On the Cains: Atlantic Salmon and Sea-Run Brook Trout on the Miramichi's Greatest Tributary

by Brad Burns

Overview

A historical look at and current guide to the Cains River in New Brunswick. There is almost a mystical aura surrounding the Cains and its Atlantic salmon and brook trout fishery. Only about a third of it was ever settled and then lightly, and by the middle of the twentieth century settlers had all given up and the river reverted to completely wild, which it still is today. The book also explores the Cains’s relationship with the Miramichi River, in particular the Black Brook, the biggest and most productive pool on the river. In low water, a substantial portion of the Cains’s fall run of fish stacks up there waiting for rain.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780811738132
Publisher:	Stackpole Books
Publication date:	03/24/2020
Pages:	232
Product dimensions:	8.90(w) x 11.38(h) x 0.76(d)

About the Author

Bradford Burns, a longtime fisheries activist, has served as a national board and executive committee member of the Coastal Conservation Association and is a founder and president of Stripers Forever, a coast-wide advocacy group for striped bass conservation. He is also a U.S. director of the Miramichi Salmon Association and on the Atlantic Salmon Federation U.S. Council. He has received many awards for conservation work, largely on behalf of striped bass, from organizations like the Federation of Fly Fishers, Sage Fly Rods, and the Fisherman’s Conservation Association of New York.
Burns is the author of the LL Bean Fly Fishing for Striped Bass Handbook and Fly Fishing Saltwater's Finest (coauthored with John Cole). He has written and provided photographs for articles in various publications such as Saltwater Sportsman, Field and Stream, and Fly Fishing in Saltwaters. He has fished for Atlantic salmon throughout Atlantic Canada as well as Iceland, Scotland, and Russia.
He lives in the Portland, Maine area, on the banks of the Presumpscot River (once a great Atlantic salmon river) where he still throws flies for striped bass.

Editorial Reviews

Brad Burns has written a beautiful tribute to a magnificent river and its undaunted inhabitants. This is an instant classic that will be fawned over a century from now.

Monte Burke

The Cains is the most important tributary on the most important Atlantic salmon river in Canada. It is a river that “gets under your skin” in a variety of ways that defy easy description. Brad Burns's On the Cains eloquently describes the spell that is cast by this river on the hearts and souls of anglers who fish there. It is a love affair with a river, the fish that live in it, and the people who reside there.

Topher Browne

Brad Burns is to be commended for his passion and enthusiasm for preserving the history of Atlantic salmon fishing on the Cains and Miramichi rivers. On the Cains brought me back to the days I spent at Wade's Fishing Lodge with my father, Herb Wade, and my grandfather Charlie Wade. These memories now will be kept alive for future generations thanks to Brad. The legacy left by Charlie and Herb Wade will not be forgotten.

David Wade