In 1985 ... June, the Dennys River was low and there were no fish to be found. We had fished all of the regular places, even the Downtown stretch. No one was fishing. It was if the river was dead.
Over evening cocktails we talked. What should we do? We could go bass fishing ... sightseeing? Ray Robinson had mentioned that Bartlet, Donald, and Lippy were fishing the Renous River in New Brunswick. We knew nothing about the Renous. My father had fished the main Southwest Miramichi years ago at Wilson's Camps; Jack Swedberg, my Aunt and my Uncle fished with Vince Swayze on the MIramichi pretty much every year back then, but we pretty much were clueless about the actual fishing. It was decided then and there, that warm June day, on the porch of Sear's Camp, with a gin buck in hand that we were going to drive up to the Renous and find Bartlet and the boys. We would hopefully catch them red handed in the act of fishing their secret pool on the Renous. Yeah right -- watch were the chances?
My father and I headed out the next morning. We figured we drive up, check out the area, and drive back the same day. It was 3 1/2 hours up and 3 1/2 hours back, that 7 hours of driving, leaving us a few hours to explore the area and learn something. And worse case, say we found that the fishing was awesome, we could always stay a night or two. My mother decided she would rather stay back in Dennysville. She had no desire to sit in the car all day. That's fine -- let's got!
I remember my father driving and that new Jeep Cherokee he had. We would have turned left out of Robinson's then left on route 1 and left again on 214. From there we passed the Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge on the bumpy narrow road that wound its way through the thick conifer forest that covers the entire region. Crossing the border was easy back then. No passport needed, just answer a couple of questions and welcome to Canada. The roads are smoother, nicer in Canada. We drove through Fredericton, crossed the mighty St John, and continued up Route 148 on the west side of the Nashwaak River. When we came the bridge in Taymouth we stopped to look at the river and took note of the water lever and flow. It looked good! We were in salmon country -- our expectations were running as high as the water.
We caught our first glimpse of the broad southwest in Boiestown and caught glimpses of it off to our our left as we followed it downstream to Doaktown. I don't remember stopping at Doak's Fly Shop but I'm sure my father pointed out the little white building that used to be Doak's back when he had been up here fishing. After crossing the Miramichi we continued on to Blackville and then Renous where we turned left on the Plaster Rock Highway which is not a highway--just a paved two lane road through the woods that goes directly to Plaster Rock from Renous. On the map it's route 108. A couple miles up 108 we turned left and crossed the Renous, but before we crossed we pulled over and got out to look down into the water from the metal Bailey bridge.
When you look upstream you see a fairly wide river spotted with boulders that stick out of the flat flowing surface of the water like polka dots. It doesn't look like much -- no distinct pools, just a constant steady flow of water and those polka dot boulders. Looking downstream is totally different. The water drops quickly and swings around the corner through distinct pools. Standing on the bridge and looking down provides a crystal clear view through the water right to the gavel bottom. If there are fish to be seen you can easily pick them out. We both had on our polaroids and we must have looked like salmon fishermen, not only by our attire buy be they way we shaded our glasses to peer into the water. A car came by and stopped, rolled down the window and the driver asked: "Do ya see any fish?" "No, nothin." Was our reply.
We ended up chatting with the nice man for several minutes. He learned that we were interested in fishing and needed a guide. He said, "follow me. I'll take you to a guide that lives just down the road." Great. We got back into the Jeep, he turned around and off we went. At the end of the road he turned right, we followed. I remember the dust so the road was probably gravel back then. Now it's paved up to Pineville. We didn't go far before we saw an old Chevy coming the other way. We stopped. The guy in front of us was talking to the guy in the Chevy. Pretty soon the Chevy pulled up to us and the guy said something. We couldn't understand him but somehow figured out that he was going to be our guide. We followed him back to his house and got out to meet him. He was short and big ... wide with a big round gut. His faded blue work shirt was tucked in making his gut even more pronounced. His belt seemed to squeeze him into a smaller man below the waist. The end of his leather belt hung down about 6 inches and down past his crotch. He was a strange sight -- his big round head and a cap too small to fit it. But as strange as he looked he talked in some weird foreign language; a variation of english that sounded like a scottish brogue. He would talk, we would listen. Then we would try to figure out what he had said. We would repeat what we thought he said back to him and he would let us know if we were close.
Somehow we had all decided to go fishing and that he would be our guide. There we stood, three guys, two cars, and a little house in the middle of nowhere with one common purpose -- to fish. To Leonard Munn fishing was his life. Sometimes "fishing" meant stringing a gill net across the river at night and at other times it meant sleeping in his Chevy while is paying "sports" fished. Leonard was overnight, out of shape and he had no toes on the foot that he had left hanging out of his car while sleeping one cold night. The toes froze and had to be amputated. He also had a heart condition which caused him to, in his words, "fill up with water." But despite these several physical handicaps he could out walk most people. We found that out on that same day when he took us into a pool somewhere on the Renous where we had to walk in the river upstream for about a half mile. I was 27 years old and in shape and had trouble keeping up with him. The only reason I could was because he had to stop once in a while due to chest pains.
More latter ...
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