TV’s Fish’n Canada team says New Brunswick’s striped bass fishing offers wild action

By Angelo Viola & Pete Bowman

Back in the spring of 2015, we took a trip to New Brunswick to go fishing, as well as cover the inaugural Miramichi Striper Cup, a new and unique style of bass tournament. In both cases, striped bass were the focus of the resulting Fish’n Canada episode. Not only did we get great coverage of the tournament, we also caught so many stripers it was downright ridiculous (in a good way, of course).

Since then, we’ve picked up a trick or two more about targeting striped bass. We’ve also learned it’s not just a springtime fishery. On our most recent visit to hit New Brunswick’s fabled Miramichi River for striped bass, we arrived in October instead, a week before closing day.

Joining us in the City of Miramichi was part-time co-host Steve Niedzwiecki, along with the founder of the Striper Cup, Jeff Wilson. They anchored themselves on the river a few hundred yards from our hotel, the Rodd Miramichi, and proceeded to catch a whack of stripers on cut-bait rigs (imagine heavy-duty drop-shot rigs using cut mackerel as bait). Some of the fish they caught, by the way, ended up on our dinner plates that night.

Meanwhile, we started way upriver from the city with the goal of getting into some big stripers using topwater baits. After multiple casts, numerous bait changes and hundreds of fish, we finally struck topwater gold, with Yo-Zuri’s 3DB Pencil Poppers giving us some of the best topwater footage we’ve ever recorded.

Among the four us, we caught so many fish it would have been impossible to keep count, making this fall trip every bit as productive as our spring 2015 visit—but with the exciting topwater twist. The Miramichi’s striped bass fishery offers a truly incredible spring and fall angling experience, and one that we highly recommend.

Learn more about Miramichi striper fishing at www.tourismnewbrunswick.ca, www.miramichi.org and www.miramichistripercup.com.

For more on Fish’n Canada, see www.fishncanada.com,  www.facebook.com/fishncanada, www.instagram.com/fishncanadaofficial  and youtube.com/@fishncanada.