I live in New Brunswick Canada where I love fly fishing for the powerful Atlantic salmon. I am sure anyone here older than 10 years would have heard about Atlantic salmon, perhaps not by their scientific name, Salmo Salar, as I was in my 30s and already fly fishing for Atlantic salmon before I heard that term.

Personally I can’t get enough of the fight the Atlantic salmon puts up and they taste so good on the BBQ and Atlantic salmon sandwiches are great. But I also like to just sit on the river bank with a nice hot mug of coffee and just watch these leapers jumping out of the water.

I have also camped right next to salmon pools and find that they tend jump even more during the night. It’s kind of frustrating when you are actually in the water and they are jumping every where except on the end of your line.

Black Salmon

The salmon we catch in the rivers in the early spring, those that have been in the river all winter are known as black salmon because they get so much darker the longer they stay in the river. They start as bright silver from the ocean and then slowly take on the colours of the river and it’s bottom.

The Atlantic salmon can be found in the north and south about as far south as Maine, USA, only returning to the river that spawned them so they can spawn in the same place. Because the spawn takes place in their home rivers salmon are born into fresh water where they stay until for a while and then move out to the ocean for 2 or 3 years before returning to that same river to spawn, although they may not actually spawn on their first trip home.

Today, due to fishing pressure by commercial fishers, you will find a lot of Atlantic salmon being farmed instead of taken from the wild.

We are not allowed to keep adult salmon here in New Brunswick but we can keep a few grilse for dinners with the family.  Grilse are Atlantic salmon smaller than 24 3/4 inches.

I prefer to BBQ my salmon steaks but I also enjoy stuffing the entire salmon grilse with onions, tomatoes, salt and pepper. That’s how my wife’s parents enjoyed it as well.

Check out more Atlantic salmon facts.

I do a lot of fishing from my float tube and there isn’t much room like there is in a canoe or boat so I have to pay attention to what I bring along. That’s why I am interested in the Humminbird Smartcast RF35 Wrist Mount Fish Finder.

Fishing from my float tube is very relaxing yet, at the same, quite explosive and exciting however it’s quite a bit slower getting around so it’s important to make the best use of the water around me and that’s where a fish finder comes in very handy. That was a little joke about a wrist mount fish finder, ha ha.

I have had a couple of portable fish finders from Humminbird but they are even too big for my float tube. The one I had at the time I took my fly in fishing trip to northern Quebec worked perfectly and I caught many more fish than the rest of the group. But I need a much smaller fish finder and the Wrist mounted Smartcast RF35 sounds perfect.

Dear if you are reading this my birthday is just a month and half away, so get your order in today.

Humminbird Smartcast Wrist Mount

I remember fishing Lake George New Brunswick with a friend. We both had float tubes and we had a blast catching smallmouth bass on the fly rod. But I think the day would have been much different if I didn’t know where the fish were as I have fished the lake many times from my boat where we had a Humminbird fish finder.

If we had hit this lake in our float tubes with that knowledge I am sure we would have been hunting bass all day long instead of catching and releasing bass all day long.

A fish finder is invaluable when it comes to new water and the slower you go, like me and my float tube, the better you want to be at finding the fish.

I have fished enough new lakes over the years, without a fish finder, and it takes a lot more work, which isn’t such a problem from a boat but I don’t want to be wasting time when I am only able to about mile an hour.

Humminbird Smartcast RF 35 Fish Finder Specs

• Fully functional watch with date and time capability.
• High visibility 1 1/4″ diagonal display with 48V x 32H resolution.
• Water surface temperature and digital depth readout.
• 75 ft. remote operating range, 100 ft. depth capability.

Wireless Technology

Your Smartcaster rf35 uses wireless technologies so there’s no need for a long messy cable or wire going to the sensor.  All you need to do is attach a length of line so you don’t lose it and then just give it a toss in any direction.

I can’t throw far from my float tube so I would use a spare fishing rod to cast it out.

Lithium Battery – 3 year life

The Remote Sonar Sensor has a separate, lithium battery that is non-replaceable , that has a lifespan of three years and will work for somewhere around five-hundred hours in the water.

Like any of your tools you need to keep them clean after a day of fishing to make sure they last as long as possible.

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I fished poppers using my spinning gear for years but I had been fly fishing for many years before ever trying to fish for smallmouth bass and when I first used a popper it was a brand new game. So much fun and the results blew me away. I didn’t think I would be able to fly fish with a popper without popping myself in the head all the time but it wasn’t heavy at all. It just looked that way.

Once I learned how to get it to pop correctly and how to get the wake just right bass were fighting for it. So here is a video that shows how to pop a popper on the fly.

Now if you want to know how to tie a bass popper just head over to my fly tying section here for some instructional video: Fly Tying Bass Poppers

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During the 1960s I was a kid growing up in central Ontario, Canada. I did a lot of fishing in the river that ran through the back of our farm. The only thing I ever caught there was catfish although there were some big pike in the river, I just didn’t have the gear for them.

I remember my older brother Chuck catching a huge walleye on one of his fishing trips. I was always to young to go on those trips as there was a lot of drinking. Anyways he didn’t call the walleye a walleye, ever. He always called it a pickerel.

I was actually 30 years old and living in New Brunswick Canada before I saw my first Chain pickerel and realized they weren’t the same species.

Chain pickerel are also known as “federation pickerel” and in SE U.S. they are nicknamed “jack fish”.

Caught My First Chain Pickerel on The Fly

It’s kind of cool the way I found out about pickerel here in New Brunswick as I mostly fished brook trout. I consider myself blessed to have caught my first real pickerel on the fly rod while fly fishing for trout so it was a happy accident.

Fishing A Flooded Forest on The Fly Rod

It feels like a lifetime ago I had been invited to go fishing with a fly fishing buddy. Wayne wanted to take me to a little spot he wants to keep secret. He told me we would be able to catch some big brook trout on the fly.

Once we arrived I could not believe he expected me to actually use a fly rod in there. It was a forest that had been flooded years earlier when busy beavers had blocked the flow of water and flooded a large patch of timber.

Wayne told me there was 16″ brookies within. I didn’t call him a liar however I’d been thinking it. I did become a believer after he landed the first 16″ brook trout.

Fly fishing through trees was really a brand new experience. I had fished ponds and brooks for trout using the fly rod, had even learned to deal with trees behind me just not a forest all around me.

I spent most of my time staying out of the trees but did get a few trout. As usual when it comes time to leave I usually need to get a couple more casts. Just as I pulled the fly from the water for that final cast a pencil like 10″ fish flew from the water and grabbed that fly.

I couldn’t imagine just how intense this tiny fish was. That was when I learned the difference between a walleye and a pickerel.

These days I fish Chain pickerel every chance I can. My record continues to grow from that first 10″ chain pickerel to 25″.

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I certainly enjoy brook trout fishing here in New Brunswick, on the fly or using my spinning rod. The thing is there can be so many brookies that all you catch are small ones while the big ones just get bigger. It really pays to study the water so you are casting to the places that should hold the biggest trout or you’ll be catching 10 inch brook trout all day.

Not saying there is anything wrong with that, it’s still a lot of fun.

For Me Spring Brook Trout Fishing Rocks

My favourite time of the year to fish trout is in the early spring as soon as our trout fishing season opens April 15. There can still be ice in the water but as long as you have a clear spot to cast to you can catch trout after trout and they can be quite active even though the water is only a degree or two about freezing.

I practice catch and release almost 100% but in the early spring when the water is so clear and cold the brook trout just tastes so good that I have to take a feed of trout home for my family to enjoy. The rest of the year it’s all CPR, catch, photograph and release for me.

Some places the fishing never shuts down, it’s an all year round thing but in New Brunswick our trout season is April 15 and ends Sept. 15 in all the areas I know of.

Brook Trout Fishing In Late August

When it comes to brook trout fishing I do prefer the fly rod. Fly fishing for brook trout is a lot of fun and most of the time I can fly fish using top water or dry flies that float. Just love seeing them take it from the surface.

The thing about evening fishing at the end of a long hot day is that everything becomes active as the sun drops and the air temp cools slightly. Just enough to make those nervous trout a little less nervous giving the opportunity for a great catch.

Brook Trout, Beaver Ponds And Early Morning Fog

When it comes to beaver ponds I love to get there with my float tube or canoe  just about day light. I used to get there and get right in the water but in the past few years I have relaxed a bit, just a bit and now I like to get there early and sit on the bank while I have a coffee and just watch to see what’s going on.

Get out on one of these ponds in the early morning mist can be almost mystical. Especially when you can’t see 30 feet in front. It’s the time that I find it’s most relaxing, until that first strike of course.

On a day to day basis I prefer to fish trout in the early morning before the sun is high on the water. If I’m fishing a river or a stream it doesn’t seem to matter so much as there are usually plenty of trees hanging over the water to keep the sun out of their eyes and making it harder for airborne predators to spot them.

If it’s cloudy all day I find the fishing can be fairly constant all day long.

When the day has been long sunny and hot I like to get my fly rod out and hit the water in the evening as it starts to cool off. Even the bugs like it when it cools off a bit and become active. It’s a great opportunity to catch a number of trout but also to catch that trophy you’ve been seeking.

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