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.