Sample story
The camp sits on a hill overlooking the Brook Pool, so I made it my first stop in the morning. There was not a soul in sight, so I didn't even bother to fish non-prime water, but chose instead to focus on the major holding areas. In the first half hour, I hooked two gorgeous silver rockets and played them, much to the delight of passing motorists (the Brook Pool runs parallel to the highway and is totally visible to drivers).
I moved from there to the adjacent Garden Pool, also along the highway, and walked immediately to the spot where a large spruce had fallen on the far bank and was overhanging the river. It was necessary to sidearm the cast in order to get the fly under the tree but, on the first cast, the line snapped up tight and I was fast to another screamer. It was now about 10 am and, with three fish already hooked, I was close to limiting out for the day so I drove downriver to the Big McDaniel Pool and arrived to find no-one was there. This is a very long pool which, back then, held a lot of fish in high water and was one of our favourites. I spent the next five or six hours there and enjoyed one of the most incredible salmon experiences of my lifetime.
The water was fairly high which meant wading at about waist level. The high bank was directly behind me and the wind was blowing hard enough up river that it made little whitecaps on the pool. I made one pass down the left bank and, just as reached the tail of the pool, I raised my fifth fish, not of the day, but of that trip over the pool.
For the balance of the season I pretty much had my way with the salmon. Most days I was landing my limit of four fish, most of them salmon in the 10 to 20 lb class, and, as I was using barbless hooks, a few more were hooked and lost. The days quickly passed and I can remember that on the last day of the season, with only a flicker of light left in the sky, I hopped out of my car and once more walked the short distance across the beach at the Garden Pool. I went directly to where that old spruce tree was still leaning out over the water and sidearmed the fly in under the branches. On the first cast, it snapped up tight. A magnificent salmon, fresh from the salt water revealed itself in a series of jumps and cartwheels and, after a short battle, the fish was at my feet.
Atlantic Salmon truly are a wonderful animal. I grasped the tail firmly as I removed the hook and at the same time thought of the thousands of miles he had travelled to return to the river of origin to begin the cycle of life again. After carefully reviving him, I released my grasp and watched as he disappeared into the depths of the pool. It was a great end to the day and the season.
As I sat in front of the fire at the camp that evening I reflected on how fortunate we had been to find such a great place. Today, many years later, I still realize that we are very fortunate to have the camp, but also have a real appreciation of just how lucky I was to find a public river full of salmon and almost void of anglers.