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It never changes much, and thank heaven for that. On Quebec's Gaspé Peninsula, this lodge still looks as it did a century ago, and its top priority remains what it has always been: catching salmon.
By Bill Taylor
The drive round Quebec's Gaspé Peninsula is among the most picturesque in eastern North America. Approaching Campbellton, New Brunswick, you pass low, rolling, spruce-clad hills and gentle, peat-stained streams, but when you cross the Restigouche River on the steel bridge to Cross Point, Quebec, you enter a country of old mountains, covered by healthy hardwoods, and of clear rivers speeding through lush valleys. The names of Gaspé rivers - the Matapédia, Grande Cascapédia, Bonaventure, Sainte-Anne, and Saint-Jean are music to the ears of salmon-lovers. The roots of fly-fishing for salmon grow deep along these rivers, perhaps deeper than anywhere else in North America. For any salmon angler who's never visited the Gaspé, the best is yet to come.
The coastal drive west from the bridge to New Richmond and New Carlisle offers superb views of Chaleur Bay and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The first salmon river you cross is the Grande Cascapédia, the annual spawning destination of huge salmon. If you choose to drive inland beside this most famous of Gaspé rivers, you'll pass several elaborate, private, fly-fishing camps, each sporting one of Warren Gilker's hand-made, iron weathervanes in the shape of a salmon. A renowned craftsman and conservationist, Gilker is the longtime manager of the Englehard family's magnificent fishing lodge, Lorne Cottage.
Thirty miles upriver, the road begins a steep climb to the Chic-Chocs. Among the highest mountains of eastern North America, they're home to the only herd of woodland caribou remaining in Gaspé country, and the birthplace of many a cold, clean salmon river. Snow clings to their granite faces all year round.
Back on the coastal route, three miles beyond the Grande Cascapédia, the Petite Cascapédia tumbles south to Chaleur Bay. At first glance, it looks like just a nice little stream that might hold a salmon or two, but if you investigate further you'll find it's far more than that. Like many Quebec salmon rivers, the Petite Cascapédia boasts a ZEC. That's a "zone d'exploitation controlee," a rough translation of which is "zonal exploitation committee." Unique to Quebec, the system of local ZECs is an enlightened approach to the management of rivers and control of angling. The ZEC for the Petite Cascapédia manages not only a long stretch of the river, but also Camp Melancon, which offers visiting anglers accommodation at reasonable prices.
But the jewel of the river is Camp Brűlé, built in 1883 by Montreal businessmen who called it The Little Cascapédia Club. Camp Brűlé is a throwback to a time when modern comforts meant far less to anglers than catching fish. Its well-kept, white, clapboard buildings, including an ice-house, cook's cabin, and guides' quarters, sport attractive forest-green roofs and shutters, just as they did a century ago. Anglers stay at the main camp, where cook Verna O'Neill has long been preparing hearty meals. Over the years, little changes at Brűlé, and that's fine by its most loyal guests. They return season after season. They get to fish roughly four miles of private water and a variety of pools. Since Brűlé's close to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the salmon that reach its water are usually bright and athletic.
Ron McWhirter owns Brűlé. His son Kevin has been a guide there since he was fourteen. Kevin's great-grandfather started to work at the camp in 1893, when the logbook reported, "The first wardens hired are Clarence Burton and James McWhirter, both men of good repute." Spending a day on the Petite Cascapédia with Kevin McWhirter is about as sweet an experience as a salmon angler can find. Kevin knows the history of the river inside out, and more about the preferences of its salmon than anyone other than his father. On a sultry August day last year, it was thanks to Kevin that my friend Charles Gaines and I each landed a salmon. Charles is an American author and consultant on adventure travel. He took a lively seven-pounder late in the afternoon, and I hooked and released a beauty of more than 20 pounds that hit my Green Stone Fly just as the sun went down.
Salmon usually enter the Petite Cascapédia in mid-June, with the first caught around the 20th. The early run peaks during the first two weeks in July, but fresh fish enter in spurts throughout the summer. Many Petite Cascapédia anglers say the late run, which comes surging upriver in mid to late August, provides the best fishing. It's then, too, that you're likely to hook sea-run brook trout of four to eight pounds, and even bigger.
From August 1 until the season ends on September 15, the salmon-fishing on the Petite Cascapédia is strictly catch-and-release. Just a decade ago, with a poorly run pulp and paper mill operating at the river mouth, only 200 salmon returned, but thanks to wise management and a sound restoration program, the Petite Cascapédia has been seeing returns in recent years of more than 1,000.
Most of the salmon weigh from 12 to 15 pounds, but every season anglers land plenty of 20-pounders and some 30-pounders. The top fish at Camp Brűlé last season weighed 32 pounds, and in 1993, on the ZEC-operated water, an angler took a 39 1/4-pound brute. Camp Brűlé has provided its share of trophy salmon for the record books. Montrealer Whit Ramsey, an original member of The Little Cascapédia Club, caught a 45-pound monster in 1905, and in 1932, Marjorie Field, daughter of Osgoode Field and member of a rich and famous U.S. business family, landed salmon of 31 and 32 pounds.
Folks at Sexton and Sexton, a small but well-stocked fly and tackle shop on the Grande Cascapédia insist that any fly will work on the Petite Cascapédia - just as long as it's green. Favorites include the Cosseboom, Green Highlander, Green Stone Fly, Green Butt Bear Hair, Green Rat, Rusty Rat, Silver Rat, and a strange looking streamer called the Magog Smelt. The guides say Petite Cascapédia salmon don't respond well to the dry fly, but my limited experience suggests it's a good idea to bring along a few bugs and bombers. Of the six or seven salmon Charles and I hooked last August, four were on dry flies.
Bill Taylor is ASF's Executive Director, Communications and Public Policy. For booking information about Camp Brűlé, contact Kevin McWhirter, c/o Camp Brűlé, 462 Mercier Road West, New Richmond, Quebec GOC 2B0. Phone: 418 392-6705. Fax: 418 392-5860.
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