Rain at last! The trout are "breathing easy" for a while

The welcome rain of yesterday and today takes a bit of the pressure off our trouty friends.  This weekend we had the April session of the Northeast Fly Fishing School and the on-the-river fishing lesson portion of the school got a little damp yesterday afternoon - but it didn't dampen the spirits of our students. Here is a link to the class pictures.
(FYI we still have a few spots open in the May 5-6 class in Hollis with on-stream instruction on the Squannacook River and the Intermediate Class on the Contoocook River.)

Also on Friday I took out a couple who recently retired and plan to travel and fly fish along the way.  They are related to a close friend of my son David.  They had a great time and Sue even caught a brown trout on a dry fly - the first fish she ever caught! Here is a video of the remarkable event.

 Earlier in the week I took my friend and client George to fish the Pemigewasset in Bristol and Franklin.  The week before we had fished the Farmington River over the VERY early Hendrickson hatch and caught some real slabs of rainbows and browns on dry flies.  This time he caught two of the most beautiful rainbow trout I have seen in New Hampshire and a couple broodstock salmon.  The rainbows were measured at 17 and 18 inches respectively. Here is George releasing one of the rainbows.

These rainbows were thick bodied with beautiful spotted fins and fought like salmon.  I am certain the mild winter was a major factor in their condition.
     In between those two trips, I took a couple airline pilots laying over in Manchester for a day of fly fishing.  One was a beginner and had never caught a fish on a fly. We took care of that!  We spent the day on the Contoocook River and the first half of the day was spent working on casting technique, looking at bugs, etc,  After lunch we saw some rising fish and both caught NH brooktrout on dry flies and soft hackles. Here is Mike with his first trout on a fly.

His buddy TJ also got a couple nice NH brookies on a fly.