On july 28th I took a week off to go camping and fishing with my buddy Alex. The initial plan was to spend the week fishing the Trinity river for atlantic salmons and sea run brookies. However the number of salmon in the trinity river at that time was so low that we decided to go try our luck on the Godbout river. The Godbout is the closest atlantic salmon river from where I live and yet I never fished it so it was a good time to go explore it.
By the way the atlantic salmon fishing season closed yesterday on september 15th and the total number of salmons that returned to the Trinity river is 230, the lowest count in recorded history… (there was 800 salmons 2 years ago). In fact the situation was the same on every river of the region except for the Godbout that got very good numbers…go figure out why…
Right from the start we knew that fishing would be tough due to the very low water level and the high water temps. The main objective of the trip was to explore and discover the Godbout river and any fish caught would be a bonus.
During the week we found some spot where we caught brookies. It was nice to have something on the line even if it wasn't the fish we were looking for.
As we tought fishing was slow and we had to wait until the middle of the week before we had a salmon on the line. A 8-9 pounds salmon took my size 12 rusty rat with a strong pull and bursted out of the water! After 10-12 second of violent headshake the fish jumped again and managed to free himself. Even if that short fight ended with a long distance release it restored our faith!
On the last night our luck changed as we finally got some rain. The next morning the water level was on the rise and there was a special atmosphere on the river.
That morning we saw to a rare victory by Alex at the rock paper scissor challenge and as a reward he got the first crack at it. He made good use of it and hooked a salmon on his first drop! After a couple of minutes the fish got tired and I managed to grab the salmon by the tail. Excitement was high at that moment as the fishing trip turned to a success! After a quick picture Alex returned the fish to his element.
Alex continued to surf on his luck and hooked another salmon 2-3 hours later. That time things were different as we quickly realized that he hooked something really big. The fish didn’t jump out of the water or trash around. Instead the salmon started racing downstream and there was nothing to stop him. After 2 minutes Alex was standing there with all of his 90 feet fly line out of his reel as well as 150 feet of backing! We tried to follow the fish downstream but suddenly the fish stopped and gave a couple of violent headshake. That’s when we saw the line fell loosely on the water as the fish got free... That was a tough one we would really have liked to get a glimpse at that fish.
About 30 minutes later it was my turn to get some action. I felt a strong pull on my line as a salmon hitted my fly. The fish trashed around for a while but didn’t jump out of the water. After a couple of minutes Alex netted the fish!
That morning really saved the trip! Sometime when we have one of these good day I start to think that atlantic salmon fishing isn’t that hard after all but reality soon hit me back when I go 5 days without a strike!
The next morning we broke camp and parted ways as Alex went back to Quebec city and I drove back to Baie-Comeau, the head already full of plans about fishing the Godbout river again in the next weeks.
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