The Last Couple Days

      Hey guys, I've been home for the past week since I forgot to bring some things to my apartment (OK....pile it on) so I decided to get a little fishing done before heading back. This is somewhat of a large report since I wanted to get a good amount of fishing done before my work begins in earnest starting tomorrow. This doesn't mean that I'll stop fishing for the rest of the summer, it just means that there will be less reports in the foreseeable future. Thank you to all my blog readers for making this journey easy, I have been keeping tabs of all the page views and comments and I've also personally received very kind words. I hope you guys enjoy this report and I'll try to keep you updated once a week or so going forward.

Day 1:
      I made it over to my favorite local native stream in northern Mass. I decided that a smaller mountain stream such as this would fish better on such a warm day and I was somewhat correct. The water was lower than it had been the last couple of times I fished it and was starting to get warm (did not have a thermometer). I started off fishing a small stretch of pocket water without any hits. I moved up to a small pool where I managed a nice native.

      I took a quick photo and let it go. The rest of the day was much the same: find the pools, find the fish. While the fish were scattered throughout the riffles and pocket water last time out, this time they congregated in pools. Due to the warmer temperatures, I decided not to take too many photos as to not stress out the fish. I even managed a nice photo worthy native brookie (10-12 in.) but didn't take one since neither the fish nor my phone were cooperating and I didn't want to stress it much further. The final count for the day was 5 of 7 brookies, 12 or so fallfish, and 1 pumpkinseed sunfish. All fish were caught on either soft hackle hare's ear or pheasant tail nymphs.
      Wanting to catch a couple fish on dries, I went to a local designated wild trout stream near my house. These bodies of water are identified by New Hampshire Fish and Game as having strong native brook trout populations and are protected by a shortened season (Jan. 1st to Labor Day) and limited to artificial lures or flies. Since I didn't have too much time, I decided to fish a large pool under a bridge. Unfortunately, I only hooked into one fish and didn't get anything else. I was feeling a little discouraged since brookies are often very aggressive but chalked their finicky nature to their accessibility to most anglers (hello? main road). In fact, I fished this stream during my first year fly fishing and for the longest time, I actually thought that brookies were the hardest trout to catch (funny how time can change things).

Day 2:
      Feeling restless from the previous evening, I decided to try the wild trout stream again. I reasoned that this time, I would have better luck fishing more out of the way spots. My first spot was a nice meadow stretch characterized by small oxbows and deep holes. I made my first cast upstream and immediately got into a nice native! I fished for a few more minutes, working my way upstream until I got to a nice bend. Due to the tall reeds on the shoreline, I wasn't able to work all of it casting from downstream so I snuck upstream and dead drifted my offering downstream when another one nailed it!

      Sorry about the reed on its face, I decided to take the photo as is and get the fish back into the water as quickly as I could. I fished upstream to another nice pool but this is where things got a little frustrating. Every single cast, I kept getting hit (even had two jump out of the water at the same time) but they kept missing the hook. On the umpteenth cast, I hooked one but it got off soon after. This was apparently enough to spook the entire pool so I moved downstream working areas as I went. Unfortunately, this place was thick with mosquitoes so I didn't stop or fish a lot of great looking water as well as I would have liked to. This nice bend pool produced a decent brookie skittering a dry back. The beauty of these backcountry streams is that they have so much overhanging cover and obstruction that it makes presenting a fly difficult. This makes catching fish all the more satisfying.

      I continued to fish downstream and managed to get one more fish, lose a couple more, and miss a number of strikes including one really nice one. I didn't hang out nearly as long and wasn't as meticulous with my presentations as I'd hoped since I was driven half insane by the amount of mosquitoes that had shadowed me all day. By the time I got home, my forearms were bumpy and red but that is all in the fun (although it would be more fun without those damn things).

Day 3:
      I decided to head to the warm water pond across the street from my house for a quick evening trip since I didn't want to get ravaged by mosquitoes again. I caught at least a couple dozen bluegills and one bass all on dries. I found a good number on nests but only caught and released a couple since they hit on every cast. By the end of the day, my fly was destroyed but it was a fun evening.

This photo isn't great because of the glare but you can make out the nests easily.

Memorial Day Weekend (Part I)

      I went out for a few hours this morning to a local native stream. The flows were down from Friday but were still on the higher side. I stuck to high stick nymphing for the most part today since the currents created too much surface drag for surface indicators. It worked perfectly as I caught over 10 brookies, 2 dace, and 1 creek chub and I was able to feel the strikes directly. This was also the first trip this year where I have surpassed double digits for trout so it was a long time coming. I fished a hare's ear nymph and a soft hackle hare's ear variant in tandem. Most fish took the soft hackle but some took the hare's ear nymph.

      This was one of the 2 dace I caught. Not the desired species but still looked beautiful with its orange fins!

Scouting Trip

      Yesterday, I went out on a scouting trip to the South Branch of the Ashuelot River. This river features an extensive fly fishing only area in one of the most scenic areas in southern New Hampshire, which is fairly rare in this part of the state. The first spot I fished was in Swanzey near a set of power lines. It has great looking runs and deep holes and clear water but unfortunately I didn't see very many fish and didn't get any hits. The only fish I saw were tiny dace fry and one brown under a bridge that slunk away into the depths as soon as it noticed it was being watched.
      Overall, the spot was a disappointment so I drove upstream to Route 12 in Troy. The water here was promising, lots of plunges, pocket water, and small pools. It looked like a typical mountain stream but it seemed to be virtually devoid of fish as I worked every single seam without as much as a nibble. As I walked upstream, I ran into another fisherman with his girlfriend who said that he caught a nice brookie up near a bridge. I worked my way up there but didn't get anything there, I figured that they may have not stocked it yet or not stocked it very heavily. At this point, my confidence was pretty drained so I decided to hit my back up spot on the way back home.
      This is where I should have spent the day! I caught 3 native brookies and one creek chub in just 30 mins before I had to head off to other commitments. This is the result of fishing home waters, you know where the fish are and you know where to go. Scouting trips help add to that list of "home waters" and in some cases they work and in others, they don't.

      It might appear unusual that I'm calling these fish native since they are the same size (as is indicative of stocked fish), but I have a few ideas for my thinking:

1. These fish have par markings. Stocked fish tend to loose these pretty early. I've caught 4 in. stockies in the Souhegan River without any hint of par markings. For the most part, these seem to be a wild fish thing. 
2. They have a glossy coating. This is a strange argument but I've noticed that wild fish tend to have a a very clean and reflective coating. That and they don't have the earthy smell to them that some of the hatchery stock do. 
3. They had perfectly formed fins (well...mostly). Many of the hatchery fish (particularly in New Hampshire) appear to have very beat up fins (particularly the tail, anal, pelvic, and pectoral fins). The second fish I took a photo of had a missing left pectoral fin! Normally, I would write this off as a stocked fish but I caught a 3-4 in. fish last time out with a missing right pectoral fin. The loss of a fin may be due to redd digging during the spawning period. Forward to 1:30: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xH4XPFP1tWo 
4. I've caught fish from 2-12 in. here. So why not?

      I've heard the SB Ashuelot River is a good fishery and that it supports native brookies and wild browns in addition to stocked fish. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find out for myself but it may have  just been an off day for me and I don't want to take anything away from this river without learning it more. Has anyone else fished here and would like to give me pointers? Thanks in advance.

Heading for the Hills (Almost)

      When its hot out, you have limited options to fly fish in moving water. One is to fish a tailwater with stable temperatures due to bottom release, fish early/late, or head for the hills (literally). This time around, I decided to hit a tributary of the Squannacook known for its native brook trout population. While I won't divulge the name of this brook in this post, I will say that it does get stocked annually in the spring by the DFW and it looks remarkably similar to a north country stream due to the high gradient and ample pocket water. I wasn't expecting a whole lot due to the devastating drought of last summer that dried out some streams down to the river bed but I was pleasantly surprised by what I found. First pool produced nothing so my expectations were really low but next pool produced 2 small natives, which really got my excitement up.

      Unfortunately, as excited as I was to get onto beautiful wild fish, the bugs (mosquitos and black flies) were horrendous so I skipped a lot of water in the interest of not getting eaten alive. At one point, I actually had a cloud of biting nastiness following me around. I spotted some major pools and pockets and some of them produced a couple fish or at least some bites. I even caught this bruiser of a native in one of the large pools:

Releasing it back to the depths!

       Not all bugs were bad after all, evidenced by this beautiful (Hexagenia?) mayfly adult that briefly landed on the vest to dry its wings out. 

     At first I thought it was stocked but after further examination of its colors and the perfect shape of its fins, I decided that it was indeed a native and a large one at that! It is absolutely amazing to see how resilient these guys are, especially considering how low and slow the water got this past summer. I hooked into a couple more decent fish in this pool that popped off fairly quickly unfortunately before I moved upstream. The further I moved upstream, the worse the mosquitoes got, to the extent that I couldn't stand next to the stream without getting swarmed. I skipped a very nice stretch of pocket water where I did reasonable well last year and went back to the road to avoid the bugs. Eventually, I spotted a nice series of pools up near the bridge that I decided to try for a few minutes before leaving. I found one nice pocket where I lost one and landed another. I tried the pool above it for a few minutes before calling it a day, having other commitments to fulfill. Around this time last year, the flow in the pool was much lower, to the extent that I could sight nymph for several brookies, chubs, and dace. The bugs were also almost non existent last year but I guess that is the trade-off for healthier stream conditions. Hopefully it should get better as the season goes on. 

      With the higher water conditions, it seems like larger nymphs or flashy attractors (such as the SJW's pictured here) have been working better. My hare's ear got no love today but I don't think the fish were selective, they just saw the SJW better.

Update: My first 2 trout of the day were caught tightline nymphing. While it wasn't an ideal set up considering leader length and lack of a sighter, I was able to feel the strikes at the end of the line. It is a fun technique and works very well on wild fish.

First Trip to the Q

      I went out to the Quinapoxet for the first time yesterday. I had heard very good things about it so I decided to try there since some of the larger rivers were still blown out. The first spot I tried looked really nice with ample pocket water and very "trout" pools and runs. Unfortunately, fishing was a little on the slow side as I was only able to find fish in one pool. I landed two rainbows and missed a few more, including a huge fish that broke me off, but that was it for action. One of the bows was a 10 in stockie but the other was substantially larger. It didn't put up much of a fight and came to hand fairly quickly. But man was it beautiful! It was completely covered in spots but I wasn't able to get a great photo since I dropped my phone in the water trying to land the fish. My phone is waterproof so it was okay but wet lenses and good photos don't often go hand in hand. I let it go but it swam away slowly; either it had been hooked a fair number of times or it was just too warm out. In general, I was surprised at the lack of fish in the river since I didn't catch any creek chubs or shiners to pass the time.

      I decided to try another popular stocking point to try and catch some of the brookies and browns they stocked a couple days ago. Unfortunately, this spot didn't produce at all and I got more bug bites than fish (mosquitos and black flies were horrible last evening). I talked to a spin fisherman on the way out who reported no success so I knew it wasn't just me. Disappointed, I left to make it home for dinner. I checked the USGS website when I went home and saw that the water temperature in the Q went up to 70 ˚F. While this is certainly tolerable for bows and browns, it is on the upper end for brookies and might have explained why the fish were so sluggish and unwilling to bite. Overall, my first impression of the Quinapoxet was mixed. While it has potential due to the amount of awesome looking holding water, it seems like it will be better in April or in the Fall since it seems shallow and small enough to warm significantly in the summer. It certainly wasn't as good as I thought it would be but this trip might have been an exception rather than the rule. Maybe I'll have to try again early in the morning? If anyone has fished this spot and would like to give me pointers, I'd appreciate it. Thanks.

Note: I just wanted to clarify from my last post that I don't want to ban bait in my highlighted rivers. I just want stricter regulations and smaller bag limits. I've heard stories of poaching where people leave with garbage bags full of trout and I consider that wrong. I feel that lowering bag limits in large rivers is a step in the right direction to eliminate poaching. 

Time for Change

"When trout are stocked anywhere, they practically stay in the shape of the bucket until they are all fished out."

      This was one of my friend's observations while we were reminiscing about trout fishing. This is unfortunately the case with fish stocking the way NH Fish and Game does it. More and more, stocking seems to pander to bait boys who are just there to "limit out." Most of the stocking involves dumping fish in at major crossings and leaving them to the parade that follows the trucks. This is fine in many of the smaller rivers where survival is minuscule to nonexistent anyways (leave these places to the bait boys!) but is pointless in larger freestones or tailwaters where there is a LOT of good water that trout can inhabit. I think stocking of these rivers should be conducted by bucket brigades or float stockings. If volunteers are needed for these stockings, ASK for help, I know many willing fly anglers (including myself) who would be willing to help out. In lieu of the state's efforts, some private groups such as the Pittsburg Anglers Association and Three Rivers (which I know uses state fish) work hard to improve opportunities for fly anglers. I also feel that the rivers listed below should be subjected to a 2-3 fish daily limit (rather than the traditional 5) to preserve quality fisheries. The 2-3 fish limit should be implemented in areas that don't fall under strict catch and release or other regulations. They are as follows:

Lamprey River

Cocheco River

Isinglass rIver

Souhegan River

Piscataquog River (and all branches)

Contoocook River

Ashuelot River (and all branches)

Cold River

Sugar River (and all branches)

Mascoma River

Merrimack River

Pemigewasset River (and all branches)

Winnipesaukee River

Newfound River

Smith River

Baker River

Swift River 

Saco River 

Ellis River

Androscoggin River

Diamond River (and all branches)

Ammonoosuc River (all all branches)

Gale River

Upper Ammonoonus River 

Perry Stream

Connecticut River

      New Hampshire has many amazing fisheries and a lot of potential. I know Fish and Game stocks to appeal to the people that buy licenses but they should realize that FLY ANGLERS also purchase licenses. If the reputation of the state's fisheries go up due to stricter regulations and management, then out of state license purchases will go up which will help funding, you see where I'm going with this, right?   

      On another note, I've recently learned that the DFW has stocked the Nissi and Squannie without notifying Evening Sun Fly Shop. For those who don't know, Charles Shadan of Evening Sun Fly Shop organizes volunteer groups to assist the DFW in the stocking of these two rivers. This helps foster an intimate connection between the angler, the fish, and the stream since these fish are spread out in all the amazing holding spots and anglers can see the fish that they may soon land. I was very disappointed to learn that volunteer stockings wouldn't take place this year since I was hoping to finally participate. Talk to the DFW and voice your complaints. Any thoughts on this matter are appreciated since this is a very controversial post. Thanks for the read. 

The Start of Summer

      It sure feels like it with all the warm weather! I got out for a few minutes on Tuesday with Pete before he had to move out. We stopped at the Old Durham Reservoir since we had less than an hour to fish. Unfortunately, the fish did not cooperate at all. I just managed one bite in the time we spent there and we didn't spot any in the shallows like we usually do. We were about to switch spots but Pete got a call and we had to head back to the dorm to move out.
      After helping him move out, I had about an hour before my next commitment so I went out to the trout stream we originally planned to hit. Within my first 5 casts, I managed a small brookie, which got me excited. Next cast, a creek chub, not what I'm looking for but not terrible either. The rest of the day was a complete blank which was very puzzling. Upstream, I ran into a father and daughter duo who said they got a few bites and hooked a few fish under a bridge. They also said that there was a derby this past weekend, which may or may not explain why the place was cleaned out? After talking to them for a few more minutes, I found out that the daughter was also a college student (at a different school) who had just finished finals that day! Of course, we spent the next few minutes chatting about how "terrible" finals week is before heading off our separate ways.

      After moving out yesterday, I hit the Nissitissit River in Mass. since I heard that they had recently put some browns in there and I had yet to catch one this spring. I also hoped to try for a trifecta since all 3 species had been put in recently and I have yet to catch all 3 species in a single day of fishing. Well 2/3 isn't bad at all. I got into 3 browns, 1 bow, and 2 chubs, going 4/5 in the trout department. All fish except for one chub came on a large cased caddis soft hackle dead drifted under an indicator. Unfortunately, it was more a day of fish stories rather than proof since these fish were less than cooperative for the camera. Still at large: 16 in. bow that "stole" a soft hackle as I tried to land it. I did snap a decent photo that really shows unusual brookie-like striations on the back of one of the browns. Apparently, this has been pretty common in Massachusetts brown trout this year since I've heard reports of brookie-like brown trout from the Cape ponds (not tiger trout, my buddy verified with the DFW).

On another note, I met a fly fisherman on the way out who reported catching one nice bow nymphing. It was nice to meet you Carl! The DFW has really put in some great fish this year and they have spread out very well and are absolute fighters! Get out there before the bait boys and herons do! 

Low and Slow at the Squannacook

A fellow angler kindly offered to take this photo. Thank you Jack!

       I hit the Squannacook River for a couple hours earlier this evening. Flows are up slightly and the water is cold. Bugs were popping everywhere when I got there despite the overcast skies but there was no surface action. I started off the day nymphing every likely looking area. I really had to work to get the fish to commit but as soon as I figured out the pattern, the fish were really committing. The major producer earlier was a #16 olive partridge soft hackle and a #18 tungsten midge. Later on as I lost a couple of set ups to break offs and trees, I switched over to using a #8 olive wooly bugger. All strikes occurred at the end of the swing after a jigging motion was added. Afterwards, I briefly returned to nymphing and caught and released one final fish before calling it a day. All fish caught today were brookies from 9-12 in. Approximately 2000 such brook trout from 9-13 in. were added to the Squannacook yesterday as well as Thursday. For more information on where to fish that river and what flies to use, visit Evening Sun Fly Shop and talk to Charlie!

First Solo Trip out to the Swift

        I fished the Swift for the first time on my own Friday morning. I had previously fished it over Thanksgiving Break with Ken Elmer, a guide who often fishes the EB, Millers, and Swift, in order to learn it better. Back when we fished it, the brookies were staged up in skinny water on spawning beds. This time, the fish were more spread out. The brookies were done spawning and most of them  had made their way downstream to the deeper water below Cady Lane. Seeing that it was winter and no fish were surfacing, I turned to my most reliable winter fishing technique: nymphing. I fished a #14 cream scud trailed with a #20 glass midge. I fished from the pipe to the gauge pool and Bondsville in the time that I had and only landed one bow (not pictured) at the pipe on the scud. Most of the rest of the time, I was trying to figure out how not to get the nymphs caught in the weeds while staying close to the bottom. To make matters worse, I had to deal with various equipment failures and human error including losing my case of tungsten putty between the pipe and the gauge pool, torn waders (which cut my day short), and frozen reel and guide earlier on. Overall, I struggled hard on a  tough river and it affected my confidence. Hopefully before my next trip out there, I can adjust my set up and learn more about that river. Any tips would be appreciated. Thanks for the read.

If you want to book a trip with Ken, you can check him out here: http://millersriverflyfishingforum.blogspot. He knows a great deal about the Swift and can give you the right flies to succeed on this river. I found out my first time that the flies you use here greatly influence your success and once you properly present them, you will be shocked how well they work.