After four days of fishing on the Gaspe Peninsula for the elusive Atlantic salmon I'm just ...
By Ed Zieralski
UNION-TRIBUNE OUTDOORS WRITER
August 8, 2003
ED ZIERALSKI / Union-Tribune
Over four days of fishing for Atlantic salmon in this magical place with Perrier-clear rivers, I must have asked a thousand questions.
GASPÉ, Quebec – Over four days of fishing for Atlantic salmon in this magical place with Perrier-clear rivers, I must have asked a thousand questions.
But now Bill Greiner, owner of Malbaie River Outfitters Lodge, had a question for me.
"Would you still have come all this way if you knew ahead of time how tough it was to catch an Atlantic salmon?" Greiner asked as we drove back from the York River on the Gaspé Peninsula in Quebec Province after our last pass and cast of the trip.
It was a tougher question than I thought. I wasn't sure what had possessed me to drive more than 1,000 miles from my sister's upstate New York home near Albany to the Gaspé, Canada's Land's End. Somehow, the prize game fish known as "the fish of 1,000 casts," the fish that baseball great Ted Williams fished for on the Miramichi River in New Brunswick, had captured my heart, soul and wanderlust.
After four days I knew what had drawn me.
This place, these fish, the Canadian people of French and English descent, Greiner and his staff at the Malbaie River Lodge in Barachois, all conspired to show me a world of natural wonders. The Gaspé is a sportsman's paradise, an outdoorsman's dream world. But how did I know I had to be here?
After all, I'm a Californian by choice, East Coast guy by birth. I became as possessed about getting to these storied waters as the salmon were about getting upstream to their spawning grounds, as if it were part of my DNA driving me.
And to think it almost came way too easy for me. I nearly did the unthinkable, at least for me, and caught a 20-pounder on my first afternoon of fly-fishing.
We were on the St. Jean River, the first of four rivers we'd fish in four days and one of eight rivers in the area that Greiner and his guides check daily and have access to.
ED ZIERALSKI / Union-Tribune
Bill Greiner (left) and Austin Clark prepare to release a 20-pound Atlantic salmon hooked in the St. Jean River.
"All of the rivers are clear here, but of all of them, the St. Jean is the clearest," Greiner said. "I'm spoiled. I want to see the fish I'm fishing. It's a frustrating enough sport, but you don't need to add to your frustration by not being able to see the fish."
Greiner, who lives in New Hampshire but makes several trips a year to his lodge here, set up a canoe trip the afternoon I arrived. We fished the St. Jean River with the area's most sought-after working guide, Austin Clark, and Clark's 19-year-old son Drapper. We didn't fish from the canoe. We used it to go downstream and access choice pools and cross the river's deeper areas when needed.
As we fished the first pool, Austin Clark spotted some white-tailed deer along the bank.
"When the deer walk, the fish bite," said Clark, 59, who is in his 40th season of putting anglers on their first Atlantic salmon.
Seemingly moments later, Greiner hooked a salmon, a fine 14-pounder that gave me my first glimpses of the Atlantic's athleticism. It jumped three times and battled Greiner up and down the St. Jean before Greiner carefully worked it to the shoreline. Clark skillfully grabbed it by the tail, removed the fly, posed with Greiner for pictures and, once it showed it was lively, set it free.
Catch and release
Clark and Greiner release all their fish and are part of the new breed of sport angler in Canada. It's hard to believe any country is as protective of its fish as Canada is of its Atlantics. Guardians live at the rivers and watch them night and day to prevent poaching or netting. Wardens patrol during the day to make sure everyone has a license and a permit and is fishing ethically, not snagging fish.
A big reason for this is that the Atlantics, unlike their Pacific brothers, live after spawning in freshwater and can return to the ocean and return again to the very waters where they spawned. Pacific salmon die after spawning once.
But entire runs of Atlantic salmon are extinct in Europe and New England because of commercial fishing excesses, pollution, loss of habitat and disease and cross-breeding with salmon grown in aquaculture farms.
In fact, in the past 30 years, the salmon population in North America has declined nearly 77 percent, from 1.5 million salmon to only 350,000. Europe has half its historical average.
That's why Canadians work diligently with the Atlantic Salmon Federation and other conservation groups to make sure that won't happen here. They've even bought out some commercial fisheries that had the capability of wiping out an entire river's run of salmon. Greiner said the recent buyout of Greenland's commercial fishery by the Canadian government and the Atlantic Salmon Federation has made a huge difference in this year's population of big fish in the York River. He said 1,300 big salmon were counted this week in the York.
"When you know what these fish have done, what they've gone through and the miles they've traveled to get back here to spawn, how on earth can you kill one?" Greiner asked. "It's stupid to kill a fish. I've killed one fish in the last eight years. I've released hundreds."
Added Clark: "It's amazing when you think that it has to be this water for these fish. When they're born, they get the imprint of the water. They go out into the ocean, but they smell their way back."
After Greiner landed his fish, we moved downstream to another pool.
Clark used every trick he had to get me into fish. Calling me a novice fly fisherman actually upgrades my status among fly pitchers. But somehow, I hooked a salmon that first afternoon, only to lose it after a five-minute tug. It swam upstream, the hook came out, and it was gone.
"You didn't do anything wrong," Clark said, examining the line and fly. "The fish win sometimes, too. Now let's go look at your fish."
We loaded into the canoe and Clark poled it over some rocks and rapids to a pool where we spotted a salmon suspended and angling upstream. Incredibly, salmon often return to their exact lie after being disturbed or hooked, and this one did just that.
"It's the only fish in the pool, so that must be it," Clark said of what we judged to be a 20-pounder.
That was my last hook-up over the next two days. Excessive heat shut the fishing down Friday at Grand Pabo North, one of three Pabo rivers that have been brought back thanks to the conservation efforts of the Canadian government, local conservationists and the managing company, La Zec Pabok.
If there was a time on the trip when frustration reached its highest for me, it came Friday morning. By 11, I was drenched in sweat on what was the Gaspé's hottest and muggiest day of the summer. The place is an iceberg for seven, eight months, but Hurricane Bill down South turned it into Alabama in July.
I'd gotten a couple of salmon to rise, but no hook-ups. So, I went swimming, and the baptism refreshed me. If you can't catch 'em, swim with 'em.
A day late
Next up, Saturday, was a trip to the Dartmouth River's fabled Falls area. But that ended quickly. The school of salmon that had thrilled anglers the previous days now had moved upstream to negotiate the Falls and reach their spawning water.
"There were 200 fish here yesterday," Greiner said. "But that's how fast things change. They're on the move."
Disappointed, we hiked back up the stairs, carved into the hillside and rocks, to the parking area. But before we left, we stood on a lookout on a hillside surrounded by dense forest of spruce, balsam fir and white birch and watched the school of salmon swim below us and one salmon after another try to leap the falls. That majestic sight was worth getting up at 3 a.m., a time when there is gray light this far north in the summer.
Later, when I told Clark how much I enjoyed watching the salmon leap the falls, he relayed a story his son had told him the previous day.
"Drapper saw one salmon leap into the falls and crash back into the rocks," Clark said. "Drapper figured it killed itself because it wasn't moving. But a few seconds later it started wiggling and worked its way off the rocks and back into the water."
That was just one of the many stories I heard from Clark and Greiner about these amazing fish. Clark explained that salmon don't feed when they return to their spawning river. A lot of deep thinking has gone into why salmon, if they're not feeding, hit a fly fisherman's offering.
One of the thinkers, the late legendary fly-fisher Lee Wulff, theorized that salmon spend so much time in the river as parr, or juvenile salmon, that when they return as grilse or adult salmon, their instincts take over and they hit the same things they ate as parr.
By Sunday, my last day of fishing on the Gaspé, we reached the York River with great anticipation.
Clark and Greiner loaded every trick in their arsenal for this last day. And as we drove down to the river's edge, Clark remembered an important trick.
"We have to turn the Jeep around and face the other way," Clark said as he and Greiner started laughing.
"Do you know why we turn it around?" Clark asked. "It's so the salmon think we're leaving. Works every time."
Of all the area's rivers, the York has the biggest fish in this section of the Gaspé. Only the Malbaie River, which Greiner has exclusive access to in front of his lodge, has big salmon that rival the York's. Greiner said the Malbaie's best fishing is in September.
Knowing this was my last day, I felt some added pressure to catch a salmon. Clark recognized this and, like a cool pitching coach, told me to relax. On my first pass, I hooked one and again lost it when it turned upstream.
Bummed, but undaunted, Clark and I pressed on and moved downstream to a second pool. Greiner stayed behind and hooked a giant salmon that he fought for 20 minutes or more. Clark said it was the best job he'd ever seen Greiner do in fighting and landing a fish. He estimated the salmon to be 27 pounds. It looked 30 or more to me. Greiner caught and released another 12-pounder later to complete his two-fish limit. In Canada, landing and releasing two fish counts as a two-fish limit, and the angler must stop fishing.
A while later, I finally hooked and landed my first Atlantic salmon, a 12-pounder that gave me all I wanted. Yes, after trying so hard for three days, it was as good or better than catching tuna or marlin, shooting turkey or deer.
"Thank you, Austin," I said, shaking his hand after he released it.
And before dark, on what was my last pass and nearly my last cast in that very pool where I'd caught that first salmon, I caught a 15-pounder as Clark, on a bluff above the pool, watched every move the fish made before and after it bit, and every move I made hooking and fighting it.
Both fish are etched in my memory forever, or until I return for another cast at the king of all gamefish.
Lesson learned
I was drawn to the Gaspé by some imprinted urge. And when I finally reached the York that last day, something told me that river would lend me my first salmon. The river had a feel like none of the others. I felt at home there, more at peace and confident.
Clark's continual coaching, no, more like prodding, telling me to keep the rod tip down to allow the fly to swim and fish properly, became my mantra. Rod tip down. Rod tip down. It was something I didn't quite get until that last day, but the important thing was I got it, and Clark recognized it.
"I'm a man of high highs and low lows, but today was a high," Clark said later. "It was so great to see it all come together for you at that last pass. Your casting, your rod position, you let the fish take the fly before lifting the rod. It all came together for you there on that last pass. It's not something you've done your whole life or came naturally to you, but you worked hard to get it. You never gave up."
The sun was long gone over the mountains as we crossed the York for the last time, to reach the Jeep that was facing out to let the fish think we were leaving when we arrived more than 14 hours ago. But there was still enough light to see into the deep pools where the salmon were caught.
I took one last look, and I still could see the gray, wavy shadows of the Atlantic salmon in the clear waters of the York, swaying in their lies, nestled in formation in the deep pool. They were lined up and ready to move upstream to reach those sacred grounds of their birth. And included in the group were the four that Greiner and I had the great fortune to catch and release that day.
I truly got more out of the Gaspé than I ever could have imagined. The river granted me two great fish, two battles with the gamest of all fish, the fish with the saltwater heart in a freshwater body. The memories of the tugs linger, pulling me back, making me wonder. Did I catch those salmon, or did they catch me?
I don't think I ever answered Greiner's question about whether or not I would have come had I known how tough it was to catch an Atlantic salmon. He knows the answer.
For information about the Gaspé's salmon rivers or Malbaie River Outfitters Lodge, call (418) 645-3965 (June-Sept.), (603) 472-4043 (Oct.-May), or e-mail Greiner at
info@ladyamherst.com or visit
www.ladyamherst.com. There are accommodations at the lodge or adjoining cabins, and Greiner's guides also offer hunting trips, which may be combined with salmon fishing.
Linear Mode
