he 2002 fishing season at Camp Brûlé has turned out to be a good one. While many sports worried early on in the 2002 Atlantic salmon season on the Gaspe coast, optimistic guides at Camp Brûlé predicted a loud July and August. Fortunately they were proven right! A comparison of stats between the 2001 season and 2002 shows an increase in salmon hooked, despite a slow June in 2002. Still the 2001 fishing in comparison with previous three years. A hook-up rate of 88% was reported at Brûlé with 46% being landed. 2001 showed a 78% hook-up rate and 42% landed. The rates, based upon fish hooked or caught compared with number of rod days, give a good indication of how good the year was.Over the past ten years the national average has been in the high 20 percentile range.

Wiley Head Guide Tommy MacWhirter was quoted early on in the season as saying “Hey, hey, hey...hey...There’s no sense gettin’ your pants in a knot! Everything is late this year, salmon included.” Camp Brûlé owner, Ron ‘the long fellow’ McWhirter, concurred with his head guide’s assesment of the late arrival of the King of fish. "We had a late spring, it goes to follow that if the water temperature in the rivers are colder than in the bay, then the salmon will probably be late also. Either way it is important to remember that the fishing is always good here."

enowned feline scientist Archibald ‘Scratchy ’Twitchytail recently reported in the Cats, Cats, Cats Journal that the scent of feline urine actually makes the salmon fly more attractive to the salmon. Test subject, Hank ‘the Yank’ Walsh, was quoted as saying “I’ll never fish again without cat pee on my fly! It works...it really works.” Mr. Twitchytail is hoping to have his product, CAT PEE FLY, in tackle shops soon, pending FDA approval.

ecently we have been working with fluorocarbon leaders on the Little Cascapedia. While this material has been available for some time, we have been a little reticent in using it. Preferring the standard Maxima ‘Chameleon’ (brown) for many years, it has been a bit of a debate between guides and sports for a while now. The reason for maint-aining the Maxima has been the reduction of refracted light on the bottom of the river, or reducing ‘the throwing rainbows’ effect. While this is still the case, the reason for the switch over has more to do with leader diameter than anything. The traditional Maxima 10 lb test leader has a diameter of .012 inches. Orvis’s 12 lb fluorocarbon leader has a diameter of .011 inches and it’s 16 lb leader material has a diameter of .014 inches. While this may not seem like a lot, the difference in pliability is amazing. So having said that, what’s the point? Well, if the movement of the fly is an important aspect of hooking salmon, then the smaller the diameter and the more pliable the leader, the better the fly will move. This is especially key in a low water condition. In the high water with bigger flies, the Maxima still turns the flies over better and the need for pliability is not as crucial to successfully hooking a salmon.

eam work is a motto well entrenched at Brûlé. An excellent example would be the way Brûlé’s

Seafood Louie

Kitchen staff has gelled together. Under Donna McWhirter’s thoughtful supervision, Agnes LeBlanc, Camp Brûlé’s cook for two years running, has changed the traditional menu to better reflect the health requirements of today’s sports. Together the two plan and cook meals that could be found in a 5 star restaurant while maintaining the easy going charm that has made Brûlé’s kitchen staff the envy of many the salmon lodge. Seafood Louie, pictured above, proved to be a sport favourite. Along with a freshly baked loaf of french bread, this salad was simply fabulous.