Newfound River

March 28 2019
Two firsts today...first time out this year and first time wetting a line in the Newfound River, Bristol NH. Still plenty of snow as Dan and I were post holing as we walked to the river. I have been tying now for the last month and of course left all my nymph boxes on the kitchen table. Best I could come up with was muddlers and one oversize stone fly nymph. No fish but it was nice to get out. This river is fly fishing only not very large with plenty of access so I'm sure it's nuts to butts as the snow melts...

Long Lake, Maine

Spent this last week in a exceptionally nice cabin, vacationing on Maine's Long Lake. Our rental was on Bells Point in North Bridgton. Its on the northwestern tip of the lake. I'll have to admit that the middle of August is a great time for a family vacation. As for a fishing trip...it makes for a great boat ride, thats about it. 50-60 feet deep is max for this body of water. We marked a number of fish at 20/25 feet with large pods of bait fish but never came up with anything other than a few small white perch. We trolled a number of baits at a number of depths and as I said ended up with just a boat ride. 

My 3 year old granddaughter caught her first fish on a rod and reel. Was she ever excited! We practiced good catch and release techniques and a sea gull promptly swooped down a scooped up a nice perch dinner.

We did see something odd. Most of the week there were a number of loons rafting over the deep part of the lake. The most I counted were 12 with 6-8 being the norm. They were there every evening we were out. Dont recall ever seeing that many together in one spot.

I made a trip to Naples Bait & Tackle on Rt 35 just before you cross the new causeway in Naples. The owner assured me that the fish I was marking would be Browns and Salmon. Again apparently August is not a good time for either. I picked up few streamers tyed by him. A Sango Smelt and one of my favorites, the Black Ghost, both tandems and both tyed very sparse, which I like. I later realised the stern paddle river boat there tours the lake based out of Naples is named the Sango River Queen. I think we may have to try Sabago next time around.                

Stonefly Hatch on the Contoocook River

Dan and I dug out the fly rods and waded into the Contoocook River in Henniker today for the first time this year. Normally the river is full of ice March 4th and wading into it would be impossable. Thats why we went today, because we could. No fish today, but it was good to get into the water rather than be standing on it! Every exposed rock was covered with snow and also these stoneflys. I'm always fascinated with what is going on in and around the river. The last thing I expected to see was a bug hatch. They look like I positioned them for a photo op but thats the way I found them...I love that Lumix camera. I'm working to identify them now.     

Skunked at Wentworth!

Dan and I met Paul, Josh and Ben at Wentworth for what was to be a somewhat mild day on the ice, looking for Crappie. We had not been here for a number of years and by the end of the day realised why! Skunked...no fish, not even a legitimate flag...although had plenty of wind flags. The 30mph wind was just constant all day and forced us off our original spot to seek the quite side of an island for the day. We still made the best of it and enjoyed our time together. Ben slipped and kissed the ice pretty hard, putting his tooth into his lip...blood on the ice and no hocky game.

Balch Pond, Wakefield

Monday Feb 6th Dan and I headed back to Balch Pond for crappie. We fished the north side, center pond between the islands, parking at a summer camp off Whitehouse Road. I'll have to stop by this summer and try to get permission to go back next winter. Keep logging in and see if I actually do that! Again we found the deepest water in this area, set out most of the tip-ups in 25-30 feet of water using small shiners. We are having trouble with shiners this year, lost half overnight last trip and more than a dozen died today before noon. I have been fishing with shiners now for decades and normally can keep them alive for weeks...only thing that changed has been a new local bait shop?? First fish was this nice Largemouth Bass. This fish took the shiner, just off the end of the island in 7' of water. Before the day was over we had 2 crappie, 2 yellow perch and 2 white perch, all of which are currently filleted and in the freezer. Kept seeing schools of crappie passing through the fish finder beam but could not get a consistent bite from them. Crappie fishing is new for us, have to keep working on it. I think we need to do more with the jig once we find the school.

First Susquehanna Muskellunge and Company

Heres my Grandfathers Musky as published in the "Grit" the local newspaper of Williamsport Pa, my hometown. PopPop's fish was 35" long and weighed 10 pounds. Love his rubber gloves ... According to James Laurer,the Lycoming County Fish Warden, at the time, this was the first Muskellunge to be taken in this section of the Susquehanna River. The date was July 9 1969. I still have the head on my wall. Its always scared the hell out of the kids! This river has developed into one of the finest Muskellunge fisheries on the east coast. Musky are noted as the fish of 1000 casts. I fished hard with Musky Pete, a good friend from western Mass, in Pontoosuc Lake for this elusive fish. The 27 pound Mass state record Tiger Musky ( a cross between a Northern Pike and a Musky) was taken in 2001 from this body of water while ice fishing. Pete and I had been fishing in the same area the week before. The fishermans moto-you should have been here yesterday. Believe me we exceeded the 1000 cast rule on that lake, never connecting with one. Thats me on the right with the 10 pound 35" Northern Pike that Pete and I trolling up from Pontoosuc, my largest Northern to date. I remember that day well. We actually had to push the 12' aluminum boat out across 20' of shore line ice before we got to open water. One foot on the ice, one foot in the boat. I have yet to catch a Musky, nor have I fished my hometowns Susquehanna River, although its on my bucket list!

Lake Sunapee

August 11 2011 launched the boat at the state park in Newbury NH. The day was a typical summer afternoon, pretty much glass calm water.That launch is pushing it for my boat. Its actually a brook launch and in August there is not much water to float a boat off the trailer. I was alone this day. Marked a good group of fish in 25 feet of water feeding on a school of bait fish. I was trolling with small Sutton spoons on both riggers. The Mt Sunapee tour boat was making its run north from Newbury and I was timing my turn to clear its path. One of the riggers tripped off with a nice 3.5 pound salmon. My boat is now heading north along the east bank with the tour boat coming up behind a little closer to the shore than I was. As I get the fish close enough to the boat to realize just how big it was, the other rigger tripped with another salmon. By now the tour boat is along side, I have a 9' trolling rod in each hand doing my best to get my boat out of the path of the tour boat. I'm sure the state tourism dept would have appreciated what the folks on the tour boat were seeing! I lost the first salmon at the boat as I tried to get it with a rod in each hand. I did boat the second fish which was a nice 4# summer salmon. Thats Dan holding his nice four pounder we picked up on the 19th at the same place.

Balch Pond, Wakefield NH

Jan 22, 2012 Dan, Paul and I spent our first day on the ice crappie fishing on Balch Pond in Wakefield NH. Paul had scoped out the pond the week before and found us a parking place, although it was under a no parking sign. Like most ponds in the state, you can fish all you want but finding a place to park is always a problem. I spent some time reading up on crappie the week before. We had a good map from the NH F&G web site and a GPS which took straight to a preselected spot in 30' of water, directly on the Maine/NH border. Dropped a small shiner down to about 20' and in no time had our first crappie. Hooking just behind the dorsal fin, causes the shiner to tip down slightly and it will constantly try to swim towards the bottom, crappie respond well to this movement. Jigged up a second small one on a small worm tipped jig from the same hole. Weather was great for fishing no wind, but not so good for catching. Bright sun in a blue sky all day. Temperatures ranged from zero to early 30's. Caught two white perch, three crappie and a pickerel. The crappie were suspended, the white perch were feeding directly off the bottom, which is normal behavior. Deep fried the crappie in a tempura batter...wonderful!

Contoocook River

Overcast day but little rain, more of a mist. One of my best on this river. Six rainbow and my first 2010 brook trout. Nice fish...all on different types of caddis nymphs. Just a fun day. Hardly anyone else on the river, which is always nice. Played with the undewater video camera.

Contoocook River

Back to the river again tonight. The "fly fishing only" section was stacked nuts to butts. Two -four trucks at each turn off. One section had 6 fisherman standing 25' apart from each other in the Tookie ...what fun is that! There are plenty of fish in that river...lucky for me all the good fish dont know where the fly fishing section is. Did well tonight with three nice rainbow. One on a muddler minnow and a pair on a bead head hare's ear. Still fishing with a sinking tip. Again trying to get good pictures one handed is somewhat difficult. I tried the video and still had trouble, the fish did finally swim away from the rock and disappeared into the river. The other two were carbon copies of the video star.

Contoocook River

Fished the Tooky river today, with Tim and Dan. Tough day, windy and blue sky. Nothing at the pools in Henniker. so we moved up to the twin bridges. Fished hard, water is really low for this time of year. Picked up one real nice rainbow and lost another brown. Fishing streamers and small muddlers on a sinking tip 6wt.

Lake Winnipesaukee

Dan and I had one of our best days on the big lake. We took Dans boat out of Wolfeboro and were on the water by 5:30am, in a light fog. Fished between Rattlesnake, Moose and Parker, trolling lead core, 6-8 colors with a 40'+ 6/4 # test leader. That's 300'of line out behind the boat. Most of the fish came to a fly, tandem 93's and Manards Marvels. We did use a few DB Smelt spoons but the flies produced more fish. We caught 3 salmon, boated one! When those fish take the fly they head right for the surface and clear 2-3 feet going airborne, connected to 250' of lead core line. You think they're in the next county! We ended up with somewhere between 6 and 8 lakers, lost track in all the excitement... with the largest being a nice 23" that Dan got on the way in. I believe his fly was a tandem Needle Smelt. All were released, except for the salmon, which Mom had for dinner that evening.




Weather conditions: 68-43 degrees, partly cloudy to cloudy then sunny by 5pm. Waning gibbous moon, sunup at 6:15 am. Barometer at 30.33 and falling. Wind developing to 7mph from the WSW by noon.

Newfound Lake

Spent a week in August on Newfound with my family. Spent way too much time recreating and not enough fishing. Had to keep the boat at a mooring which made it difficult anyway. Did get out a couple of times and connected with some small lake trout and a nice rainbow. Trolling off the downriggers.

Contoocook River

Back to the river tonight. Its finally settled down from all the rain and is at a nice fishable level. Tonight I used the 6wt Orvis Rocky Mountain rod loaded with a new spool of Scientific Anglers full sinking WF 6 S that I just picked up at KTP. I have been using a sinking tip 7wt and after reading from "Modern Streamers for Trophy Trout" decided to go with a full sinker. I purchased a couple of Zoo Cougars at KTP as well. Also mentioned in the book. Its a must read for any serious streamer fisherman. I intended to fish some of the deep pools this river has to offer but got to the river and left the Cougars at home along with most of my streamers. I did have, from my last trip here, a tattered Black Ghost and sure enough, within 15 minutes connected with this nice rainbow. What a beautiful fish this one was. I moved around, fished a Muddler and a Dark Edison with no other fish.

Contoocook River, NH

I spent a couple of hours fishing the Contoocook River between Hillsboro and Henniker NH this evening. It was overcast when I waded into the river and started to rain just enough to get wet once I got situated. By the looks of the riverbank, the water was about 18" over normal conditions, due to all the rain we have had this June. I fished a 7wt sinking tip WF line on a 5wt Orvis Trident TL rod. It actually did real well! I wanted to stick with streamers. Caught a smallie right off. The next two fish were nice rainbows, both fell for a size 4 black ghost streamer, which i tied myself. The water temp was 68 degrees. Tough handling a camera, standing in the middle of the river in the rain with a fish on...

Halls Brook NH

June 24 fished Halls Brook with brother Dan. Its runs along Halls Brook Road in West Rumney NH. Steep little brook that runs along the road. Its got nice little deep pools of fast running cold water. Each one contains a nice 4"-6" native brook trout. The little devils pack more ambition than many trout found in our larger rivers. I was using a size 16 Prince which took this nice handful. The weather was overcast and had been raining off and on for the last 7 days. Weather report today stated we have 2X the normal amount of rain for June this year. Close to a record established in the 1965. Although I did not feel the brook was higher than normal for this time of year.

Baker River NH

I fished the Baker River just off the Mt Moosilauke Highway in Wentworth NH on June 23 2009 with my brother, Dan. The day was overcast, being on the tail end of seven+ days of rain and somewhat breezy. Little to no trout, although it was pretty close to noon before we waded into the river. The flow was pretty slow with the majority of the water cutting along one side of the river. Dan picked up a nice rainbow by repeatedly enticing it with a Royal Coachman. The trout was tucked under a huge undercut log jam. Dan just kept at it, knowing that if there were any trout in this river, one was in here. It finally took the fly! No pictures... what was Dan thinking! I was using a hares ear nymph and a elk hair caddis, with no luck. There was no hatch underway and little sign of any insect activity.