I awake in the middle of a big soft bed in a room that I don't recognize - an omen of good adventure that I've known since childhood. The walls are planks of wood that smell of the forest even though they were milled over a hundred years ago. The early morning light slants into the room through a canopy of trees high above the window. It occurs to me that I am in a cabin, a lodge actually in a forest far away from home. I am at Camp Brûlé on the banks of the Little Cascapedia on the Gaspé Peninsula and I am here to fish for Atlantic salmon!
That I am here at all is stroke of fisherman's luck, a small amount of cunning and great deal of generosity on the part of Thomas and Thomas Fly Rods and the staff at Camp Brûlé. Two years ago Thomas And Thomas fly rods introduced a new line of spey rods and held a contest to help them pick a name for the new line-up. I won that contest. Another guy won too. Both of us submitted DNA as a name for the new rods. So now here I am a trout fisherman and itinerant steelheader from the west coast angling for perhaps the greatest game fish the Atlantic Ocean has to offer.
In the dining room the guests gather for breakfast and to trade notes on the beats they'll fish this day. I pour myself a cup of coffee and say my good mornings. Fresh fruit and pastries have already been put out and I am helping myself to some of these when I meet the kitchen staff. Hostess Sue is a wonder and keeps the kitchen running smoothly always smiling and laughing. She asks me how I would like my eggs and if I want bacon or sausage or bacon AND sausage.Dee was the evening hostess that week and she’s great too. Lisa the cook, put out some gourmet meals that had me worried for my waist line. Believe it or not the the adventure gets even better from here.
Three days, three guides and three different rivers. That's Joe the Guide, Spey Steve, Capitaine Kevin, and the main Grand Cascapedia, Lake Branch of the Grand Cascapedia and the Little Cascapedia. Each guide was as different as the rivers we fished yet the waters and the men were familiar in a comfortable sense like the friends and the streams in my own neck of the woods. Sadly I didn’t get a shot on the Bonaventure with Big Bert, but everyone that fished with him through the rotation enjoyed themselves.
I touched fish every day. My first ever Atlantic salmon, a five pound grilse, came to a hitched muddler on the Lake Branch. Here the water showed the faintest touch of tannins as it flowed through cobbled pools and boulder studded riffles, a mountain stream by any measure. Stephen watched my spey cast, told me what was wrong with it and how to fix it. It took until the end of the trip for his advice to sink in but I think I got it now.
The next day I found myself on the lower Grand Cascapedia. Joe parked the truck on a gravel bar not far above the upper reach of the tide. The effects of seasonal flood are evident as last year's and next year's channels lay dry and exposed for now much like the coastal rivers on the Olympic Peninsula back home. My hitched muddler brought up another grilse here but it came unbuttoned just before I could land it. "Because you played it like a steelhead," according to Joe.
My favorite stream and as far as I can tell the best river in the area, was the Little Cascapedia. Its short choppy rapids, glassy pools, rock ledges and air clear water reminded of the Sol Duc River a bedrock confined river back home. Camp Brule sits on the banks of the Little Cascapedia just a short float down from Jack Louis, the best pool on the river, which as far as I'm concerned is the best river in the area. It was late one evening, the full moon just rising above the tree tops that I hooked and landed a 15lb salmon. She took my fly just under the surface, the water exploded at the exact same time I felt the rod nearly pull from my hand. If ‘Capitaine' or the other sport had been watching they would have seen that the take actually scared the hell out of me. It was awesome!
I will always remember fishing at Camp Brûlé as an adventure that was a success before it even began. I learned a few things up there; slow down on that spey cast, every run should have a hitched muddler swung through it and always fish as if you are lucky just to be there.
Cheers,
Wyatt
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