RiverNotes 6 October 2022

Iris and Rudy Ciecko have been making their annual pilgrimage to Cape Breton Island for over two decades. When I first met them, Rudy passed me what looked like a business card but on closer inspection I saw it was a perfectly tied hair wing, tucked neatly inside a small plastic bag. The card read ‘A little gift to you, from a friend of the Margaree River’. Many of our readers are likely to have received a similar gift compliments of Rudy. His master ties are a most special addition to many fundraising events and any fly box.

After catching up with Iris and Rudy this week, Iris shared: 

October on the Margaree River is doubly special — not only is the scenery outstanding but the salmon fishing is wonderful. We have been coming here for around twenty five years and it just gets better. The people that you meet from all over, as well as the locals make it magical. There’s no place like it.

What led Rudy here was a chance meeting on the Penobscot River in Maine. He had netted a salmon for an angler he had just met (that angler’s first Atlantic) and they kindled a friendship. Rudy received an invite to the Margaree, and so it began.

When we are here, we try to fish a different pool each day. Right now the water is dropping and clearing up nicely. Hurricane Fiona wreaked havoc up here these past few weeks and the lower river became very clouded from Red Bank down. Currently (October 3rd) fish are being caught throughout the entire system. If you come, bring warm clothes as temperatures range from freezing to 60 degrees F.  It’s the wind that makes it a challenge.

The Margaree is the only place that I know of where you can fish for Atlantic Salmon when you want, and with whom you want. No guides are required. Although, If it’s your first time I’d recommend getting one for a day. Personally, I highly recommend Robert Chiasson. And as they say: “Once you come here, your heart will never leave”. Remember, it’s not the fish you catch, but rather the people you meet here.

Many on the Island continue to contend with power outages and limited internet connectivity. Taylor Main writes:

Eastern Queens and Kings counties on PEI were some of the areas hit hardest by Hurricane Fiona in Atlantic Canada. As of October 3rd, 1 in 8 households in the province remain without electricity. The highest recorded windspeed that I have heard on PEI was 187km/h and the damage was indescribable. In addition to the expected loss of shingles and downed trees, many structures lost sheathing from their roofs, including one bungalow I saw that was stripped right down to its rafters. I also witnessed many large barns and silos lost and a number of mini-homes blown from their footings. Everywhere you go — city or the countryside — all you can hear is the distant sound of chainsaws and generators.
On the angling front we had a nice rise in water following the storm, with many locations blown out until late Monday afternoon. The fishing conditions throughout the province this week were perfect. Unfortunately, with it being early in October there are not yet salmon around in any number. I was hoping the sea trout fishing would be better but it seems that any fish stacked up before the storm, took full advantage of the high water and moved on. 

It could prove to be a long and frustrating fall as the rivers are chockfull with trees. The Morell River is particularly bad, with a combination of over mature trees consisting primarily of red maple, white spruce and poplar shallowly rooted in the riparian zone due to a 50 year ban on harvesting to protect the watershed. It’s unclear how the local watershed group is going to clear the many blockages and access points to the river. Many popular pools are either choked with trees or totally inaccessible. The landscape in many areas has been changed for a generation. With so many trees uprooted or snapped off, large tracks of land now resemble a clearcut. The damage is really something you must see firsthand — photos do not do it justice.