filled with anything but sun shine. What I heard filled me with the joy of fishing.

He was saying our North American wild Atlantic salmon is returning to their birth rivers in quantities not seen in decades. A number of things has helped this to happen and many people have put a lot of effort into bringing wild salmon back to our rivers.

The fact that we have had more rain that I can remember, causing the water to rise considerably, making it easier for the wild salmon to move into the river to spawn but it also has to do with better management of our fishery.

I have been fishing Atlantic salmon for more than 30 years so I remember when the salmon used to be so thick and so large it was scary to get in the water with them.

I have even seen our Atlantic salmon jumping so high out of the water that they actually tried to jump into my chest waders. That day I got a lot of laughs and comments about keeping it legal.

Those were fun days for Atlantic salmon fishing and then they started disappearing and getting smaller. New Brunswick used to be the place to come for trophy Atlantic salmon but that reputation has been tarnished over the past 20 years.

When I heard how the numbers of wild salmon are increasing again I started my happy dance.

I have a couple of salmon hot spots I like to go to and this week I have a friend with a video camera going with me. I will try to get a few shots our awesome Atlantic wild salmon jumping their way up river.

I didn’t get out salmon fishing much this year, mostly because of the rain. Our summer has been a very wet one but I will get out a few more times before the season ends. I love fly fishing salmon but if I don’t get out as much as I would like I don’t mind so much if I know we are getting more wild salmon heading up river to spawn after so many years.