Fishing Oromocto, New Brunswick For The First Time
Holy carp guys it’s nearly the end of August and the water still isn’t back to normal. I guess I have to admit Jamie was right when I said it likely wouldn’t get back to normal this year. I thought for sure it would dry up by now. Guess I won’t be buying any lottery tickets.
A few days ago, just before daybreak on Thursday Casey arrived at my house and we headed to Oromocto, New Brunswick for some fishing. This is another place I had never fished. I always like trying out new locations.
We managed to get through two traffic circles without a problem and in a few minutes arrived at Phil’s Auto & Recreation where we turned to head down to the boat launch.
Lots of cool boats but we were going fishing, not shopping, although we did stop in on the way out. When I went up stairs I am sure I started drooling. I had never seen so much bass stuff.
Sure beats the heck out of the Canadian Tire store on Mountain Road Moncton.
I haven’t used a lot of boat launches but the few I have launched from don’t match the quality of this boat launch.
As always as soon as we’re near water I start taking pictures. This day the water was like glass with a little mist floating just above the water, pretty cool.
The sky was pretty much clear of clouds. The birds were singing and there was no wind at all.
A double check around the van and boat to be sure we had everything and that the plug was in and we were on the water.
We didn’t know it then but we were about to have a tough day of fishing but heck the should surprise me. The whole fishing season has been a tough one.
As tough as it was it was better than staying home.
It took us a while before we got a strike. The weeds were eager to bite though so I had a lot of those. Finally I got a strike that stayed on and started reeling it in.
Casey asked if I needed help with the net. I said no because it was just a small smallmouth bass and I was just going to grab it or bring it right in the boat.
My mistake because my chubby little fingers we just inches away from the leader when it flipped off so we were back to zero fish.
The switching between high and low pressure every other day has really made things tough plus the amount of rain we had a couple days before fishing churned the water up good so that there was only about a foot of visibility below the surface.
We turned into the Oromocto river and tried casting to a the boats on my left but nothing. We spent about 2 hours maybe more moving up the river but nothing at all.
So Casey headed back to the main river which took about 10 minutes or so to get back. I like Casey’s new motor.
We didn’t see many clouds and those we did see were just puffs and gave us no relief from the sun. Then a cloud moved in front of the sun and I am sure the temperature dropped about 10 degrees.
Immediately we felt relief, which lasted about 5 minute and then back to hot again. I just had to snap a photo of that relief cloud.
Hope I don’t sound like I’m complaining too much. I had a great day and never once asked to go home. After all a dip in the drink that was all around us would have cooled us down if it got that bad.
Finally we were getting a few strikes. The strike was very light so we had to be quick on the hook set. I hooked into another fish. As it cleared the water I could see it was a smallie.
This time I didn’t refuse Casey’s help with the net. This one didn’t get away.
I think Casey was teasing me, something about the size of my bass so he moved really close so the smallie would look a little bigger. Funny guy isn’t he?
The fish were few and far between but we managed to catch a few. I even caught a big perch. I think it was probably the biggest perch I’ve ever caught.
I didn’t say it was a monster, I just said it was my biggest. Perch are a cool looking fish.
Donkey Sighting
I was looking to see if I would spot another Lama like the one Jamie and I saw on an island at Jemseg.
But I did see a donkey strolling along the river. It came to a patch of dirt and took a minute to roll around, just like the Lama had done.
Lots of plane around. There were a few that came in so low I thought they were going to land in the river but they didn’t.
Right behind the trees there was an airport.
It was kind of cool to see the variety of small plains. I even say one that looked like it out of WWII.
Next I could hear them but I could see them and then they started to come into focus. Four helicopters, in formation, were coming right at us. It seemed strange that the middle two had a big head light while the other two didn’t or didn’t have them turned on.
I said to Casey that maybe they would be able to let us know where all the fish were but they just kept moving right over our heads.
As usually there were plenty of bird. We saw bald eagles, hawks, kingfishers and a few osprey, all watching the water closely. They wouldn’t tell us where the fish were either.
I saw what I think was a young eagle sitting in a tree. It was still quite far away but as we got closer it didn’t move. I took this picture and had to use my zoom so it’s not all the clear. We thought it looked great.
We didn’t have a record day but we had fun and saw a lot of great scenery and animals. Oh yeah we even caught some fish so that’s a good day in my books, especially when fishing with friends.
On our way out Phil’s was still open so we stopped in and checkout some boats and then moved up stairs to look at bass stuff. I felt like a kid in a candy store.
