Margaree Spate

[Charlie]

My good friend Jim Corrigan just got back from Nova Scotia and asked me to post this report for him. He got some cool shots of the river. :smokin:

Charlie.

Hello to all, Jim Corrigan here with a very brief report on our Margaree
Trip (Oct. 4-9).

From an earlier message …

>… we are off to explore some Nova Scotia rivers for a week or so. The water
>looks good …

HMMM … Looks can be deceiving! To paraphrase baseball - in 5+ days on the
Margaree (Oct. 4-9), we were involved in a classic ‘no hitter’ …

No hookups.

No hits.

No rises.

No fish brought to shore.

For several days, the air was hot (25C+ afternoon temps), the water was
warm, few fresh fish had come in, and/or most of the fish in the pools were
stale - the usual rationalizations. We heard about a few fish being caught
each day – mostly red, mostly on sink tips. We saw the occasional fish in
most of the pools we fished – some were fresh.

Then, the rain started (Oct. 7-8) … We were blown off the Margaree, and
every other salmon river in the Maritime provinces, by a multi-day deluge.
Ironically, this was one of the best parts of the trip. We got to see a
spate on the Margaree, and it was AMAZING! The fall colours were just coming
in – this made for some great photo-ops. We stayed at Big Intervale Lodge at
the top of the river – a fantastic spot run by a very nice Swiss Family.

I was lucky enough to get ‘before and after’ shots of the spate on several
pools. For anybody that has not seen a spate on a salmon river – stand back!
The water came up nearly 5 feet in 12-17 hours.

Good luck to all with your fall fishing!

Jim

[Charlie]

Second picture! :rolleyes:

[andre]

To me the amazing thing is not the change in level/flow as we see that a number of times each season fall thru spring on our NW rivers. The impressive thing is that other than the changes flow the color does not appear to have changed. I was expecting to see pictures of hot chocolate colored waters as would occur hear. We would change postion and technique but tha inside bend(s) on the later pics looks more fishy to me.

Sorry to hear about the no-no

[Bugman]

Jim here. You're right on with the 'chocolate water' comments. Both pools shown in the photos are a fair way up the valley. The water was stained, but not very cloudy. Lower down (Doyle's Bridge, Tanner) the river was running dirty.

You can't see it in my photo, but two anglers are fishing the back eddy at the top of Ross Bridge Pool on the high-water day. Very nice flow - upriver! Hatchery Pool would probably have fished on the far side, but there was NO WAY to cross the river to get to it. The near side had some quiet water below the creek inlet, but the wading beach on this side was under several feet of moving water.

Chicken waders that we are, we passed on fishing this, and most other, pools on the ninth. :eek: :eek:

I see that rods currently are being bent all over Nova Scotia - congrats to all!

We missed it by a week. :frown:

Jim

[Salmon Chaser]

Jim.
You KNOW the inside seam of the ledge at Hatchery was holding fish,,,shoulda fished it!! I had the river raise 3'+ on me on the 12th of Sept and it is awesome!!
my buddy salmonguy was up there for the week and just got home on Sunday night and they had awesome fishing from thursday on. The boys had awesome fishing at Ross bridge with three fish hooked on three passes. 10lb, 12lb, and a 41" hen they put around 25lb!!!
I am sitting in Calgary whining pretty bad that i am missing the show up there this month. Oh well, the vedder is calling in three weeks,, and there is the Bow all winter!!
Salmon Chaser
><)))*>

[Bugman]

> Jim.
> You KNOW the inside seam of the ledge at Hatchery was holding fish,,,shoulda fished it!!

GUILTY (of discouragement) as charged! :redface:

After a fishless week, we were on our last full day on the water. We'd poked around the edges of the deluge earlier in the morning, and we'd heard the 'should fish by Wednesday' talk from the river vets. We called some friends on rivers in two provinces and heard the 'should fish by Wednesday' word from them too.

At that point, an extra day at the home end looked pretty appealing to us. We bailed out. :whoa: :whoa:

> I had the river raise 3'+ on me on the 12th of Sept and it is awesome!!

Our spate was something that I was glad to see - but not quite a replacement for pools full of fresh-run fish.

> my buddy salmonguy was up there for the week and just got home on Sunday night and they had awesome fishing from thursday on. The boys had awesome fishing at Ross bridge with three fish hooked on three passes. 10lb, 12lb, and a 41" hen they put around 25lb!!!

Ross would be a great place to hook fish! Very picturesque, nice casting, with a 'panic' bridge footing at the bottom to keep you tense with a large fish on. Congrats to your buds!

> I am sitting in Calgary whining pretty bad that i am missing the show up there this month. Oh well, the vedder is calling in three weeks,, and there is the Bow all winter!!

HMMM ... you're a long way from the salt - thank goodness for the websites! From looking at another NS site (NSFishing.com or something like that), they're catching them all over the place.

Anybody need entomological consulting services in NS in the next two weeks? :hihi:

Jim