The Joy of Fly Fishing in New Brunswick

We headed to Oromocto the other day for a little bit of fishing and as you can see we weren't the only ones out. Even man's best fishing buddy was on the water.

Our day of fishing started on the Saint John river to see if I could get my first muskie. I waited quite a few years before I felt I was finally strong enough again that I could take on a muskie.

We fished a known muskie stretch up and down for a couple of hours but did get a muskie strike. Casey did get a small smallmouth bass.

After a while of trying for muskie we moved into the Oromocto river and fished our way up to French lake where we hooked into a few chain pickerel. We moved a lot of pickerel but they just weren't very active.

I hooked into a few but missed a whole lot of them. It's great catching but I still get a blast just casting and watching them. Not sure why they kept missing the baits though. So cool watching the wakes and swirls. Sometimes before the bait even hits the water. However I think it's a little more fun landing some.

I was in the front of the boat and had what looked like a big pickerel making a huge swirl when my bait hit the water but nothing on the next few casts. I pointed the spot out to Casey as he was now closer to that spot. He cast exactly where I pointed and that pickerel came flying out of the water and took the bottom half of Casey's Senko. He was a huge pickerel but that was the last we saw of him.

Before I knew it the day was almost done so we took the run back to the Saint John to give muskie another try before heading home again.

Casey Get's The Only Muskie of The Day

Well I didn't manage to get my first muskie but Casey landed a 31" muskie. When he hit it looked like Casey had snagged on bottom but only for a second and then the head shaking started.

It was fun watching but would have been great if it was me with the muskie. Maybe next time.

Taking The Time Taking Care

As soon as I realized Casey had hooked into a muskie I grabbed the big net from the front of the boat and had it ready.

I even managed to get the muskie in the net without any mishaps.

At that point we kept the muskie in the net and in the water so that it would remain calm while we got things ready for measuring and getting pictures.

The muskie wasn't out of the water for more than 15 or 20 seconds.

The muskie was really hooked and Casey felt it was better to cut the hooks than to try getting them out and maybe hurting the muskie. A minute later the muskie was free of the hooks and back in the net while I got the camera read.

He was calm, the muskie that is, but as soon as Casey tried taking him out of the net he went wild. Almost got away before he could be photographed and measured. Once Casey finally got a grip we measured his 31" muskie and I snapped a couple of pictures.

We did see a lot more bald headed eagles than usual. I wrote a short post about that and added some pictures and a video.

From the time I first bought a digital camera to take fishing I have been taking pictures, thousands of them. I still get lots of fishing in while we're out.

I take pictures of water, trees, clouds, sun, some fish and wildlife if I can get close enough for a picture. I often get images that are too far away and out of focus. I just never seem to be able to get a close up image of a bald eagle.

Lots of Eagles On The Oromocto River

On Tuesday May 21 Casey and I were fishing the Oromocto and saw bald eagles every where along the Oromocto river as well as all along the Saint John river at Oromocto.

I don't normally see pairs of eagles but this day we saw multiple pairs and even a few juvenile bald eagles who still had their mottled feathers.

Even though the eagles were still a bit shy and took off before we reached them they still allowed us closer than they normally do. Must have babies they gotta feed. I don't think I've ever seen so many eagles in a single day.

The picture on the left is the closest I got to getting a picture of a pair of eagles. Just as I got the camera up for the picture the first one dropped out of the tree and the second one had wings lifted ready to take off. Just a couple of seconds too slow.

Take a minute and learn more about Oromocto and about the bald eagle on Wikipedia.

Juvenile Bald Eagle

I wasn't sure if the juvenile bald eagles we saw were really bald eagles but I looked online to see if there were other eagles in New Brunswick but couldn't find any. So if this isn't a juvenile bald eagle left me know please.

It's not the best picture but it's the best of the ones I got. The others had branches between my camera and the eagle.