JOE KLEMENTOVICH
Salmon versus stripers
Striped bass are thriving in Eastern Canada, but at the expense of Atlantic salmon, writes conflicted angler and conservationist Ben Carmichael
I’M STANDING on the bow of a flats boat with Andrew Murphy, co-owner of Gaspé Coastal, slowly poling. We are in Québec’s Baie-des-Chaleurs, taking in two things at once: the Chic-Choc Mountains from which flow some of Canada’s greatest salmon rivers — the Cascapedia, the Bonaventure, the Matapedia — and, at the same time, salt flats that now host what may be the best striped bass fishing on the East Coast.
Before us is a flat, shallow bay full of fertile eelgrass. Even though conditions on this day are less than perfect, we see fish tailing and, at the change of the tide, fast-flowing water from which my friend Steve, on his first day of striper fishing ever, catches a fish on every cast for what becomes a remarkable, if not comically long, time.
In need of protection: the author with proof that dreams do come true.
JONAS CLARK
I know what his experience felt like. Once, during hot weather and a slow spell of salmon fishing, I drove along the Gaspé coast and stopped at every rock jetty I could find. I fished every spot until I caught a striper — often on the very first cast. It was a stark contrast to the salmon I had come to chase, known by many as “the fish of a thousand casts.” As someone said to me, striped bass might not be the reason you come to the Gaspé, but they can save a salmon trip.
Which puts a conservation-minded American fly-fisher like me in a challenging situation. Having watched striped bass decline in New England, it is reassuring, amidst so many negative headlines, to see a species come back from the brink — to know that that is possible. Moreover, it has been entertaining to watch a fishing culture and knowledge base emerge from nothing. The locals love it — and, in a place where salmon fishing is expensive, they appreciate having a sport fish they can chase.
Additionally, in this moment, there is an opportunity for what I’ve dubbed the “Gaspé Grand Slam”: an Atlantic salmon, a striped bass, and a sea-run brook trout — all of world-class size, and all in one day. When I have been out on the bay, looking back at the mountains, I feel what I believe this to be: a singular experience.
A school of Atlantic salmon heading home.
BEN CARMICHAEL
I asked angler and Gaspé camp owner Ted McGregor about this, who agreed, “There’s not another place like it.” Focus on the water, and you could be bonefishing in the Bahamas; look up, and you’re gazing toward ski mountains, their peaks sometimes still speckled with snow in June.
They come up thinking they want to try for Atlantic salmon and then they get a taste for stripers and almost change teams for the week
This is what Andrew Murphy and his wife Sarah Nellis have built their lodge around: a multi-species program. They were the first to do so here and, in addition to being remarkably nice people, are deserving of success. “People are surprised at how good the striper fishing is,” says Sarah. “They come up thinking they want to try for Atlantic salmon and then they get a taste for stripers and almost change teams for the week.” But more to the point, with all the area has to offer, she says, “We’ve never had a day when we just couldn’t go fishing.”
I agree with Sarah and have huge respect for what she and Andrew have built. And yet, I worry. Why? It starts with a little story.
A few years ago, I was wading in the Matapedia, a nearby salmon river. My fly swung into the sweet spot and my line went tight. After a winter of expectation and a lifetime of preparation, I thought the stars had finally aligned. But there were no leaps, no searing runs. When I brought the fish to hand, I was surprised to find I had caught a striped bass here, deep in the woods and in the fresh water of a famous Canadian salmon river.
Two skiffs run by Gaspe Coastal, poling through the endless flats in Baie-des-Chaleurs searching for Striped Bass.
JOE KLEMENTOVICH
Telling people about my experience that week, the striper became the flash point for a few questions best paraphrased as: Who belongs and who is unwelcome? Who deserves the right to call a place theirs? And, perhaps most importantly, who gets to decide?
These are questions we are all too familiar with in today’s world. But we’re used to them being asked on the streets and in the Capitol Rotunda, not on riverbanks. That is, unless you’re an Atlantic salmon-fisher in Eastern Canada where, for the past few years, these questions have, as the saying goes, “been all the rage.”
Why? Because of this one fish: striped bass — or, as the Québécois call them, le bar rayé.
To understand the situation, you have to go back to the 1990s. At that time, after decades of overfishing, striped bass populations were on the brink: estimates say there were as few as 3,000 in the entire Southern St Lawrence region. And so, the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) did what it’s supposed to do: it protected a native species by declaring a commercial and recreational moratorium. This lasted for over two decades, and during that time striped bass were largely forgotten — until they couldn’t be ignored. In 2017, it was estimated that there were close to a million of them.
Writhing, spawning stripers
NICK HAWKINS
To put this into perspective, I asked a local what it’s like to have this many spawning striped bass in the Miramichi River. He said that, during spawning, you can smell it before you see the river. The water turns black, and 100-fish striper days are not uncommon. The aerial videos of stripers spawning are nearly X-rated, so thick is the river with writhing bodies releasing milt and eggs.
If the name Miramichi is familiar, it’s because it was once North America’s most productive Atlantic salmon river, welcoming back over 150,000 salmon every year. So productive was the Miramichi that it was said to produce more fly-caught salmon than all other Canadian rivers combined. During its heyday, the river attracted anglers like Ted Williams, the future King Charles, Benny Goodman, and Bobby Orr, to name a few. Yet in 2024, it’s estimated that the river had fewer than 5,000 salmon returning.
Salmon angler Dave Cole dreaming of success while standing on a covered bridge over the Matapedia.
BEN CARMICHAEL
Why is that? There are, as in any biological system, a confluence of factors. A warming world doesn’t help a species that prefers cold water, nor do things like a rise in the seal population or a decline in forage fish like sea-run brook trout, capelin, and rainbow smelt. But recent research points to one major obstacle: smolts, the young salmon that migrate out to sea, do so precisely when the striped bass are spawning. The survival rate of migrating Miramichi smolts used to be over 50 per cent. Today, it is less than nine per cent.
According to David Roth of the Atlantic Salmon Federation (ASF), “We know that striped bass are eating the smolts. If you stand on the shore and you see the footage, there is literally a wall of striped bass… and nothing else can get through there.”
To layer the numbers, Miramichi salmon have experienced a 90 per cent decline while at the same time, striped bass have experienced a 9,900 per cent increase. According to David, “Today, salmon are where striped bass were in the ’90s — but there is nothing from the DFO in terms of alarm bells, money, or a sense of crisis. The DFO is saying, no matter what we do, that Atlantic salmon are doomed anyway.” To say their pace of response has been frustratingly slow would be a dramatic understatement. One DFO decision regarding the listing of salmon has now taken over 15 years.
The moment of dreams: embarking on a trip down a picture-perfect east-coast Atlantic salmon river.
BEN CARMICHAEL
The moment of dreams: embarking on a trip down a picture-perfect east-coast Atlantic salmon river.
BEN CARMICHAEL
According to David Roth of the Atlantic Salmon Federation (ASF), “We know that striped bass are eating the smolts. If you stand on the shore and you see the footage, there is literally a wall of striped bass… and nothing else can get through there.”
To layer the numbers, Miramichi salmon have experienced a 90 per cent decline while at the same time, striped bass have experienced a 9,900 per cent increase. According to David, “Today, salmon are where striped bass were in the ’90s — but there is nothing from the DFO in terms of alarm bells, money, or a sense of crisis. The DFO is saying, no matter what we do, that Atlantic salmon are doomed anyway.” To say their pace of response has been frustratingly slow would be a dramatic understatement. One DFO decision regarding the listing of salmon has now taken over 15 years.
As this suggests, DFO appears entrenched — and in positions that potentially portend the end of Miramichi salmon. For instance, DFO points to studies which show that smolts make up just 2% of striped bass stomach contents. But there are two fundamental flaws with that argument: firstly, the study took striped bass from alewife traps (known locally as gaspereau), so concluding that striped bass aren’t eating many smolt from that study is a bit like wondering why people aren’t eating BBQ at an ice cream stand; and secondly, given the number of striped bass, even 2% would mean they are consuming the entire run of Miramichi smolts. Without smolts, there is no future for Miramichi salmon. Which makes one wonder: is DFO intentionally managing out salmon, or is this an example of terrible yet potentially unintended mismanagement?
Casting a fly in the upper branches of the Grand Cascapedia.
BEN CARMICHAEL
If the Gaspé has one advantage, it’s that the striper I caught on the Matapedia was not born there. The Miramichi can be thought of as the Chesapeake of the north; it’s the keystone spawning location of the Southern St Lawrence population, and so its stripers are the benefit and the burden. In summer, they migrate from the Miramichi to the Gaspé — thus avoiding the Gaspé’s smolt migration and sparing the young salmon. But that’s not to say that the stripers are not impacting Gaspé fish populations; I’ve fished the area for over three decades now and have seen the sea-run brook trout population decline significantly with the rise of striped bass.
This shouldn’t be a surprise; stripers are voracious, opportunistic feeders. This makes them a fun sport fish but, when in the river systems, it’s a cause for concern. As one guide said to me, “I mean, they’re not here for the sightseeing.” When caught in rivers, some anglers have cut them open to examine their stomach contents and found parr or smolt. To be fair, studies show that these are not the majority of the stomach contents, but for the number of stripers in the area, it doesn’t need to be to have a negative impact on species like Atlantic salmon, whose numbers are already down.
A striped bass with a mouth made for hoovering food.
BEN CARMICHAEL
The world today is not what the world was then
All of which leads naturally to the question: What does the future hold? When I asked Sarah Nellis, she said, “I wish that everything will get healthier and continue to flourish. And I hope that anglers will realize that this is a wild native fish and fishery, and that we’re really lucky to have it.”
I agree. The best possible outcome would be for both species to coexist here, as they did for untold thousands of years prior to man’s intervention. But the world today is not what the world was then, and as someone to whom losing sleep over thorny issues comes naturally, I worry. As my friend Dave Cole, who is part owner of a Canadian salmon camp, said, “I now fear for the Gaspé salmon.” It’s hard not to, after all.
So, what does one do? There are a number of measures being put in place: a commercial fishery for the local First Nations tribes, for one, is a welcome and culturally appropriate economic opportunity. And the ASF is advocating for active management of the Miramichi striped bass population so that salmon (and specifically smolts) and striped bass might peacefully coexist.
In talking about this with my friend Ted, he offered this advice: “For me, my moments of meditation are on the water. There’s something about the natural beauty around you in Gaspé — you don’t need to fish. Just go and see what the fish are doing. Do some watching, and see what happens.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ben Carmichael
Ben Carmichael is a writer, editor, photographer, and conservationist. He currently serves on the board of the Atlantic Salmon Federation and the Catskill Fly Fishing Center and Museum. When not searching for salmon in the north, he's often found chasing striped bass in his home waters of New England.
