This is a you tube link to a short video on our shark encounter. Three anglers took turns fighting with this beast for over thirty minutes on a heavy rod spooled with 100 lb braided line. This was one of fifteen different species we hooked up with including the elusive Sailfish. All in all one of my top ten best fishing experiences ever.

I received a days fishing charter for Christmas and today was the day. David and I headed out along with Jeff Parker and John Lockhart for a day on the water with Captain Patrick Price of Daymaker Charters. The name is very apt because he did indeed make our day.
The four of us have been fishing a long time and to say that this was one of our best experiences would not be an exaggeration. Over the course of the day we hooked and landed 15 different species of fish and we even invited a few of them home for dinner.
We started our fishing off by using Sabiki rigs in forty feet of water jigging for live bait. If you have never seen a Sabiki rig it is a series of small flies tied to a single line, you drop it to the bottom and jig it up and down...

David and I had a few hours to get out yesterday morning and headed for the Indian River Lagoon. This was a jacket morning for sure with lower temps over night and a bit of a north wind. We have been catching most of our fish on white fluke style baits but for some reason I felt the need to tie on a top water. No logic or thought process to it but it just seemed like the thing to do.
It was a good decision.
Our first stop had some fish on it but the first one we hooked pulled a school of seven dophins right to the boat and they wouldn’t leave us alone. They are pretty to watch for a few minutes but they have learned that anglers release tired fish and it is an easy meal for them. We tried moving on the trolling motor but they stayed with us...

For our last show of the season we are ending where we started back in the spring on the Miramichi River on the hunt for Striped Bass. Our guest today is Veronique { Vero } Arsenault , Executive Director at the Miramichi Regional Multi-Cultural Association. We will chat with her a bit about that while we film.
Veronique co-hosts Have a Chat on Rogers TV with her associates Audrey Lynch and Judy Losier. This is an extremely popular show now in its third year. We were looking for a guest from the Miramichi area and Vero jumped right in although she had never fished before. For someone who had never handled a fishing rod before she picked it up quite quickly and she was somewhat relieved when she found out she didn’t have to handle worms.
We launched the boat down by Ritchie’s wharf and ...

I got out for half a day with David and he kicked my butt. He had five in the boat before I even had a bite. He ended up with one Jack, one Spanish Mackerel, a bunch of Spotted Sea Trout, one Bluefish and at least a dozen Ladyfish. I had him rigged with a Zodias 7′MH rod a 2500 Stadic FK and 15 lb Power Pro with a 36 inch flouro carbon leaded. All of the fish were in shallow water and caught on soft plastics rigged on a one eighth once jig head. The dolphins almost drove us crazy when they found us. They have learned that boats equal free fish. When you release one they chase it down and eat it. They will not leave you once you have hooked a fish.

My guests for this show are Don Paterson and his son Deacon. The guys took a long drive to meet me at seven for our trip into Spednic Lake which is almost another hour from my place.

We got in to the ramp and the water was very, very low. There were visible rocks that I had not seen before and it made me very nervous to be running around with the Evinrude G2 with a new prop I borrowed from Phil and even more so when a north wind kicked in for the day.

With the water down we found our first stop was almost to shallow to hold much but I got one quite quickly on a Jackall spinnerbait and Deacon got one on a Blue Fox and had another part way to the boat on a fluke. We all got hit several times on the flat but none of the fish was really big...

After a computer hard drive crash these were the only pics that survived from the show. My guests for this episode were local high school students Eli and Josh. Both are also Venture Scouts as well. As you know we normally shoot for a day and what you see is what it was. In this case we went twice with day one being heavy rains and thunderstorms that has us sitting on the river bank for quite a while waiting for the lightening to pass. Fishing was tough. We booked a second trip a week later and ended up with the same weather most of the day but minus the thunderstorms.
The bass were definitely not cooperating and we went looking for Chain Pickerel. I switched the guys over to Zodias rods, 2500 Stradics and some Power Pro to get the fish out of the weeds with breaking them off...

We hit the water yesterday with 2015 NBSFA Champion Ryan Hood. It was a day of firsts for both of us with Ryan catching a personal best Smallmouth and some crazy topwater action over deep water.
We started our day off over a shallow grass flat with scattered dollar pads. I was throwing a Blue Fox in line spinner and Ryan was using a fluke. Both of us were catching fish and they were extremely aggressive. They seemed to be roaming around on the flat so we just kept moving around. In the more open areas I was throwing a JackAll SK Pop Grande topwater. It’s smaller profile seemed to be the ticket for the very clear water we were in and they would inhale it. I love topwater.
After a bit we moved further down the lake and tried drop shot fishing in 20 to 25 feet of water...

I have often mentioned the importance of eye protection on the show, not just as sunglasses but also to protect yourself from wayward hooks. I got a real life test of it this week while filming with my friend Ron. I flipped a two pound smallmouth into the boat that was hooked on a crankbait. As the fish came into the boat, the bait came out and with all the tension released from the rod, it flew back and hit me square on the left lense of my glasses. I hate to think what two sets of trebles might have done to my eye if I hadn’t been wearing them. Be safe out there, accidents happen really fast

This trip we had the pleasure of fishing with Alisha Gilbert who is a forward with the STU Women’s Hockey Team. We had a bit of a chilly boat ride with the temps sitting at about 6 degrees when we put the boat in the water.

Alisha likes to fish when she has time off from school, hockey, two jobs and as a volunteer with the Chipman fire department. This is one busy girl. A bonus for today is that she has never caught a smallmouth and we are going to take care of that little problem for her.

The first spot we stopped at, I had smallies come up and hit a Jackall SK Pop Grande topwater on back to back casts and boy did they ever eat it. I was really watching my hands trying to get those hooks out.

We used an assortment of baits including the SK which is a great popper for smallmouth...