“How often do you see tailing striped bass?” I asked half a dozen highly-regarded striped bass fly fishing guides that question, and the most common answer was “every now and then we’ll get small schools of bass start really finning and get their noses glued to the bottom, tails sticking right up.” I asked these guides from Maine to Virginia this question because I am still in awe by what I witnessed on the flats of Canada’s Gaspé Bay fishing with the Gaspé Coastal Crew.
I know fishing is perverse with hyperbole and exaggeration, and fly fishing can be even worse, but hear me out. Wading a Gaspé Bay flat surrounded by thousands of tailing striped bass 360 degrees around me was one of the most incredible sights I’ve ever seen, and one of the coolest fishing experiences I’ve had. For Andrew Murphy and the Gaspé Coastal crew, that was another Thursday morning. Something special is going on North of the Border, and if you like target-rich, abundant, and honest flats fisheries, you’d be smart to keep reading and check out Gaspé Coastal…
For the last four or five years, I’ve reserved some time in early June for striped bass. I’d usually bum around Rhode Island, Cape Cod, or Martha’s Vineyard out of my fish wagon or through friends’ generosity. Waters were still cool, each tide would bring in new waves of fish, and fly fishing was effective—I will admit to throwing a certain 9” topwater plug often… Regardless, however, I thoroughly enjoyed these missions up the coast and the solitude of vagabonding in search of good bites around RI and Mass.
I bring that up, because I was somewhat skeptical when Andrew Murphy (Murph) called me in May inviting me up to Canada to get a taste of his fishery. As an angler, I’d say that I’m pretty open-minded to most things fish, so the opportunity to fish for one of my favorite fish (albeit a completely different genetic stock…more on that later) on a skiff in a different country was not something I was going to pass up regardless of the FOMO on my annual migrations.
I’d heard about Murph’s operation over the years. The stories and testimonials of the people, landscapes, and fishing were glowing. I mean unless you were in the know or had seen pictures on Instagram, fly fishing on flats skiffs off Canada’s coastline seems a bit far-fetched. But it is world-class, truly. Are the fish bunker-gorging giants, no, but the sheer number of shots at willing fish on pristine flats is what makes this fishery so special. And the tails, oh my tails…I still cannot believe what I witnessed up there.
Gaspé’s bass fishery was not always this good. In fact, not too long ago the fishery was severely depleted due to overfishing—in part from a misguided notion that striper bass are the cause for declining Atlantic salmon numbers. In the 1990s, Canada’s striped bass population plummeted to just an estimated 3-5,000 spawning sized fish, which resulted in commercial and recreational moratoriums by the early 2000s. Today, the stock is doing much better with a population in the hundreds of thousands. But in July, Canada’s Minister of Fisheries announced plans to liberalize recreational limits and indigenous commercial quotas. So, time will tell whether loosening regs at this time will limit Canada’s continued recovery towards a sustainable, abundant striped bass population.
While those fish are making a very strong comeback, no science points to this resurgence coming from the United States’ striped bass populations, which is a common trope. Both genetic analyses and acoustic tagging efforts by various fisheries science entities show that the US and Canadian stocks rarely mix.
The above referenced study added: “In contrast, none of the hundreds of Striped Bass with internal acoustic tags in the Roanoke River, Hudson River, New England coast, Bay of Fundy, and Miramichi River have ever been detected passing the Halifax Line of acoustic receivers on the eastern coast of Nova Scotia. Thousands of Striped Bass in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Bay of Fundy, and along the US coast have been externally tagged from the 1960s to the present day, only one of which has ever been caught on the far eastern shores of Nova Scotia.” (citations omitted for readability)
It’s important to understand that science, because the current US striped bass challenges can be confused to fuel the assumption that they’re just moving north. However, that is not the case; but rather, Canada’s precautionary management of its striped bass is fueling its resurgent population.
Enough science talk–Let’s hear from Murph!
Flylords: Andrew, how did you get into guiding, and then when did running a flats skiff chasing Canadian striped bass go from an idea to opening up Gaspé Coastal?
Murph: I got into guiding in college. My first guiding job took me to Labrador at a fly-in camp, where I chased big brook trout and landlocked salmon. I fell in love with the work and outfitting there, but it was a tough environment. It was an intense season, isolated from the outside world, where we focused solely on fishing. I’m glad I did it, but after a couple of years, I was due for a change and wanted to be in a more accessible area.
I knew the Gaspé would be a great place to continue my career, known for Atlantic salmon and always a popular fly-fishing destination in Quebec. However, I wanted to focus on striped bass, a fish I knew and loved from my trips to the East Coast in my younger days.
I bought a 17’ center console and started with that, but I honestly struggled in my first season. During my second year, I did some research work in oyster farming, collecting growth data on potential farm sites, and kept running into large schools of fish.
We had a Towee for that work, so I started using that boat with a push pole to explore the flats around me and really got hooked on the flats fishery here. In 2020, I made the decision to go back to guiding full-time, so I bought a 17’ skiff and, a year later, started Gaspé Coastal.
Flylords: What does your fishery look like? Tell us how you target these fish up there.
Murph: It turns out the Baie des Chaleurs has huge potential for flats fishing. We trailer our boats up to a 20-30 mile radius from our home base in Cascapedia and can explore over a dozen flats systems. The flats come in all shapes and forms. We have expansive grass flats right down the road, we fish over pure sand bottoms, and others are more rocky or consist of hard bottoms. It’s a really diverse landscape.
The fish, especially in the spring, like to get very skinny, often in just 8-10 inches of water, allowing us to target tailing stripers. In the summer, they continue to come to the flats but may be found in 1-2 feet of water. The impressive thing is they behave like bonefish; they like to school and flash. It’s not rare to see schools of 200-300 fish coming onto the flats.
With that in mind, I try to focus on a pure flats fishing experience—sight fishing from a polling skiff, working these areas on the pole while looking for nervous water. Of course, we don’t always have the weather for it, but we have plenty of rocky structures and rips, allowing us to fish more “traditional” striped bass areas with sinking lines and big flies or bait and switch.
On the flats, however, we use smaller gear—think bonefish: #6-#7 rods and small shrimp patterns that are 1-2 inches long.
Flylords: In my experience, there’s a lot of misconceptions about your (well, Canada’s) stripers…can you talk about some of those misconceptions?
Murph: Canada can be a tough place to love striped bass, especially as a fly angler, since much of the local community sees them as a trash fish or an afterthought. Salmon is the name of the game here and, for most, the only game in town. There’s a major misconception that striped bass are a significant threat to salmon. Don’t get me wrong; there are interactions—some smolts get eaten by striped bass—but both provincial and federal fishery agencies have looked into this and raised no concerns.
It’s sad to see this divide; some salmon groups, especially in New Brunswick, have made getting rid of striped bass a rallying cry. I find it hard to understand why fishery conservation groups would want to decimate a wild native fish that has been in our waters for centuries.
As a huge Atlantic salmon lover, what’s even more frustrating is that in these trying times for the species, it feels like striped bass are being used as a scapegoat, while no one wants to discuss the real threats facing salmon.
For example, the local population is fighting a coastal open-pit mine development in Dalhousie, across the bay from us and at the mouth of the Restigouche River, which could have severe impacts on our marine habitats. Yet, no salmon groups have made a push against it.
It’s frustrating.
We are gaining a clearer picture of what’s causing salmon declines, and many issues are on a global scale (think illegal fishing and warming ocean waters affecting smolt migration), as well as continued threats from industry, whether it be logging (New Brunswick still sprays huge amounts of glyphosate on managed forests), mining, or commercial fishing depleting forage fish stocks.
It’s a multifaceted problem. The bay is facing its fair share of challenges like all ocean habitats these days, yet the average salmon angler seems to boil the issue down to striped bass, blissfully ignoring the real issues.
Flylords: Much like America’s striped bass, your fishery is also a conservation success story that may be heading towards some challenging times. Can you summarize the history of Canada’s striper population and what’s going on right now?
Murph: It’s a huge conservation success story—probably the biggest story no one ever talks about! In 1995-1996, when the DFO (Department of Fisheries and Oceans of Canada) began looking at recovery efforts, the population estimate for the entire Southern Gulf of the St. Lawrence area was only 4,000-5,000 adult fish remaining.
This isn’t new; in one of the first fisheries reports dating back to the 1850s, striped bass were briefly mentioned as being nearly wiped out by the local population. Residents around the Miramichi spawning grounds harvested huge amounts of striped bass through the ice with dip nets, and again netted them during the spawning aggregation.
This was followed by 150 years of careless management, causing the stock to fluctuate wildly but never be truly healthy. We nearly lost this strain of stripers completely.
In fact, we lost the St. Lawrence population in the 1960s, a genetically distinct stock that inhabited the St. Lawrence estuary, extending as far west as Montreal but primarily living in the saltwater east of Quebec City. That population was completely wiped out due to overfishing and habitat destruction. Thankfully, some of the Southern Gulf—commonly referred to as the Miramichi stock—survived.
Following a moratorium and careful management, the stock has rebounded to around 500,000 individuals currently. While this is an improvement, it’s still below the DFO’s target of a healthy stock, which is around 700,000 fish.
We now enjoy this incredible fishery, but there’s still progress to be made. It is known that stripers used to spawn in several rivers around the Miramichi, but this hasn’t been acknowledged by the DFO yet, so all our eggs are in one basket. We’ve seen a slow decline in the last few years from a population peak of over 700,000 fish in 2017, indicating that our population still fluctuates significantly.
There are dark clouds on the horizon, as lobbying efforts—partly by salmon conservation groups—have pushed the DFO to go against its scientific advisory and open a 175,000 fish commercial quota, as well as initiate a test fishery for lobster anglers to use them as bait. Of course, sports anglers have once again been left out of these discussions, despite our contributions to the local economy and the vitality of these remote parts of Canada. However, this time around, there’s momentum from the angling community. Hopefully, we can follow in the American Saltwater Guides Association’s footsteps.
Flylords:This story is mostly about the incredible bass fishing y’all have, but do you want to touch on the Atlantic Salmon run you guys have right in the backyard?
Murph: Of course, we talk a lot about striped bass, largely because few people mention them when discussing the Gaspé! However, personally and from a business standpoint, salmon are a huge part of what we do.
Salmon are a significant reason I decided to move here. In our immediate area, we have the opportunity to fish for salmon in three world-class rivers: the Cascapedia, Petite Cascapedia, and Bonaventure. All three rivers have their own personalities, but they are mostly known for their clear water! We often get to sight fish with dry flies, although I must say swinging for them with a two-handed rod is hard to beat.
Fishing these rivers is such a special experience. For starters, these are wild, native fish not supported by stocking programs, with incredible life journeys, and they inhabit these pristine environments. Keep in mind that the Gaspé is sparsely populated, and everyone lives on the coast, so by the time you drive 10 miles inland, you’re in the wilderness on public land! When chasing salmon here, you’re far removed from urban fishing, and the opportunities are numerous!
Flylords: I know you guys have some very exciting things on the horizon. What’s next for you and the Gaspé Coastal team?
Murph: This little business has indeed grown quite a lot since my Towee days. We’ve expanded our team with experienced guides from the area and now offer guiding for both salmon and stripers, while also starting to explore our wild brook trout, which has been very interesting.
We’ve finally reached a milestone where opening a lodge makes sense! I’m very excited to get back into that side of the industry, as I believe a lodge setting offers a better experience for guests. A longer stay allows anglers to explore more of what the area has to offer, and we’re at a point where, day of, we can cater to either salmon or flats fishing!
As a guide, this has been the most exciting part yet. Having the ability and equipment to go from chasing tailing fish one day to swinging flies the next, or exploring a creek with a 3 wt afterward, is unheard of! It’s made us much more adaptable based on weather conditions (who wants to be on a flats boat when it’s howling and raining sideways when you could be salmon fishing?). Letting anglers find their groove within this fishery has been truly rewarding.
I’m eager to connect our fishing program with a beautiful lodge right on the Grand Cascapedia. Now, not only will we be able to offer great fishing, but we’ll also provide impeccable hospitality!
Thanks again for chatting Murph! For our readers, if you’re interested in checking out Muph’s program, be sure to check them out @GaspéCoastal and their website!
Bass-pé: Exploring the Last Striped Bass Stronghold in Gaspé
