A River With 500,000 Bass and Fewer Than 5,000 Returning Salmon
On the Miramichi, the striped bass population is now north of 500,000 — some estimates run much higher — while salmon returns were below 5,000 in 2025, according to Department of Fisheries and Oceans numbers. The people who fish the river read those two figures as one story. Brock Curtis, who runs an outfitter store in Blackville, says the cause and effect are clear: “Our numbers are dropping as the bass numbers are increasing, and there's a direct correlation there.”
The department's own website is more guarded. Bass eat “variable numbers” of smolts each year, it says, and “it is not clear whether this natural predator-prey dynamic is limiting the number of returning adult salmon to the Miramichi river.” The counts are not in dispute. The causal claim is.
AI-generated discussion · Different perspectives
This is a disagreement about what a river can be trusted to say. Curtis has watched two curves move together for years; the department wants a mechanism it can measure before it calls one of those curves a cause.
The caution cuts both ways though. Waiting for proof while a population slides is also a decision, and it is one that leaves the burden on the people whose working lives supply the counting.