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.