“Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!”
flyfishing
This is what I should be doing now!
Until the end.
Trout season in New Hampshire closes on October 15 on most streams and rivers. I am going out as much as I can up until the end.
I hit a mountain stream that I really have fallen in love with. The water is quite a bit lower than just four days ago. I picked up a few nice wild brookies and half a dozen little tiny ones. I am amazed at how aggressive these little fish are. A beautiful fall day in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.
This is the proper time for pumpkin beer.
I love pumpkin beer. Not all pumpkin beer but a good bit of what’s on the market today. However, I have a strong opinion about when it should be enjoyed. That time is when there is a little bite in the air. That means the end of September and October. When you need to put a flannel on when you sit on the pouch watching the sun go down. I hate that the distributors push sales earlier and earlier in the year in their constant fight for shelf space.
So after a little leaf peeping here is a toast the the proper time.
High rivers & very wet!
So far it appears that in July to date we have had 7.5 inches of rain. For every two nice days, we have 3 rainy days. This will keep the temperature down on most of the local streams and rivers and spread the stocked fish around. However, all the rain leaves most rivers, even the headwaters, too high to fish.
What is a guy to do? Well after owning a float tube for about a year I finally took it out on a trout pond. I went up to Saco Lake in Crawford Notch State Park to try it out. This is a new style of fishing for me but very popular here in New Hampshire.
Basically, you float around a peaceful lake in a floating chair. You wear your waders and fins to propel yourself around the lake. I cast to rising fish and caught two 12-inch brook trout. I lost two more at the boat. There is a bit of a learning curve. This is a really relaxing way to fly fish. The tube is big enough to carry all your stuff plus some snacks and drinks. I will definitely be doing this more often. Maybe put the backpack straps on and hike into one of the many remote trout ponds.
So close to home.
At the end of my street is a gate to the White Mountain National Forest. Marylynn and I have been up there several times. One of our favorite hikes is around Mountain Pond. The headwaters of the East Branch of the Saco, which is the river that is across the street from my house, is up there. Last fall I did a little hunting for wild trout in the East Branch and Slippery Brook with no luck. This season I made a point of checking it out in the spring.
Town Hall Rd goes into the National Forest and changes into a dirt forest service road. I followed it as for as I could go to a big turnaround/parking area. As soon as I got out of my truck I was attacked by mosquitoes, so many that I think I weighed ten pounds more with all the bugs on me. I slathered myself up with bug dope and I was on my way. I followed a trail to the river and Popped out of the woods at The East Branch of the Saco, which here is a beautiful mountain stream.
I was set up with a dry dropper rig, Patriot dry, and a pheasant Tail nymph dropper. Two or three casts and I picked up my first fish a beautiful but small wild brookie. It took the nymph after taking a swipe at the dry.
After hooking two or three fish in the first pool I headed upstream. It certainly was a lot of work scrambling over rock jumbles and boulders. At each plunge pool, I would pick up a few fish.
I pulled one last fish out from up a large boulder at the end of a big rock garden. The poor guy must have had a run-in with a Heron or an Otter. One gill plate was all but missing.
At about 11:00 AM the fish just shut down. So I headed home to beat some incoming weather. All and all a great day. Some new water was explored. well, over a dozen fish were caught and released and home before noon. I beat the thunderstorms by about an hour and a half.
Finally
I got a little fishing in this evening. My first trip. After dinner I went across the street to the East Branch of the Saco. I have not done well here, but I that I’d give it a try. I didn’t even put on waders. I got 7 brookies in about a hour. Most were caught on a pheasant tail jig fly with a pink collar. One took a larger Pat’s rubber legs stone fly nymph. The water was about 55 degrees. I fished until I could not see to untangle my leader. A good night.
Rain
Dosn’t look like fishing weather yet.
Squirrel and Herl Bugger
Tying up some streamers tonight. I hope to swing some of these through some of the deeper holes in the Saco River. Until now, I would have needed snowshoes to get to the river. Warmer temps and some rain are doing a good job melting the snow.
This is the Squirrel and Herl Bugger. It is basically a wooly bugger with a pine squirrel zonker strip wing in place of the marabou tail. This is a size 8, 3x long streamer hook, peacock herl, and an olive-dyed grizzly hackle. I use an olive-dyed pine squirrel zonker strip for the wing. you could use a natural-colored strip as well. The squirrel strip has just the right length fibers for this size fly. This is an easy fly-to-tie so you can tie up quite a few before you finish your beer.
I think this should look like the sculpin and minnows that swim around the rocking bottom of the Saco. Wish me luck.
Winter Flies
One of the first flies you will see on a trout stream in winter is little black stoneflies. They will crawl out of the water onto a streamside rock in the frigid air. Their dark bodies will absorb heat from the sun and allow this little bug to shed their juvenile skin. Sometimes you can see the small adult stone flies walking around on the white snow. Trout don’t pay much attention to the adults as they are never in the water. The tiny nymph gets the hungry trout’s attention as they migrate along the stream bottom to the streamside rocks. Getting knocked free and tumbling in the current.
Here is a pattern I like to tie to use this time of year. Tim Flagler’s Little Black Stonefly in size 18. Simple to tie and effective.
Tap 'n' Trout 