As you can see my prediction for a late ice-out was proved wrong . The water is still low but the ice moved out over a three or four day period without incident . The cold temps are keeping the run- off from snow melt to a minimum but we still have an average of app 3 feet of water laden snow everywhere , so when this begins to melt again we will see plenty of ice moving off the shores . This can be a very dangerous time for inexperienced guides or anglers to be on the river , as you can see some of this shore ice is 2 – 3 feet thick and can weigh several ton . The river banks are stacked high with heavy ice so boaters must be extremely careful until the river clears out . We are not fishing yet but I should have a report from the locals in a few days .

Wilson’s Miramichi River report as of April 1st should be called snow report instead . We woke up this morning with 8 inches of fresh snow on the ground and as you can see from looking up river from the lodge there is still solid ice everywhere . We still have 4-6 feet of snow on the ground and no warm weather yet . All the big brooks and springs remained open most of the winter indicating that our water table is still higher than normal . The big water from fall 2008 seems to be holding , which is never a complaint when you are a fly-fisherman , that boads well for June and July . I will be posting Miramichi River ice-run pictures as things develop so stay tuned for what could be a very interesting scene . It is unlikely that we will be fishing here by April 15th so we have scheduled our first anglers for April 24th .