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.

Reality sets in

Since returning from Labrador I have taken out four different beginner clients.  One to the Swift River and three to the Saco and Ellis Rivers.  Now I know what sports commentators mean when they say, "[insert name of all-time great star]____________ plays a different game than the rest of us."  Well, Labrador is different brook trout fishing than anything I have previously experienced.  Am I "ruined" for local fishing?  I don't think so.  It is still fun and rewarding, but definitely different.  There are contrasts in the size of fish, the remoteness and "pristineness" of the rivers, but after you get past the scale of things, it is still fly fishing. Still fun. Still connects you to the environment and still done in beautiful places.  Also, the folks that learned how to fly fish and caught their first trout on a fly were just as excited (maybe more so!) than I was catching 5+ pound brook trout in Labrador.
And just like I was out of my familiar locale in Labrador, these folks were far from their homes in Frankfurt, Germany, Brooklyn, NY and Cleveland, OH.  To them, our New England trout streams are  exotic, pristine and beautiful, and their enthusiasm and wonder are contagious.  Not a bad version of reality, huh?

Guide Posts

One of the cool things about fishing out of Three Rivers Lodge was the "Newfie" guides.  They ranged from mid-20s to early 50s in age.  Some had guided there 7 or 8 years, a couple only 3 or 4 weeks.  All were good natured and real outdoorsmen.  They had different personalities, but all enjoyed good conversation (mostly about hunting and fishing) and a good quip or joke.  All came from Newfoundland and all were professional guides - although most spent more time over the years guiding bear and moose hunts than ferrying brook trout sports.  Byron is a guide with minimal experience guiding for large brook trout, but is accomplished in the way of the woods and water.  He was pretty quiet until we got him talking about his family, especially his son who is taking up fly fishing.  One of my buddies Jerry was guided by Byron and he quipped that he had read that the guides in camp were accomplished outdoorsmen and were capable of carrying out a client on their back if necessary. He asked Byron if he thought he could carry him out.  Byron thought for a minute and slowly replied, "I believe I could, but I would have to quarter you first!"  A comedian is born.
These are the two fish I caught on consecutive casts at 2nd Rapids about an hour before I got "The Big One."

 I spend nearly a hundred days a year on the water and I had a hard time keeping up with our guides.   On our last day of fishing at the Fifth Rapids fly-out camp Jerry and Harry were guided by Quinton and Randy and I had Byron.  Quinton is a big strapping guy in his 20s - probably 6' 2" and over 200 pounds and he can wade those rivers like a walk on the beach.  He thought nothing of quickly wading across the river to help Byron net one of our fish and after weighing, measuring and tagging it, hustle back across to help Jerry or Harry land a fish. Here is Jerry with a nice fish at Fifth Rapids being helped by Quinton.
In addition to being all around great guys, some of the guides had other talents. One of the guides we enjoyed most was young Jordan Locke. He was probably the most accomplished fly fishing guide, hardest working (although all of them worked hard) and best singer. Best singer?!? After dinner on our last night we gathered in the lodge great room for some entertainment.
I guess I'll have to take guitar lessons to keep my clients entertained!

Camp life

I know, I know - all you want is a little fish porn, but a lot more goes on between actually catching something. Here is a little scene as everybody gets their gear together, loads the boats and heads out for a day of fishing. Note the head-nets.  These became our best friend.  Don't even think of going to Labrador without one.  I wore my total coverage bug shirt, but the $1.97 head net we bought at WalMart was just as effective and easier to see through.

I thought you might also be interested to see something of the cabins, lodge and camp life.  Everybody, clients, guides, and staff, ate together in the lodge dining room.  In the morning coffee (and the generator) was on at 6AM, breakfast at 7 and planes and boats leave the dock at 8.  Return to the lodge around 5 to 6PM, dinner at 7.  Sunset (and generator off) was around 10PM and it stayed light until around 11PM- in fact it never got totally pitch dark. We could have fished after dinner, but after a long day on the water, I don't think anybody did. The most impressive thing about the lodge (other than the 8 and 9 lb brook trout adorning the walls) was the fact that everything had to be brought in by plane or snowmobile.  The cooks were sisters and one of them matter-of-factly mentioned coming into the camp in winter on a three or four day snowmobile trip of 150 miles from Labrador City.  Hardier than most of the gals I hang with!

Well, if you have hung in there through the camp BS, here is a little fish porn.  In addition to the giant brook trout, there were white fish (sort of like a fallfish, but with a smaller mouth), lake trout, and northern pike.  We caught pike as by-catch a couple times while fishing for brook trout, but there were pike all over the lakes and we targeted them a couple times. 

 One afternoon Randy and I told our guide Byron that we would knock off the trout fishing a little early and get some pike on the way back to camp.  We tied on wire tippet and some big saltwater streamers and fished for pike for an hour or so.  We had fast action and caught about a dozen, some to almost 4 feet long.  Here is Byron with an average size pike.  The pike cull the brook trout and assure that they are not over run with small fish.  Many of even the larger trout had evidence of run-ins with predators, most likely pike. I didn't take any pictures of the white fish, but I caught 4 or 5 of them over the course of the week, and a couple weighed in at around 3 pounds. They take the same flies as the brook trout, and give you that same rush when they strike, but not too many folks would make the trek to Labrador for the promise of a strong bite from white fish. H-m-m-m, on second thought I can think of a couple people that would be happy to catch a nice white fish or two as a change from their normal catch of chubs!

More Lab stuff

Our drive from southern NH to Labrador City took over 20 hours.  The first half was pretty uneventful.  Then when we headed north from Baie Comeau on the St, Lawrence River things got interesting.  We pretty much left civilization behind, other than a blighted landscape of high tension power lines, huge dams destroying entire watersheds and huge mines scraping off mountains and filling lakes with rust-red effluent.  All necessary(?), but unfortunate by-products of modern life. Anybody following events in NH has heard of the Northern Pass project that would run high tension towers/cables across northern NH to bring "green" power to the northeast urban corridor.  At least 40 additional miles of towers would be built around Pittsburg, NH and additional high towers would be built on existing right-of-ways.  This video is a sample of the swath of destruction that would be cut across northern NH. From our float plane you can also see some of the huge mines that have leveled mountains and filled lakes in northern Quebec and southwestern Labrador.

Enough depressing stuff - on to the the fun stuff:  In Labrador City we stayed in a nice motel and made our last visit to a WalMart where we wisely bought bug nets - the best $1.97 I ever spent! The 150-mile float plane trip to the lodge showed us that where we were going to fish was unlike any other place I have ever fished.  The landscape made Minnesota's Land-of-Lakes look like a desert! Water everywhere and probably fish everywhere, too. In addition to water, we saw patches of snow both on the July 8th flight in and the flight out on the 15th.

The trees were quite a bit smaller, due to lack of nutrients and shorter growing season.  And the ground cover was white lichens, or caribou moss.  It was soft and fluffy and blanketed the ground, covering boulders. In past years the caribou would migrate through here and we hiked along their trails to reach some of the areas we fished.
Each evening after dinner Kevin, camp manager and head guide, would discuss plans for the following day.  We were assigned an area to fish and our guide for the day.  Each area was like having your own private river.  Some days we would get in a boat with our guide and motor across to an inlet or outlet of the lake.  The inlets were rivers and we would fish a few hundred yards or a mile or more of river. Some areas required a hike around lower rapids and then another boat ride and another hike. 

  My best day of fishing with a lot of fish caught was one of those ride, hike, ride, hike trips.  That is where I caught the lake trout pictured in the previous blog and this 5+ pound brook trout. It is also where I stood on a flat boulder and caught 8 brooktrout - smallest 2 pounds and largest a little over 3 pounds.  What a rock! These fish were caught on woolybuggers and woodduck orange streamers, but the water was so clear and the pool so deep that I saw the take on almost every fish.  In addition to landing 8, a couple others got off the hook. That day I was fishing with Dave from another group of anglers from Maine and guide Anthony.  Here is a video of Dave with our guide Anthony landing a fish in the middle of the rapids on the next boulder down from "my rock."

Unlike the rivers in NH and ME and other northeast states, these rivers were not dammed or channelized for log-drive purposes or to harness the water power for industry.  It really gave a flavor of what the rivers, lakes and fishing would have been like in New England before our European ancestors "tamed" it.  That's it for now.  Stay tuned for the next installment of "The BSC goes to Labrador."

Labrador Rocks!

Just got back Saturday night from a week at Three Rivers Lodge in the wilds of Labrador.  Five of us caravaned almost 1,000 miles north, then took a float plane another 150 miles to the lodge on the Wood River system.  Short synopsis: wild country, many black flies and mosquitoes and many LARGE brook trout.
Here is a video of my fishing buddy Randy landing a "small one" of about 2 pounds.

A 2-pounder was what we called a "tagger" as a couple of the guides would weigh, measure and tag any untagged fish over about a pound-and-a-half.  Most fish over 3 pounds had already been tagged and they would record the tag number in their log.  We caught some fish that had been tagged three years ago (this was the third year of a three year tagging effort.)  We didn't catch many fish that were too small to tag.  Most were probably about three pounds.  My biggest brook trout was 25.5 inches long and about eight pounds, caught on a size 12 Royal Wulff.

Quite a few were in the 5 to 6 pound class.  About an hour before I landed the one pictured, I caught a five pounder and on the next cast got a six pounder.  That was pretty unusual, but very memorable.  My biggest fish was a 12-pound lake trout caught on a Woodduck Orange streamer.

I probably caught the most fish on large black woolly-buggers, but also quite a few on Royal Wulff, Royal Bomber, Prince nymph, red brassie, Alder Fly dry, and Woodduck Orange streamer.  I hooked and lost what was probably my biggest brook trout on a Wood Special streamer.  I had been trying to catch that fish all afternoon and when I finally hooked him he swam to the surface, turned and slowly swam away and when I put pressure on him he came unbuttoned. Drat!!  My last fish of the trip was caught on my Black Ghost Clouser fly, that is also deadly on LLS in ME and NH.  I'll be adding a few pictures and videos over the next few days.  Wow, what a trip!

Hexamania

Our trip up north wouldn't be complete without sampling the hex hatch on a wild trout pond.  This year we not only had a wild time with the Alder Flies, but the hex were popping like popcorn.  Nothing like gliding along a beautiful north country pond with the warblers warbling and the plaintive call of the white throated sparrow echoing through the pines interrupted only by the explosive rises of wild brook trout. 

If you haven't fished the hexagenia hatch, you are missing a real treat.  Tie up some size 8 Stimulators with yellow body and white wing and white hackle. Then head to Echo Lake or Profile Lake in Franconia Notch.  Both are easily waded and have real good hatches of these big juicy may flies.  Just toss out your fly and give it the occasional twitch and hold on!  Better be quick though, since the trout want to get their high-value calories and head back down to cooler water real fast.  This time of year, the flies emerge just as the evening starts to cool - about a half hour before dark, so the action can be intense but short-lived.  What a way to relax and end the day.

Well. I am off for Labrador for a week.  Stay tuned for some (hopefully) giant brook trout.

Alder Fly Bonanza

Our 14-day Androscoggin Adventure is complete and fishing AND catching was great.  We had some epic days at the beginning of the hatch from June 19 through 23 and very good fishing through the end of the trip.  In fact, the biggest fish of the trip were caught the last day, July 1.  The fish were leaping out of the water at the beginning of the hatch, but were getting a lot more selective as the hatch progressed, so we had to work for them.  The hatch came out down-river below Pontook dam on June 18 and got to our HQ on the FFO area in Errol on June 22.  Before the hatch got going the fishing was excellent, and at the beginning of the hatch ranged from phenomenal to unbelievable. I don't like hype and maybe some of the folks who were there can back me up on this.   FFNE fans, brothers Alan and David had an epic couple days at the beginning of the hatch.  Matt and his gang from upstate NY had a great time until some rain put a damper on things.  Overall, rain was not a factor, other than keeping the flies in the Alders until the sun peeked through.  As always, the big golden stone flies were out along with the caddis and many fish succumbed to the charms of a size 8 Stimulator.  We are already booking our September trip when the foliage is bright, the water is cold and the fish are hungry.  Next up a report on the hex hatch on the ponds.

Get ready to rumble

We have had it all this spring - rain, heat, back to cool weather and now almost normal, whatever that is.  The rivers have really settled down, so let's hope the stifling heat stays away for a while.  The Souhegan River has been fishing really well, which is somewhat a pleasant surprise.  It was well-stocked in the DHZ in Greenville and a few days later we got the heat wave.  The fish seem to have abandoned the DHZ and settled in some of the deeper pools, such as those downstream of Blood Brook.  I have had a few guide trips to the Souhegan in the last 10 days and got plenty on various caddis patterns and small stimulators.  It also continues to fish pretty good below the dams in downtown Milford.  I wish the same could be said for the Newfound River.  I found a few fish there, but not in the quantities or quality that I have seen in past years.  Many of our rivers really warm up in summer and it is sad to see stocking delayed so long that the peak conditions of the season are gone before many fish get a chance to play with us fly anglers. At long last I am getting good reports from the Sugar River, while the Contoocook seems to be past prime and will be a late evening destination until it gets too warm for trout fishing.
I have been watching the weather, river flows and stocking reports for the Androscoggin River and it looks like everything is in maximum alignment for an epic trip starting tomorrow.  This is our third year running our "virtual fishing lodge" in Errol and we have totally sold-out with a waiting list.  We also have a good jump on bookings for September on the Andro. We have a nice mix of beginners and experienced anglers, which keeps things interesting.  My good friend Dick was kind enough to tie a bunch of flies for me while I was goofing off in Florida. I can hardly wait to spring those tasty Alder Fly and Woodduck Orange on the big brookies and acrobatic landlocks of the upper Andro.  I have all the memory cleared from my Flip video and Olympus Stylus Tough digital camera and will be sure to share some with you guys.  Although the zebra caddis is the prime attraction, I expect that plenty of hexagenia mayflies and golden stoneflies will also tempting the trout of the Great Northwoods of NH.
 

The most glorious month of the year

Yes, May is the best.  Winter is certainly gone and spring is firmly established - at least it is south of the notches.  Up around Errol it is still tinged with winter.  What to do when you want a little jump-start to the season - head south! No, not Florida - Connecticut!  The Farmington River to be precise.  Even down there the season is lagging a bit - the Hendricksons usually start to emerge down there by the third week of April.  I had a client trip scheduled for Tuesday, so Stan and I did an advance trip on Monday. Not a lot happening in the morning, but by mid-afternoon a few mayflies started popping up.  Stan got his nice brown on a Hendrickson nymph just as the hatch started.  I succeeded in fooling a fish into striking my dry Hendrickson and then breaking it off on the hookset. Cest la vie! Better to have fooled him and lost, rather than not to have fooled him at all!  Tuesday turned out to be an even better day than Monday.  Many more fish rising and eating the emerging mayflies.  The river is loaded with big browns and feisty 'bows.  The hatch should last another week to ten days, so tie up some pink size 12 mayflies and head down to New Hartford!
In addition to some scouting expeditions to the Souhegan, Piscataquog, Nissitissit and Squannacook Rivers, we have run a couple sessions of our Northeast Fly Fishing School.  We had our first ever Intermediate/Advanced class last weekend and we had a beginner class earlier in April and have three more beginner classes scheduled from this weekend through early June.  All the classes are full except a few open spots in the June 4 & 5 class.  We haven't scheduled another Intermediate class yet. but if you are interested, let me know.
Tomorrow I am off to the Contocook River to check things out for a couple trips next week.  Tight lines!

Anticipation is high and optimism reigns supreme

This is the time of year that often is most frustrating - the weather is great; stream levels are great; your gear is in order; and where are the fish?  The fun now is in looking for them.  Check the old standbys. Check the spots you were meaning to check, but haven't a chance to explore before. Look for some new spots.  Chat up the anglers you run into and see what you can learn.  But, get out there and enjoy the season!
Last week Dick and I hit the Swift River and found nothing below route 9 and very few above the route 9 bridge. It was great to be out and I hear through the grapevine that it has been stocked. Monday Jim and I hit some spots around Laconia and Alton, NH killing time before the NH Guides Association meeting. We saw a few swirls and talked to some friends fishing there who said one salmon had been hooked there earlier in the day and another landed off the docks behind the Opechee Trading Post in Laconia. We fished a little while on the Merrymeeting River without seeing evidence of any fish. The fish should be up in the river now and the ice is just about ready to go out on the big lake. Things should be popping off the docks and up the Merrymeeting River for a few more days.
Yesterday I made the rounds of a few local spots. Got my first wild brooktrout of the year at my local Wild Trout Stream. The yellow perch should be into the brook any day now, but so far just a few wild brookies. I didn't see many fish or talk to any anglers who had caught any fish in the local rivers.  There were still just suckers at the Prescott Street bridge in Pepperell and no trout evident at the usual stocking points at the bridges in Townsend.  On the Nissitissit River in Brookline I saw a couple trout near the covered walking bridge near the lake, and another at the bridge at the state line on West Hollis Rd/Brookline St. Not enough to entice me to break out the gear.  We have a Northeast Fly Fishing School class this weekend, so I hope we can find some holdovers to keep the students interested, as they develop their fly fishing skills. BTW, we have added an Intermediate class, in case anybody wants to sharpen some skills.

In the news

As I watched the news from yesterday and predictions for today, I see that I am in the middle of it. Yesterday morning I was driving towards Tampa and Joanne said that the sky seems a lot darker than when we left. This was 5AM when it was pitch dark already. Then the S#*% hit the fan and we were in the middle of rain wind and hail for the next couple hours. Then we got a call from my daughter telling us that we were coming back to the same weather we left in late December - a big snowy nor'easter. All I can say is, it can only help the trout, so I'm good with it. I see that MA has started spring trout stocking and the local streams should be stocked this week or next, depending on water levels. Also, there is new information about the fight against "rock snot" the invasive alga that now threatens the Farmington River, in addition to the current infestations in the CT, White and Mohawk Rivers of VT and NH.
I need to keep telling myself, "Spring is here. Snow is a temporary annoyance. The fish will be biting soon." I guess that is the same thing I tell myself every spring. You would think I would have convinced my self by now. Tight lines and see you on the water.

Snook!

The weather down here in SW Florida has been fantastic for about a month - over 80F every day. Since they were having Shrimp Festival on Fort Myers Beach today, we decided to go to Barefoot Beach in Bonita Springs. (No, this isn't really a beach report, but a fishing report, so "bare" with me.) Coincidentally, I caught a snook last week at the end of the beach, but that was not part of the decision process - that's my story and I'm stickin' to it! Here is a little video of the action.

Hope you enjoy it. I'll be fishing a couple more times before heading north the end of the month.

Hey, I almost forgot: my buddy Jim said some of you stopped by to say hi at the Fly Fish NH Show last weekend. Glad you could make it. What did you think of the show? Any good bargains? See any good presentations?

Winter update and spring preview

My winter vacation is two/thirds done. This February has been the best month in the years I have been coming to Florida. My wife Joanne enjoys going to the beach and I enjoy it like I enjoy a root-canal - well, maybe not that much fun. It is hard for me to sit still for more than a few minutes, so I take a long walk, sometimes with fishing rod in hand to give some purpose to my efforts. Saturday we went to Barefoot Beach in Bonita Springs. It is often written up as a top-10 US beach. Well, it is now in my top-10, since I caught a nice snook there Saturday morning. When we sit on the beach together in Florida I always tell Joanne to enjoy it while she can, because when we get home it will be my "busy season" and I'll have to get back to "work." She won't see a whole lot of me until late July. I'll be heavily involved in the Northeast Fly Fishing School at Evening Sun Fly Shop on weekends in April and May. I already have some mid-week dates booked in May for the Mayfly hatches and beginning of the caddis hatches. Also, our "virtual fishing lodge" on the Androscoggin River the last two weeks of June is booking nicely.
While I am slaving away at hard labor on the beaches of SE Florida, my partner Jim has been hard at work on the fly fishing show circuit with gigs at the Marlboro Show, and many TU meetings and library seminars. He's also chairman of one the top fly fishing shows in New England and the ONLY fly fishing show in NH - The Fly Fish NH Show this weekend- March 5 and 6 - at Pelham Fish and Game Club. This show is a lot of fun, since it has many local shops and guides. There are bargains to be had, but most importantly, you can rub elbows and swap lies with fellow fly anglers in the area. Be sure to stop by the NH Rivers Guide booth and say hi to Jim. He'll have a lot of pictures of our trips and will be happy to share information about NH fly fishing opportunities.

A winter in paradise fishing expedition

Stan and I were tired of striking out in our Florida fishing, so we hired a pro to show us the ropes. On the recommendation of some our fishing neighbors we contacted Capt. Shawn.  He took us out on his 24ft center console boat.  There wasn't any sight fishing to be had, so we switched off between spinning gear to cover water and fly gear when we found a concentration of fish.  We did not catch a huge amount of fish, but plenty to keep our interest.  We also caught quite a variety - speckled sea trout, Spanish mackerel, bonnet shark, and lady fish.  Here is a video of the trip with Stan landing a bonnet shark.  In addition to the fish, we saw quite a few dolphins and cormorants that tried to steal our fish.