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The dog days of summer persist and angling, quite predictably, has been slow throughout the southern range of salmon country. However, in the north, particularly northern Quebec and Labrador, water temperatures remain cool and angling has been good. In fact, we’ve received several reports of anglers experiencing some of the best fishing of their lives in Labrador this year!
This week’s edition of Rivernotes begins in Maine, with a report on the recent ASF/Hooké/Nick Hawkins shoot, and a sneak peak at some of the great imagery we produced. From New Brunswick, we have a report from new Program Director David Roth and an introduction to the Greater Kouchibouguac Watershed Association. Quebec’s Charles Cusson reports on promising water levels in his region. In Newfoundland and Labrador, ASF’s Kim Thompson, Jonathan Carr, and Andrew Clarke have all been busy in the field; read the NL section for a full report on aquaculture litter as well as acoustic tracking work.
Finally, a note on coverage of all the regions. After the August 8th edition we received a fair bit of disappointed feedback that there was no content from New Brunswick. We make a real effort to include all the regions in each edition of Rivernotes, but what appears in the blog depends ultimately on what readers contribute. If you’ve got an image or a story, please don’t hesitate to send it in!
Rivernotes returns on September 5th.
The last edition of Rivernotes had a brief mention of the collaboration between ASF, Hooké, and Nick Hawkins in Maine. This week John Burrows, ASF’s Vice-President of U.S. Operations, follows up. He writes:
“Earlier this month ASF staff from the U.S. and Canada hosted wildlife cinematographer Nick Hawkins as well as Juliette Larocque and Nathan Plamondon from Hooké for a visit to some of Maine’s wild Atlantic salmon rivers. On one of their days, the team was joined by Paul Christman from the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) and his daughter, Emma, a former ASF intern and current Ph.D. student in fisheries at the University of Washington, for a visit to the Sandy River in the hopes of documenting some adult Atlantic salmon on film. The crew would not be disappointed.
The Sandy forms high in the mountains of western Maine and flows for more than 75 miles to its confluence with the Kennebec River. The Sandy is a dynamic, alluvial river that offers some of the clearest, coldest water and finest Atlantic salmon habitat in Maine. The upper watershed contains intact forests, high-gradient streams, and awe-inspiring vistas of the surrounding mountains, places with names like Tumbledown, Saddleback, and Mount Blue.
For Atlantic salmon, the Sandy offers some of the greatest hope and opportunity in the U.S. to recover the species. ASF had worked tirelessly with our partners in the Kennebec Coalition to advocate for the removal of the four mainstem dams on the Kennebec that block access to the Sandy. Major decisions about the future of the dams will be made by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission as soon as the end of September.
On this warm, August day, however, thoughts weren’t on some dams a hundred or more miles downriver, but on finding some of the several dozen Atlantic salmon that had made the journey to the Sandy this summer from the first dam in Waterville—in a refrigerated tank in the back of a DMR truck. Five of these adult salmon were 3 sea-winter fish and the hope was that we’d find at least one of them and a few of their smaller 2 and 1 sea-winter cousins.”
As John notes, the crew was not disappointed. With the help of our expert guides, we made some stunning new imagery of wild Atlantic salmon in the Sandy River.
In New Brunswick, David Roth has joined ASF as the region’s Program Director. David is an experienced salmon researcher and brings a broad skillset to the ASF team. Look out for David’s full introduction in the next issue of the Atlantic Salmon Journal. In the first two weeks of his new role, David’s been out in the field and meeting with various ASF partners. He writes:
“While the rivers have been relatively calm in terms of fishing over the last week, due to the low water conditions and warm temperatures, important news is coming from the ASF research team and partnering organizations. Over the last weeks, the team has collected acoustic receivers in the Miramichi together with partners from UNB’s INTEL Lab, and ASF’s Jon Carr collected receivers at the Strait of Belle Isle [Editor’s note: read Jon’s report below in the NL section]. As in previous years, the ASF research team will use the data collected from the receivers to analyze the survival of Atlantic salmon smolt from the freshwater environment through the Gulf of St. Lawrence. This year, the Miramichi findings will be of particular interest as ASF, together with Anqotum, UNB’s INTEL Lab, and the Miramichi Salmon Association, executed a smolt transportation program this spring. In the study, fish were transported past a high striped bass predation zone in the tidal section of the river. The program aims to increase in-river smolt survival with the final goal of raising the number of adult returns to the Northwest Miramichi River.
We received an update from protection barriers on the Dungarvon and Northwest Miramichi River. During the period of August 5th to August 11th, one salmon entered the collection trap at the Dungarvon site, while no new fish arrived at the Northwest protection barrier. This puts the current total counts for the Dungarvon at 41 (three Grilse, 17 small salmon, 21 large salmon) and at a total of 37 (four Grilse, 30 small salmon, seven large salmon) fish for the Northwest barrier.
While angling has been reopened on the Restigouche and most of the Miramichi River, some restrictions are still in effect on the Nepisiguit River, reducing fishing to morning hours. Detailed and up-to-date information about the closures can be found on the Fisheries and Oceans Canada website.”
Also from New Brunswick, Mike Ruston, Executive Director of the Greater Kouchibouguac Watershed Association, gives an introduction to his organization and shares some images of an adult salmon counting fence they recently installed.
“The Greater Kouchibouguac Watershed Association (GKWA) was founded after the closure of the recreational salmon fishery in the Kouchibouguac and Kouchibouguacis rivers in 1998. GKWA has been monitoring Atlantic salmon populations and restoring habitat since the year 2000. Both rivers have been some of the few in the region to display positive trends in both juvenile and adult counts collected via electrofishing and trap-net operations. To help increase interception of returning fish, GKWA has installed a counting fence on each river. GKWA will continue collecting scale samples for aging, tissue samples for genetic diversity and parentage analyses, and tagging fish using carlin tags to ensure no individual is counted twice. With encouraging results being a rarity in the realm of Atlantic salmon population recovery programs, GKWA is driven to maintain momentum and continue their efforts!”
Rivers in Quebec got some much needed rain this week. Regional Program Director Charles Cusson shares the details, as well as a series of flow graphs that show the bump in water. Charles writes:
“Dame Nature a enfin commencé à se manifester pour venir en aide à nos saumons (merci Ernesto…) dans les régions de saumon du Québec. Certaines zones ont reçu beaucoup plus que d’autres et sur une très courte période. Vous verrez ci-bas les représentations graphiques des débits résultant des pluies intenses récentes. Les graphiques indiquent également les prévisions jusqu’au 25 aout prochain. Le débit est mesuré en mètres cubes/seconde.
Il s’agit d’une nouvelle normalité observée au cours des quatre ou cinq dernières années. Tout ou rien, et nous nous accrochons tous en espérant que tout se tienne bien.
La pêche va probablement s’améliorer considérablement cette semaine en raison de la recharge de nombreuses rivières. Faites-nous savoir vos succès, notamment avec des photos.
Tight Lines !”
“Well, mother nature has finally started to come through for the salmon (thanks Ernesto…)in Quebec salmon country. Some areas have received much more than others and over a very short period. You will see the spikes in the flow graphs resulting from intense rains. The graphs represent flows up to August 20th and predictions into the coming weekend. The flow is measured in cubic meters/second.
This is a new normal being observed over the last four or five years. All or none, and we all hang on hoping everything holds together.
Angling will most likely improve tremendously this week due to the recharging of many rivers. Let us know how you do, especially with photos.
Tight lines!
Newfoundland and Labrador Program Director Kim Thompson delivers a full report this week. She writes:
“Thus far the summer of 2024 has seen continuous warm temperatures and sporadic rainfall throughout the province with fishing restrictions and closures happening more frequently as per the Fisheries and Oceans In-Season River Status. Keep in mind when reviewing the table, rivers status are noted as ‘open’, ‘morning angling only’ which is defined as open from one hour before sunrise until 10:00 am on the effective date, ‘closed’ or ‘partial closure.’
With the main stem of the Gander River ‘open’ to angling, Qalipu First Nation River Guardians have a lot of area to cover. Jonathan Carr, ASF Senior Scientist, and I had firsthand experience in accompanying Justin Hodge and Danny Stanford last week as we set out early in the morning on Gander Lake as far as Northwest Gander River.”
Kim continues:
“On the east coast of the province the Salmonid Association of Eastern Newfoundland (SAEN) have been active with a project at Salmon Cove, a popular tourist destination on the Avalon, known for its unique sandy beach. Hannah Hynes project coordinator notes in previous years, there has been local concern about seemingly random fish mortalities occurring throughout the watershed. Initial DFO investigations revealed the presence of blue-green algae in the watershed during high temperatures. SAEN, with the help of local volunteers, is further investing the watershed for other potential causes of these fish kills, this field season.
Cooler temperatures and steady rains have been welcomed in northern Labrador this week and the fish responded with several brought to the net and released on the Hunt River.”
ASF Campaign Director Andrew Clarke was on the south coast of Newfoundland and made a disturbing discovery: vast amounts of garbage left by the aquaculture industry in otherwise pristine bays. He writes:
“We discovered significant amount of plastic on our travels last week in the Hermitage Bay area: abandoned open net pen sea cages, buoys, and nets as you can see pictured below. If anyone comes across more in their area, take picture and send location into savesalmon@asf.ca. We will be submitting complaints to the appropriate officials.”
ASF Senior Scientist Jonathan Carr was in Newfoundland to retrieve acoustic receivers, part of one of ASF’s major long-term monitoring projects. He writes:
“Over the past several weeks the ASF research team and our partners (GINU, Cascapédia Société, Anquotum, MSA, DFO, and the Ocean Tracking Network) have been recovering and downloading acoustic receivers from our smolt tracking program. The receivers are deployed during the spring in freshwater, estuaries, and bays in and around the Cascapédia, Restigouche, Matapedia, and Miramichi river systems. This is globally the longest running tracking time series (began in 2003) that measures Atlantic salmon smolt survival through freshwater, estuaries/bays, and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The annual and multi-year trends within and among rivers yield critical data to help our scientists provide advice to support ASF’s advocacy efforts for the protection and conservation of Atlantic salmon. Last week, I was part of the multi partner mission to retrieve and download receivers in the Strait of Belle Isle (SoBI). We have multiple receiver gates strategically positioned across the SoBI between Newfoundland and Labrador to measure out-migrating post smolts and returning adults (maiden and repeat spawners). Many other fish species are also detected on the arrays including cod, charr, striped bass, herring, sharks, and tuna. It was a challenging week with high winds and big seas, but we managed to retrieve and download 43 out of 68 receiver units. The remaining units will be retrieved in the coming weeks. Stay tuned as the Research Team begins to unravel the data to determine the fate of the 475 acoustically tagged smolts tagged in 2024.
While on the west coast of Newfoundland, I had a chance to visit two Atlantic salmon monitoring stations situated at Western Arm Brook and Torrent River. As of mid-August, there were about 470 salmon returns to Western Arm Brook counting fence compared to 549 on the same date in 2023. The Torrent River fish ladder had reported 1849 salmon returns compared to 901 in 2023. Both facilities have dedicated staff working to conserve and protect wild Atlantic salmon. The Torrent River facility also has many wonderful exhibits explaining the cultural history pertaining to salmon in the region, and staff are onsite to offer tours. It’s worth a visit if you are passing through the region.”
