2008 Newfoundland Salmon Season

Here is a note from Master Guide and outdoors writer, Ian Gall.

I hope he won't mind my sharing it here. It is a pretty good summation of this year's salmon season.



Hi Steve,

The season is just about over here as there are only three rivers open. The lower reaches of the Gander, Exploits and Humber are still open until October 7.

I had a late trip two weeks ago to fish the Exploits. (40,000 fish went through the counter up to August 31.).

Brad Williams and I left St. John's at 6am and drove to Bishop Falls. We stopped on the Gander for a few minutes and Brad hooked and lost one. We then fished the lower Exploits but nothing doing. We went further upstream to Badger and right in the community there is a spot where two small rivers enter the Exploits.

It is all catch and release where we were but in the rivers themselves, you could keep fish.

There were loads of Salmon and it was an easy place to fish. Brad caught three and I caught two on Saturday.

On Sunday, I caught three and Brad caught two.

We found that we could wade across one small river mouth into the Exploits itself and it was great wading with the water about 2.5 feet deep and a gravel bottom.

There were fish all around and when a fish rose you could pin point the area and get it to rise to the fly and even hook it.

On the way back we stopped again on the Gander where I hooked and lost one fish. We were back in St. John's by 5.45pm on Sunday evening.

Brad caught all his fish on small wet flies and I caught all mine on Bombers. It was a short and sweet trip.

The sea trout came in last week into the Waterford River and they were covered in sea lice and bright silver.

Last Thursday I caught around 30. Not very big (up to a pound) but great on light tackle. A friend caught one the other night around 6 pounds.

All in all a much better season over here than last year.

Hope you also have a good fall season.

All the best
Ian