sport recreation

The Joy of Fly Fishing in New Brunswick

Posted: 31 Jul 2011 06:31 AM PDT

Well another fun day of fishing with Casey and Jamie on French Lake has come to an end. The only thing that stopped us was the fact the big light in the sky ran out of energy for the day so we decided to go home.

Even though the wind was fairly strong and of course always blowing in the wrong direction we still had a blast. There was enough cloud cover so we weren't frying all day and plenty of wind so that the bugs had to hang on to trees so they didn't bother us.

Who could ask for more, eh?

The ride up in Casey's truck was full of joking around and teasing each other but of course once we arrived at French lake things got serious. NOT. That would just be strange see three guys in a fishing boat being serious.

Casey hooked and caught the first fish of the day. For a perch it put up quite a fight but Casey still managed to land it, even without the use of his rubber net. Sadly that had to hold him for a while as Jamie decided to take over.

Casey lands the first fish, a feisty little perch with an attitude.

Now Jamie's first fish could have eaten Casey's perch but even so Casey had the bragging rights for catching the first fish.

The score was now one fat perch for Casey and one long skinny 22.000017 inch pickerel for Jamie. I was still in practice mode, I guess.

Jamie's pickerel trying to flip out of his hand

Then for a while the two of them were going crazy with strikes, although they weren't landing any. Casey is in the back of the boat, Jamie in the front with me in the middle and I can't get a strike at all. It was time to change baits.

Jamie landed a second pickerel, a little smaller than his first and Casey was trying to figure out why the pickerel were not getting the point he was presenting. They just wouldn't stay on his hook.

Casey was trying a new lure he had just bought the day before but the pickerel just seemed to smack it with getting the hook. After a bit he gave up and tried another bait and landed himself a nice pickerel.

Eventually I had practiced enough and got my first strike and first pickerel.

It always amazes me how three people can be in a boat, fishing the same water, structure and weeds with two people getting attention while the third is completely ignored by the fish.

Sometimes we go fishing and one person royally kicks butt and yet we're only a few feet apart.

We had a lot of action as well as fun of course.

My biggest catch for most of the day was 19 inches. The majority of catches seemed to be right around 19 and 20 inches but my last catch of the day was my best at 22 inches.

Smiling Jimmy with his biggest fish of the day.

At this point is was dark, very dark. Sure glad Casey knew where the heck he was going because I would have had to stay out there all night waiting for daylight to find my way back.

At the end of the day the final score was Casey with 8 Chain pickerel plus 1 fat perch, Jamie with 10 Chain pickerel and myself with 15 Chain pickerel. I may have started off slow but gain ground over the rest of the day.

Another great day. We got home just about midnight and I'll tell you it didn't take me long to pass out once I got home.