New Hampshire 2013 Act 1

The last two years, I made my first trip to New Hampshire Memorial Day weekend. This year I had to

MadisonBoulder

  wait until this week. Needless to say, I have been excited all week in anticipation of my first New Hampshire adventure of the year.
I have said a hundred times on this blog how much I love New Hampshire. When I am away for a while, I always remember that I love being there. When I actually get up there I remember how much. The best way I can explain it is like this: You may love your wife or girlfriend. You know you do, but every once in a while she will do something cute and you remember why you fell in love with her in the first place. That is sort of the feeling I get driving by Canon Cliffs or fishing a trout pond. Corny yes, but New Hampshire is a special place.

I try to do as much as I can in my two days in New Hampshire. This trip I planned on doing something a little different. I have a couple of cousins that live just across the Maine border. The only time I ever see them is at wakes and funerals. I thought it was about time that changed. One of them was away in Florida. My cousin Mark and his wife Dotty were home so I made arrangements to sleep at their house Wednesday night.

I left about 3:30 Tuesday, because of the late start I got stuck in some serious traffic at the border. I made it to Profile Lake about 7:15. Because it was so late, I decided to fish before getting a campsite. I fished until dark. I caught a few yellow perch but surprisingly, I did not get a trout. It rained most of the time I was fishing, but it was fairly warm out so I didn’t mind. When I got done fishing I headed to the woods to find a spot to camp. Since it was so late, wet and I wanted to get an early start, I just slept in the car.

The next morning, I fished a pond in Whitefield that allegedly has northern pike. I fished the lake for

seven hours. The fishing conditions were perfect. It was dead calm. It was foggy and misty. It probably rained half the time. I spent a lot of time casting a frog (not a real one) into the slop. I had a lot of fish blow up on it. The lake also has largemouths, smallmouths, and pickerel in it. I would cast the frog into the weeds with one pole on one cast, then cast a grub into the rock piles with another. I ended up catching three largemouths including a three pounder. I also got two smallies and two pickerel. I had many other hits. It was okay, but not a great day considering the perfect weather.
I did see a bald eagle. I saw it two different times about four hours apart. What an amazing bird. I also saw an osprey. That surprised me because eagles will bully ospreys.  There was also a loon on the lake it called once. It also was not shy. It popped up within twenty feet of my canoe two or three times. All in all I had a lot of fun.

After fishing I had a two hour ride to my cousin’s house. I found it fairly easily thanks to my trusty Main Atlas and Gazetteer. For supper he made a feast. I had a burger, marinated steak tip, marinated chicken, macaroni salad, potato salad and cole slaw. After super we talked for a while (mostly about fishing). At 7 pm, we went to his son’s house to drop off spaghetti sauce. It was nice to see my second cousin for a few minutes. We talked about fishing the whole time I was there. The younger Mark gave his dad a swordfish steak that we cooked up and ate at 9:30. I went to bed about 10:30.

I left about 6 am. I stopped at a place in New Hampshire called Madison Boulder. It is the largest glacial erratic in the world. This thing was immense. It topped thirty seven feet  high. I can’t believe a glacier could move a rock so large.

By seven thirty, I was at my next fishing spot. I fished Kusumpe Pond in the lakes region. It has smallmouth and pickerel. Another perfect fishing day, dead calm and cloudy. I was hoping to catch some monster pickerel so I fished the lily pads. There wasn’t a lot of action, so I switched to the smallmouth. I ended with a 19 inch pickerel and three smallies including a three pounder. Again, not a lot of fish, but they were quality fish. I put the canoe on the car about 12:30, ate some grub, and drove home.