Silver's Pool - Photograph by Brenda Carpan

Silver's Pool - Photograph by Gilbert van Ryckevorsel

The St. Mary’s river system is considered one of the most pristine water ways in Nova Scotia.  Our local river association is working hard to maintain the clean water system we have.  We're encouraging people to use the waterway but stress the importance of maintaining a clean and garbage free ecosystem for the fish and animals that live in this habitat. It's their home!  If you bring it in please take it out!  Please pack out your garbage!
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Welcome to arguably the most popular pool on the river “Silvers Pool”!  Formally called Forks Pool. The following is by Kenny Silver who himself has spent a great deal of time as a child and an adult in and around this particular pool.  Thank you Kenny for the history lesson!

Silver's Pool History
The St. Mary's River was used prior to European contact by the Miq'maq First Nation as a source of sustenance and inland travel, taking advantage of its length to reach many inland areas. It is quite likely that First Nation people used this pool as a source of food as my grandparents found a few artefacts, etc while gardening on the East Branch above the Bridge.

There is a long history of log drives on the river delivering logs from the headwaters to the estuary for shipment throughout the world. The river was also used to power sawmills and as a transportation route for people, as well as providing an abundant source of food in the form of fish. My grandparents spoke about local residents regularly netting the pool when peak salmon runs were present. They said that it was customary for people to gather on a certain night of the week (I think Wednesday night) and the horse and wagons would be lined up on the road as each person waited for their turn in much the same way as anglers years later did before the salmon season was closed.

​My grandparents first came to the area from Halifax in the early 1900s and stayed at the Crows Nest House. In 1918 they built a cottage overlooking Silvers Pool. This cottage burned in 1927 and the present day cottage was built the following year. Salmon numbers began to decline in the 1950s and by the late 1970s the top rod on the river would catch would only catch a few each summer. After the close of the commercial fishery, salmon numbers again increased and in the 1980s and early 1990s it was a popular angling destination. However, since then numbers have steadily declined and now there are only a fraction of what there were even twenty years ago.

​Kenny Silver

A St. Mary’s adventure
By Bill Carpan
One early morning in July many years ago I headed for the Wire Pool just below Silver’s Pool on Nova Scotia’s St. Mary’s River. It was to be a bright, sunny day and the water had cleared following a big rain 2 days earlier. My spirits were as high and mighty as the St. Mary’s was that day, and my optimism turned out to be well-founded.
 
Despite expecting a take on each and every cast, it didn’t happen, even though I had the odd rise to my wet fly as I moved down the west side of the pool. As fishless anglers always do, I found an excuse. “The salmon are moving up in this high water”, I reasoned, knowing that moving fish may rise once to a fly before continuing upstream.
 
Eventually I reached the deep hole at the end of the Wire Pool. Just below is a slick run that leads to the Meadow Pool. I always fished the Meadow Pool from the east side, a large island’s gravel shore, although it was mostly fished by others from the west side.
 
I continued my journey to the Meadow Pool’s island by crossing the slick run at its widest and shallowest point. The maximum depth was a bit less than 3 ft. but around the middle of the pool I stepped into a depression of 1 ft. or so in the gravel that surprised me. It was an empty lamprey eel redd where a single grilse was resting and my intrusion caused him to jump out of the water a few feet from me. Knowing I had chased him out of his hole I continued across to the island and fished the Meadow Pool without success.
 
Once I recall fishing alone from the island when anglers on the other side got my attention by yelling and pointing downstream. The largest bear I’ve ever seen was slowly crossing over to my side near the downstream end of the island, maybe 200 yards from me. Having caught and kept a grilse earlier, I worried that the fish scent might attract the big bruin, but it disappeared behind the island’s high grass not to be seen again. What a thrill!
 
It was now late morning, getting warm and I was getting hungry, so I headed back upstream for brunch. I wondered whether the grilse had reclaimed his resting spot, and so I waded across the slick well below the lamprey redd. I then walked along the shore to a point just above the hole and started fishing. Upon reaching the spot I was rewarded by a solid take and a long downstream run with a jump at the end that threw the hook.
 
Then I knew the answer. The grilse had settled back into his spot, and he had furthermore calmed down enough to take my fly after being so rudely disturbed.
 
I smiled as I thought of the incident over brunch and into my afternoon nap. It was a fishless but glorious morning on the St. Mary’s, where adventure generally awaits the angler looking for it.

Silver's Bridge - Photograph by Deirdre Green

Flood of August 17, 1971 - Photographs by Bill Whiteway

Paddling around Silver's Ledge - Photograph by Scott Beaver

​Left - A young Dr. Gordon L. Silver admires a 32 lb St. Mary's salmon caught by his father, Dr. Gordon M. Silver.

The Best Salmon Fisher
By Bill Carpan
This St. Mary’s River adventure takes me back to the early 1980s. On a lovely July morning I joined some anglers taking turns fishing the West Branch run just above Silver’s Pool. Fish were present but not taking readily. I did luckily manage to catch a grilse and then moved on to try the beautiful Wire Pool just below Silver’s, which I’d noticed that hadn’t been heavily fished that morning.
 
The Wire Pool is a long, wide stretch of water with a big rock ledge and the local kids swimmin’ hole at the end. Salmon lay mostly around grassy underwater sods in the pool and I fished them carefully with my dry fly.
 
As I fished, my thoughts went back to an earlier summer when a pair of bald eagles nested in the tallest tree overlooking the pool. We watched them feeding and caring for their young all summer until the young appeared to be full grown and fledged. We even witnessed the maiden flight of one of young eagles. He glided across the pool but crash landed into some alders, all part of growing up, I guess. Such memories are still vivid in my mind as I write this some forty years later.
 
I’d reached the end of the pool and apart from a few weak and questionable rises my dry fly produced nothing, so I crossed the river below the swimmin’ hole to try the meadow pool, another favourite of mine. I caught a second grilse and headed back upriver for lunch and an afternoon nap.
 
Approaching Silver’s Pool the sun was high and an osprey, Nova Scotia’s provincial bird, was circling above the run from where my first fish had come. I decided to stop and watch, as did Gary Anderson and Ann Brimer who had spent the morning fishing Harrison’s Pool. Both Gary and Ann had recently published authoritative books about Atlantic salmon & fishing, and they too chose to stop for the spectacle we were about to witness.
 
Now ospreys are fish eaters, but seldom would they dare attempt to take a salmon because of its size and strength. An osprey would be risking his life by sinking his talons into a fish that could head for deeper water and drown him. With no scarcity of food in July, maybe it was the challenge and sport of catching an Atlantic salmon that motivated him. I knew that feeling very well, so we may have shared more than a taste for salmon.
 
Suddenly the osprey made his move with a dive and a big splash. He slowly struggled to the surface gripping a lively and thrashing grilse that seemed as heavy as himself. With great difficulty the pair became semi-airborne over Silver’s Pool and somehow managed to reach the grassy island below, grilse still thrashing and flipping in the grass.
 
As the osprey dined, Gary, Ann and I expressed amazement at the achievement. We agreed that for bravery, skill, determination and sheer energy, we had just seen the best salmon fisher in action.
 
We also felt very fortunate to share another great fishing adventure on Nova Scotia’s beautiful St. Mary’s River.

Mac, the old snapping turtle & guardian of Silver's Pool - Photograph by Gilbert van Ryckevorsel