Miramichi River with Rob Spon

Miramichi River with Rob Spon
One of the things that I have liked about doing the show over the last seven years are the great people that I have had the pleasure of fishing with and today was no exception. Our guest was Rob Spon, coach and general manager of the Saint John Riptide pro basketball team. The guy likes to fish and it shows but man he is passionate about his basketball.
Weather forecast at 5 am was sunny with cloudy periods with 12 k east wind gusting to 20. I think the sun popped out just as we were leaving to come home at 4 pm and lets just say it was a wee bit windy all day.
I stayed downriver below the Enclosure due to the DFO closing the upper stretch of the river due to the spawn and started off where we had found them on our last trip. Not even a single bite, they had moved through and were gone. I moved over and started to fish the channel and spotted a fish that had broke the surface about fifty feet off to the side. I dropped the bait right in the rings he made and boom, first fish on.
At this point we were well into the outgoing tide and something had the fish going on top and we got into a few decent fish with Rob getting the big fish of the day during that flurry of activity. We alternated between fishing quickly across the surface to letting the baits drop to the bottom when we marked fish on the Lowrance. We were fishing big flukes on a ¼ swimbait hook with the barbs pinched off and filed a bit more off for good measure. It seemed that while the tide was running out the fish were closer to the surface and the initial slack tide period they were much closer to the bottom and they showed up on the Lowrance.
For the latter part of the slack tide and most of the incoming tide in the afternoon the bite was much slower. I picked up a few fish on the flat on a Rhythm Wave swimbait reeled very slowing across the shallow water but the bigger fish had disappeared. I knew Rob Cail had been up the day before and got into some fish so I shot him a message and he let me know where he had hit them the day before and what baits he was using but as we found today he had also had his best luck on the outgoing tide and that was now past us. Great guy for trying to help us out though and it was much appreciated.
We weren’t counting but twenty fish or so to the boat which would be a good day in most places. It would have been interesting to have been able to go upriver but I understand the decision to shut it down for the major part of the spawn so that this body of water will continue to generate the spectacular fishing that it has.
Our gear today was Shimano Zodias and Crucial rods, 2500 Stradic reels spooled with 15 and 20 lb Power Pro braided line. We were using Magnum Zoom Flukes, a pre rigged swimbait and Jackall Rhythm Wave swimbaits with ¼ oz. weighted swimbait hooks. This would also be two Striper shows in a row that we lost a rod and reel combo over the side. I’m going to have to learn to keep everything on deck strapped down when we are filming.