The clear coastal water fades to black ahead, reading as a half-acre grass mat, maybe a plume of mud. Then we see it’s alive. Striped bass in their thousands churn slowly like a murmuration of starlings, creating new cloud forms every moment. The fish seethe at the fly line’s landing then rejoin. Most continue to daisy-chain mindlessly; a few turn to scrutinize the Deceiver in their midst.
Quebec’s Gaspé Peninsula was a fishing destination long before the concept of “fishing destinations” truly took root. 3Camps’ iconic Salmon Lodge on the Grand Cascapedia was founded in 1901, its Club on the Bonaventure in 1923, and the Atlantic salmon fishing tradition dates back centuries further. But it wasn’t until the early 2000s that anglers began to notice striped bass in the Baie des Chaleurs. Now, linesides practically teem along the sweeping coastline bluffs and bays, lagoons and deltas.
Anglers will angle, and Camp Bonaventure’s guides naturally began taking their Spey rods out to the beaches and jetties after dropping clients back at the lodge for dinner. Before long, some of the clients wanted to see this saltwater flats fishery for themselves.
The venerated rivières Bonaventure, Grand et Petite Cascacapedias, are lower and warmer in August, as rivers are wont to be. Collectively, an idea began to take shape. Gillies and sports would drift Bombers and Picasses under the cool shade of first light, return to the lodge for lunch, then launch the bay boat or flats skiff only minutes away to hunt for diving gannets and their symbiotic stripers below – all the while taking in the coastal Arcadian idyll of Gaspésie, it’s tall-steepled churches, candycane lighthouses, proud English and French communities. An unexpected mixed bag, a novel slam crossing the estuarial boundary. Our Camp Bonaventure Captain poles the Beavertail skiff noiselessly deeper, shallower into the high-tide lagoon. Tails breach the sheetmetal surface and I’m transported to a redfish creek in South Carolina, a bonefish marl in the Bahamas, a permit atoll in Belize. I crouch and cast a crab in their midst. A violet rush seizes the prey. French-Canadian saumon atlantique and bar rayé in one day. Who would have thought.
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