Early Everything

Whether you call it climate change, global warming, a natural cycle, a hot spell, a heat wave, or whatever, it is clear that the weather for almost a year has been turned on its head. The warm, dry winter continued the cycle into spring.  Our trip to the Androscoggin River the last two weeks of June had it all.  When we got there on  June 15 the Alder Fly hatch was in full bloom.  Water levels were good for both drifting and wading and the fish were on to the flies.  Not as good as last year, but still very good.  (A bad day of fishing during the Alder Fly hatch is better than a good day of fishing just about any time or place the rest of the year.) This trip we had clients from Quebec, Minnesota, NY State, along with the some regulars and new clients from New England. It was fun teaching clients to fly fish, how to skate a caddis and then how to fight and land a fish.
It was great having my friend Mike, who lives near Minneapolis, and his son Paul come fish with us for three days.  Here is a video of some of the highlights of their trip.
Then the heat-wave hit - upper 80s for a couple days and the river and the local ponds were cooked.  I made the mistake of doing a little rain-dance to cool things down and the rains came, the river level went up beyond safe wading, and we were scrambling to get our clients into fish.  We spent a few days fishing the Connecticut River, both the area from Colebrook to Columbia and the area in Pittsburg.  I ran into some guys from the Evening Sun Fly Shop in Pepperell - Hi Dean, Chris and David! We also spent a couple days fishing some of the headwater wild brook trout streams.
Matt and Andy, friends, regular clients and followers of this blog hit the tail-end of the Alder flies and the beginning of the heat wave. Here is a video of their trip.
The last week of the trip the conditions gradually improved, the water level and the temperature in the Androscoggin dropped and the Alder flies were still out.  More dry fly action with skating caddis and Stimulators right up to the end of the trip.   Here is a video of Greg landing a nice rainbow on a caddis larva.
Since getting back from Errol, I've been to the Sugar River in Newport.  Water is low and starting to warm up.  Still some fish on dries.  Then I took a couple of beginner Brits to the Swift River in central MASS.  We caught fish on sulphurs in mid-morning and on a variety of small nymphs in the afternoon. I'll probably make a couple more trips there in the next couple weeks.

Time flies when you're having fun (on the water!)

Wow, May has been like a blur.  Ideal weather and water conditions gave way to rain and high flows and then back to ideal. Between the Northeast Fly Fishing School, guided trips, "scouting" trips and volunteer days, I have been on the water 18 days during the last three weeks.
Early in May we had a Beginner and Intermediate class.  We held the on-stream nymph/streamer/dry lesson on the Squannacook, Nissitissit and Souhegan Rivers.  All the rivers fished pretty good with many students fooling one or more trout.

Then in mid-May I had a father and two grown sons travel from PA to fish with me.  Of course this was in the middle of the rainy/high water spell.  In previous years the Hendrickson hatch was in full glory on the Contoocook River, so I had them stay in Henniker.  THIS year the river was too high to fish the entire four days they were here.  The first afternoon we fished the Squannacook River in the Bertozzi WMA. They landed some trout and had a good start to the trip.

Then we fished the Sugar River FFO area on a drizzly Tuesday.  They each caught fish in tough conditions.

The Sugar fishes pretty good at 800CFS and below.  I checked my RIVERFLOWS app on the Android when I picked them up at the Henniker House where they were staying.  The river seemed higher than that, but who am I to argue with the USGS gages.  On the ride home I checked the graphs again - 930CFS!  They must have started releasing water from Lake Sunapee as we traveled to the river.  Bummer!  At least they were able to catch a few fish and see a beautiful (high) river.  Then Wednesday we headed to the DHZ on the Piscataquog River.  Bingo! The river was full of fish.  They landed many fish, mostly on woolly-buggers, but some on soft-hackle droppers off the bend of the streamers.   They had so much fun, they opted to return on Thursday morning before they drove back to PA.

The next day I took my friend/client George to the Sugar River.  The level had dropped, but was still a little high.  George had three or four nice fish on, but we couldn't get them to the net.  Then later in the afternoon we found a pod of browns that were willing to whack a dry fly. I must have netted 8 or 10 before we reeled-up and headed down the trail to the car.

Then this past weekend we held another Beginner Class.  This was our first class that we had the classroom portion at Morse Sporting Goods and the on-stream portion on the Contoocook River.  Fortunately, the river flow was right, the weather was excellent and the class learned a lot, had fun, and caught a few fish. I think the high water moved the fish around a lot, which should bode well for helping to hold them over and stay away from the hook-n-cook crowd. If we get a little rain every few days, we should enjoy good conditions right into July.
Too optimistic?
I hope not!
See you on the water.
PS Still a couple openings in our June 9-10 class in Henniker and on the Andro trip.

Whatta November!

Since I got back from the New York trip, I have been out fishing almost every day.  This amazing weather has extended the local fishing season beyond belief.  Most days I go to the Nissitissit River in Pepperell, which is only about four miles from my house.  Today I only got one fish, a surprising 13" brown without a mark on him.  It was surprising, because browns have not been stocked there since early June. This one took a bite of my rootbeer BH woolly bugger.  I lost about 8 or 10 flies, because the water level is now fairly low and there are lots of limbs and branches in the water from the storms of a couple months ago. The last few times I fished there I got at least 5 or 6 fish - all rainbows, mostly on some variety of egg pattern or a small softhackle.
Yesterday Jim and Dick and I fished the Sugar River in Newport, NH for a couple hours.  Nothing.  The water is still pretty high there - probably from snow-melt.  There is still 8 or 10 inches of snow on the ground there.  They were in the heavy snow belt from the storm last week and the warmer weather is melting the snow.  The water temp on the Nissitissit River was about 44 today and 40 to 42 most of the last couple weeks.  Pretty cold, but trout will still feed if you bounce something right on their nose. 
Another presentation is coming up Thursday evening at the United Fly Tyers meeting in Woburn, MA.  The topic this time is Fly Fishing NH.  Say hi if you make it to the meeting.

The proverbial calm after the storm

Irene came and went. Luckily for NH she stayed to the west over VT.  Even so, there was unbelievable flooding of the Pemigewasset, Ellis and Saco Rivers.  You can check out some of these YouTube videos to see what happened:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU1I6A1zkM0&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ap3VqsC2HPM&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLNTJ7J3KF8&feature=related

Yesterday I made the rounds of some spots on the Pemigewasset River in Franklin, Bristol and North Woodstock.  It is still real high, but the further upriver you go, the better current conditions.  I am certain the Pemi in North Woodstock is fishable today (don't expect to find a lot of fish though!)  I imagine I'll have to learn the new contours of the riverbed, too.  At least the ponds were not affected.  There were fish rising on Sky Pond, Profile and Echo lakes.
As the nights get short and cooler, the fishing in some of the rivers should pick up. In particular the upper and lower Androscoggin, CT river from Pittsburg down through North Stratford and the Contoocook and Sugar Rivers.  Hopefull NH Fish and Game still has a few fish they can put out to sweeten the fall fishing.

Androscoggin Trip Openings and many river reports

Before getting into the fishing report, I wanted to let you know that we still have some openings for our Androscoggin Special Package Trips starting next Thursday and going through July 1.  We are now accepting one-day, as well as two-day trips, and we also have some openings for singles, offering the maximum in flexibility. Details including videos and pictures of past trips are found here. River flow levels are great and the Alder Fly hatch should be epic this year!

Since my last post I have been all over the southern and central part of NH and parts of MA, as well.  They say that the definition of insanity is repeating the same action over and over and expecting different results.  Well, the Sugar River is driving me insane.  I went there again last week with the same results.  This time I only wasted an hour there before pulling out. "They MUST have stocked it by now," goes through my mind, but then I get proven wrong each time.  Well, I can report that the Mascoma River FFO section held some fish - browns, rainbows and wild brookies - all of which were caught on a Stimulator skated through all the likely looking runs, pools and pocket water. From the Mascoma, I went across route 4 and then 104 to Bristol to fish the Newfound River.  This entire trip was a "scouting expedition" to prep for a couple client trips.  The Newfound was hard fishing, but I got 3 landlocked salmon, a rainbow and a brookie in the white water run immediately below the dam.  (I don't consider this spot-burning, since I fished it hard for two hours and that is all I could dredge-up.) I got nothing in the dam pool or any other spot in the upper river on this trip.  When I took the clients out, we also got fish in the runs and pocket water down-river from the upper section.  Those fish were caught on green caddis larva under an indicator, woolly bugger, woodduck-orange, and elkhair caddis skated through the plunge-pools in the pocket water.  It was tough fishing, but the fish are there if you can get a fly in front of their nose.  We also hit the Contoocook River for a couple hours and were able to fool, but not hook a number of rising trout.  Then last night I went over the the Bertozzi WMA on the Nissitissit River and got a nice rainbow on a dry.  Also tough fishing, since when the water is low they have a lot of time to inspect your fly before biting. I'll be guiding the next couple days in the White Mountains.

Sorry for the gap!

Gang, the good weather has turned on the early hatches and it seems like everybody has been anxious to get out on the water. Since my last posting in April I have taken more than 30 people out on the streams of northeast MA and southern NH to practice the art of the limber rod. If I count the 44 people we gave a casting lesson to on May 1 at the culmination of TU Learn to FF classes, the tally jumps to almost 80. And this week I start to get busy! So what has been happening?
The bad news first: I went to the Sugar River once on a scouting trip and once (foolishly for about an hour) with a client and did not see evidence of any fish. Beautiful water level, terrific hatch activity and not a fish to be seen. What the hell is NH Fish and Game thinking? They have a beautiful 2.5 mile FFO section in Newport and they don't stock it once as of late May?
Now you might realize why I took so many people to the Squannacook and Nissitissit Rivers in MA. There have been two stockings of really nice trout in those rivers, while the Sugar is a river waiting for occupants. There is decent insect activity and the FFO section of the Nissitissit should hold fish well into June if we get a little rain in the next week or so. There were Quill Gordons a couple weeks ago and now we have Hendricksons and caddis. Bring your rusty spinners for evening and early morning dry fly fishing. But the meat anglers are out in force, so you better hit the Squannacook while there are still some trout to be had. Over half of the people I had out were via the Northeast Fly Fishing School that we operate in Pepperell, and those anglers had a blast learning to fly fish, identifying the bugs and hooking some fish in the process. Here are links to some of their exploits for May 8-9 and May 15-16.
I have also fished/guided on the Souhegan River and the Piscataquog River in the last couple weeks. We caught fish all over both rivers, except the Delayed Harvest Zone of the Piscataquog River in New Boston.  H-m-m-m-m, is there some kind of pattern here?  You have two of the best stretches of river with special regulations in southern New Hampshire and neither the FFO section of the Sugar nor the Delayed Harvest Zone of the Piscataquog have been stocked and it is beyond the middle of May.  No floods or other lame excuses can be blamed.  If this was the first year it happened, you could call it a fluke, but this is a pattern that has repeated itself for the last few years. No, this doesn't appear to be mere incompetence, as you might suspect.  Could there be some motive behind it?  What do you think it could be?  "Stick it to the elitists?" "Save the hatchery fish for the hook-and-cook crowd?"   If any of you happen to talk to those that call the shots in NH F&G in Concord, NH, ask them what the devil is going on.   Tell them that the sound they hear is the cha-ching of people buying a fishing license in MA to be able to fish for decent fish while the water is still cool and insects are still hatching.
The rest of this week I'll be guiding on local waters and then take a quick trip to the Farmington River.  I have been itching to get down there all spring, but other priorities have prevailed until now.

Let me know how you have been doing.  Matt gave me a call from Upstate NY with tales of great fishing on the W. Br. of the Delaware, some spring creeks and the Salmon River for resident trout, as well as some spring steelhead.  Feel free to email, call, or use the Comments feature of this blog.  Tight lines!

Building up to the big trip(s)

Last Thursday and Friday I had some beginners wanting to catch the fly fishing bug. Both days we hit the Ellis and Saco. Both rivers have been pounded pretty good lately, so it has been harder and harder to come up with some fish. It took some pocket water for one group and a big pool for the others to score some brook trout. Each got their fish on dries after missing a few hits.
That is something hard to teach - how hard/fast to set the hook on a strike. Some people come by it naturally and others really have to work at it.
On Sunday Jim, Barb, Dick and I checked out the Sugar River. We have been fishing up north a lot and wanted to see how the Sugar had fared over the summer. There are still some nice fish there. The water is just starting to cool to a good level - about 63F mid-morning. The flow is perfect and should get even better over the next couple weeks as the water cools to the 55F range.
The second half of September I have two major trips. Tomorrow I point the car north towards Moosehead Lake, Rockwood, Maine. The 20th anniversary trip of the Bull Salmon Club will be held at Maynard's of Maine (Ain't nuthin' changed 'cept the linens in 90 years!)
Then next week my partner Jim and I host clients at our "virtual fishing lodge" on the banks of the Androscoggin River. This is my second most-favorite time of the year to fish - foliage is fantastic, fish are hungry and the rivers are less crowded. We have relaxed the double occupancy/multiple day requirement, so it is even a better deal than usual. There are even some prime weekend days still available. See details.
My next report won't be until after I get back from Maine. CYA then.

The rains left and the fish remain

The rivers are in great shape! They have settled down to near-normal flows and haven't warmed up yet. Although we are getting a spell of hot weather, hopefully the cool nights will help keep the water at a good temperature. Last Thursday the Sugar River was running about 500CFS, which was a little high, but very wadable. The water temp was 68F and my clients picked up a couple fish - a brown and a rainbow - on a half-day trip. They went back to California with a very good impression of NH fly fishing opportunities. Often we take for granted the resources available to us. It is good to get a reality check now and then to help us remember how lucky we are.
Friday was the day to work on a TU project. I donned swiming mask to place some temperature data loggers in the Piscataquog River in New Boston, NH. Just about every place a device we saw some trout. That was really surprising and encouraging, since that river really warms up most years. Well, we will see exactly how warm and cold it gets, so we can ploan some restoration projects to improve the trout habitat. It's great to have streams nearby, like the Piscataquog and Souhegan, where we'll be placing some temperature data loggers next week.
On Saturday my partner Jim and I took a pair of father-sons from Peru to learn how to fly fish in the Pemigewasset River near Lincoln. One young man caught a rainbow trout on his first cast ever. Nothing short of amazing. He caught another one a little while later, and then a couple more after lunch. Same flies, same river, but the others couldn't seem to fool any fish. I don't think there are any trout in Peru, but if there are, these guys are ready for action. Yesterday it was a father, son and daughter who wanted to learn how to fly fish. The Contoocook River in Henniker has been at near-flood levels for over a month, and is just now getting to a fishable level - 550CFS on Sunday. Since these rivers haven't been fishable, it is like having private water to fish. Well, the Professor's pool had rising fish and we fooled some of them. A few were non-trout natives (fallfish) but there were 4 or 5 rainbows and a smallmouth bass willing to take a Stimulator, hornberg or elk hair caddis. With a little bit of luck, the Contoocook and Sugar Rivers will hold fish well into the extended season. Oh yeah, in case you didn't know, these rivers now stay open until November 30, rather than closing October 15, as in the past. I wonder if there are still fish holding in the Newfound River? The surface of the lake must be warming, so that could be the end of good fishing there for the year. Thursday and Monday I have some more beginners in the que ready to learn the magic of the slender wand. Might take a ride to see how the Ellis and Saco are fishing. Got to be ready with some fresh water and fresh fish for the new fly fishers.