Pictures From New Hampshire

These pictures are from my last few days in New Hampshire. They are not in order but none the less here they are.
Great job Bruins!!!





Daisys at a picnic area





Waterfall on way to Three Ponds

Common Shiner in Clay's contraption






The one brookie kept of the 30 caught between Clay and myself over my time in NH. ( far right)

Clay you have to give your " contraption" a name
I'm thinking you call it "Tank" in honor of Tim Thomas's nickname, plus it makes sense

Close up of a shiner.

Try to tell me brook trout aren't as pretty as any aquarium fish. Click on it for a closer look.

This little pond is where we did most of our damange.

I caught this trout at Upper Hall.

This big guy was 15 inches long. ( far right)

Clay's bass. At this point I was still fishless.

My Day Fishing with Clay... Long post but worth it

Explanation 1
To get to the main body of this post I need to explain a few things first or else none of it will make sense. First off, I haven't blogged much mostly because I've been sick. Although the symptoms are nothing more than a cold, whatever I have has kicked the crap out of me. From Wednesday until Saturday, during those 96 hours I'm sure I was in bed for more than 85. By Sunday I could keep my eyes open for more than 20 minutes at a time, but still a massive head cold has persisted. I did fish for a couple hours on Friday and Saturday evenings, but I was back in bed as soon as I got home. Friday I got some trout and Saturday I met up with Jeff Henderson at Conimicut Point. He caught a couple schoolies and I got a 5 pound bluefish.

Explanation 2
Catch-M-All is a website/blog http://www.catchthemall.blogspot.com/ by a couple guys Clay and Dave up in New Hampshire. They also have columns in a couple New Hampshire newspapers. There goal and purpose of the blog is a quest to catch and eat all the freshwater species in New Hampshire ( except endangered species). They have the support of New Hampshire Fish and Game, who help quite a bit in fish identification.) Although one fish from each species becomes a "sacrificial lamb" it is great because it brings attention to all the other fish that live in New Hampshire waters. The site is quite popular and by catching non gamefish it educates the public about fish no one talks about. I can tell you that a brook trout will die at temperatures above 68 degrees and other facts about trout, bass and sunfish. However, I did not know what a blacknose dace or bridle shiner looks like until I started following their quest.

Explanation 3
After posting about my Memorial Day weekend, Clay who follows my blog suggested I go up and fish with him sometime. Since I enjoy talking to people that love talking about fishing, I quickly excepted his offer. We made plans to fish Tuesday ( June 14 at noon ). I drove up on Monday so I would not have to deal with Route 128 traffic at 9am

Now I can begin...
Monday afternoon I fished Upper Hall Pond before setting up camp. Upper Hall is about five miles in the woods on the worst dirt road you will ever see. Although it is a " roadside" pond, it is in the middle of no where. I put the kayak in. I ended up catching 5 small brookies in about 90 minutes. I had fun. As I was putting the kayak back on the car I heard a truck come down to the parking area. It turned out to be a game warden. He asked to see my license which I handed him. He asked if I was going out or coming in. I said I was coming in and asked how I did. I told him I caught five. He asked if he could have a look at them. I told him I had let them all go. He was surprised but, I did not need to be cleaning fish at camp later. At this particular lake the bag limit is only two. So if I would have kept those five, I would have been in deep crap. I always check the rules before I go out on any water body in New Hampshire. Even though I wasn't keeping fish, I still had to know that Upper Hall is a fly fishing only pond. So I did not use my spinning rod either. It goes to show, even five miles into the woods game wardens can show up anywhere. I was glad to see him. He was a nice guy and we talked a few minutes.

I left Upper Hall and set up camp north of Franconia Notch. On my way by the Notch, Profile Lake was glass calm and trout were jumping all over. It killed me to drive by, but I knew I had to set up my tent before I fished again. If not, I would be setting up in the dark covered by hundreds of mosquitoes and black flies itching ( pun intended) to make a meal of me. After a very speedy tent pitching followed by and equally speedy drive back to Profile Lake, I managed to start fishing about 6:30. I caught 9 more brookies the biggest going about 15 inches ( see photo). I also saw a beaver come off the shoreline and swim its way to within 15 feet of me before veering off. I fished until dark in the rain. I must have gotten 30 fly bites putting the kayak back on the car. I went back to camp and had a terrible night sleep coughing and sniffling.

Tuesady...
I had to meet Clay at noon at Lower Falls of the Swift River on the Kancamangus. I stayed in bed as long as I could stand but I was still up by 8:30. Sunrise is about 4:30 so at this point it was light out, well actually grey and overcast, but still bright enough I knew I should get out of bed. After I brushed my teeth I headed back to Profile for a couple hours fishing. No luck, the wind picked up so I did not feel like fighting it in the 'yak. I looked at my map and planned a route west of Lincoln on roads I'd never been on before. This would kill some time and I could see scenery I've never seen. After driving about twenty minutes, I came across this very fishy looking brook. With all the trout I've caught on the fly rod, I have never caught a trout in a river with my fly rod. I thought I had a good shot in this spot. I spent the next 40 minutes trying but I didn't even see a fish never mind hook one.

Fishing with Clay...
After my unsuccessful river foray, I headed down the Kanc to meet Clay. We both got to Lower Falls before noon. Our mission was to catch a brook trout. They had not caught one for the quest. If we got a brookie quickly, we would try to catch an assortment of shiners. I put on my waders and we went down to the water. He had twisted his ankle badly at this spot and was still noticeably limping around. We were told that trout were stocked in the river the day before and some big ones were swimming in the pool we were fishing. Unfortunately, they did not co-operate. Although I caught 14 brookies the day before, they proved much tougher this day. While we were at Lower Falls another game warden came down checking licenses. Two days in New Hampshire, two game wardens. After unsuccessfully fishing Lower Falls we moved to Rocky Gorge then finally a small pond back in the woods. After trying flies and worms Clay finally hooked a brookie on powerbait. It was about 10 inches long. Since the purpose of the quest is to catch and eat one of each species and not wholesale slaughter ( One guy and his sons kept 10 trout of those stocked in Lower Falls... is that necessary) we switched it up fishing for shiners. The shiners proved to be to small for our little tiny hooks so headed to another place.

Clay took me to a place in Conway that had all kinds of fish. From bass, pickerel chubs and shiners, the place is loaded. Again, fish were not cooperating. Clay caught one nice largemouth and I hooked a big pickerel but he cut the line. After fishing with this guy for 4 hours, I hadn't caught a fish. I felt like an amateur. Although I had a great time and conversation was good, I was embarrassed to say the least. I have wrote about trout number 50, trout number 100. I told Clay I caught 14 brookies the day before, yet I couldn't catch a lousy brookie, shiner, or sunfish. It was getting late. I had about 60 minute ride back to camp. We shook hands. I told him I had fun despite the skunking. I let him lead me out to the main road. Then he got out of his car and said he knew of a pond near his house that he had seen fish but never fished. He asked if I was game. I said I had a few more minutes and followed him.

The pond was not much bigger than a backyard basketball court, but there were fish jumping eating flies. We tied on tiny hooks with pieces of worms as small as a bread crumb. We were hoping for a new species of shiner. Actually Clay was, I was hoping for anything to pull my line. Within seconds of my first cast I hooked a small brook trout. Clay hooked one too. This little pond in the middle of a housing community had wild brookies or at the very least brookies put there as fry. We caught a whole bunch of brook trout but the pond also had golden shiners. We caught about 10 of those. I didn't catch one fish over seven inches but it was as much fun as any fishing I've done all year. The fishing was so fast, I forgot to count how many I caught. We estimated we got about 9 trout each. I could have gotten out my fly rod, but it would have been the same thing, one beautiful looking brookie after another. This was definitely a surprise and a great ending to the day. We fished for about an hour at this little spot. Clay made this contraption to photograph fish for id purposes. We put the brookies and golden shiners in it. It was perfect. You could get great pics of the fish while they were still in water and not being held in the air.

After the fishing we shook hands again and I took off. I arrived back at camp about 7 pm. All of the sudden tiredness ( is that a word) hit me. I was exhausted. I was asleep before dark. I had thought about hitting Profile for a couple hours or driving around looking for moose, but it did not happen.

Wednesday...
After falling asleep about 8 I was up at 4:30 am. I didn't mind, I wanted to get an early start. I decided last night I'd come home Wednesday when I found out the Bruins won and were playing a Game 7. I had a couple ideas but I wanted to be home around 3 pm. After packing up I went back down to Profile, again it was to windy to enjoy fishing. So I went to plan B. Plan B was to hike out to a remote pond near Campton. It was a 2.3 mile hike. I drove down to the trailhead. I packed up my gear but the mosquitoes were so thick that the bug spray didn't matter. I didn't make it 10 steps into the woods.Time for Plan C. Plan C was to drive even closer to home and fish Center Harbor. Clay told me about a place where rock bass are almost a guarantee. I've never caught a rock bass and was looking forward to catching some. Center Harbor is about 40 minutes off the highway. About 25 minutes off the highway my check engine light came on and my car bucked. I quickly turned the car around giving up for the moment my dream of catching a rock bass. When most peoples check engine light comes on people drive for weeks. It seems everytime mine comes on, my car dies. I wanted to be as close to home as possible if it happened. I made it home fairly easy. At higher speeds it ran fine. I brought it to my mechanic when I got home. Its a misfiring cylinder or a plug.

Wrap up...
The good news for both Clay and myself was neither of us were ax murderers. As you can see by the length of this I squeezed in a lot of fun into 2 1/2 days. I had an absolute blast catching the little brook trout in a place they had no bussiness being in.It was absolutely worth going fishless all day to catch them and the shiners. Clay was a cool guy. I had a great time fishing with him. I'm sure we will end up fishing together again. We both have the same passion for not only fishing but learning about fish and thier habits. Since this post is so long, I am going to only put a couple pics from the trip on it. I will add more pics in a seperate post in a day or so. Clay took more pictures than me, so I may take a couple from him later.

World Class Fishing in New England

Sometimes the phrase world class is over used. No doubt outdoors folk are known to exaggerate. I have heard many anglers talk about how wonderful the fishing is in New England. I have heard them say things like " Theres no reason to go any where else for world class fishing we have it right in our backyard" I think to a certain extent this is absolutely true, but it depends on what you are fishing for.

If we are going to be totally honest, we certainly do not live in the largemouth capitol of the world. Understanding that largemouth bass are the number one fished for fish in the USA. People spend over a billion dollars a year trying to catch them. Money spent on rods, reels and bass boats make largemouth bass number one. Although we do hold some pretty decent lakes and ponds New England can not compete with Florida, Texas, the San Diego area of California or really anywhere in the sun belt.

If we are going to talk about trout, New England can almost hold its own. Unfortunately there is a catch. For most of New England, trout can not reproduce in our waters, therefore most all of the trout you try to catch on opening day are stocked. Most of these fish are of the put and take variety. Many lakes are stocked with enough trout to get them through the spring surge of fishermen. Any trout that survives until June avoiding lures and bait in a warmwater pond will die from warm water temps in the fall.

I am not talking about these trout waters. There are a few places in southern New England and many up north that offer really good trout fishing. New Hampshire stocks many of there lakes with " fingerlings". These are little baby trout that after a couple years become decent size fish. They are placed in lakes with cool enough water temps to survive summers but do not have enough spawning habitat to reproduce. Do not expect trophies, but the fishing can be fun.

We have a few major rivers that have excellent trout fishing. To name some we have the Housatonic, and Farmington in Connecticut. Wood River in RI. Mass has the Deerfield and Swift.

New Hampshire has the Upper Connecticut River and Androscoggin, Maine and Vermont have quite a few trout streams

Many of these rivers are excellent, my issue is they are all stocking dependent. Without stocking these rivers would be almost empty. There are holdover fish that grow quite big, and some have limited spawning. These are pretty dam good rivers and I want to fish them.Many people would consider these rivers as world class.

I would argue Montana has world class trout fishing. According to one magazine article I read, 5 of the top 10 trout streams in the country are in Montana. The Yellowstone, Madison, Gallatin, the Bighorn and Missouri are in Montana. All the trout are wild and they average about 16 inches!!! If I wanted to do some world class trout fishing, that would be my destination. Also, the Green River in Utah is probably the best trout stream in the country. I can say I saw many 6 pound rainbows and browns in the Green!!! They are all wild!!!

To keep this from getting out of hand I will condense the other non world class gamefish we have. Pike and Musky fishing is great in a belt running from New York- South Dakota. Our catfishing is a joke compared to southern reservoirs. Deep sea fishing although not bad is much better down south of Virgina. If you like carp as much as I do, you would want to fish the St Lawrence River.Sadly, our one and only salmon species is on the endangered species list and I seriously doubt there population will ever recover.

NOW THE WORLD CLASS FISHING IN NEW ENGLAND

Now that I've made you think of how pathetic our little corner of the country is, here is the good news. In New England we have world class fishing for two species. They are... pause for dramatic effect... striped bass and smallmouth bass.

You have read many times about my complaints about h0w bad the fishing was in Rhode Island this summer for stripers. It is true. Also the stocks are going down. This means the population of striped bass is not what it was 5 years ago ( the good old days). There is reason for concern their population is crashing. That said we live in the striper capital of the world. If they rebound this is where they will do it. Cape Cod had a pretty good year for stripers. The Cape Cod Canal was red hot all the way from the herring run in May through July. People from far away will plan their vacations around the fall run at places like Race Point and Narragansett. I have been told schoolie fishing can be great all summer as far north as the Penobscot River. Of all the fish out there I consider striped bass to be the best gamefish in the world. We are lucky to have a truly great fish in our backyard.http://southernnewenglandoutdoors.blogspot.com/2010/04/my-love-of-striped-bass.html

Smallmouth Bass

If you are looking for world class smallie action in the lower three New England states, I think you will be disappointed. There are some good smallmouth lakes. The Cape Cod kettle ponds are good as is Candlewood Lake and Wachusetts Reservoir. If you really want some great action you will have to take a little drive up north. Lake Champlain, Lake Winnipesaukee are as good as any lake in the country. National tournaments are held on both lakes. They are huge and a little intimidating. Hiring a guide or doing some research could prove the difference in a skunking and a great day.

On top of those two huge lakes, The lakes regoin of New Hampshire has a lot of really good smallmouth lakes. Many lakes in the 200 acre range have some nice fish. I have fished Squam Lake ( from the movie Golden Pond) and had my best bass day ever. I caught 34 bass. The top five weighed about 15 pounds. That is a 3 pound average. The truth was I had 7 or 8 that size. Squam is a big lake, but we found fish everywhere we stopped to fish. I don't think any place in the world could be better than Squam. As good... maybe, better... I doubt it.

Maine has so many underfished smallmouth lakes, its almost ridiculous. There are litterally hundreds of bass lakes in Maine. Most people are fishing for the trout. The lakes on the entire coast region from Sebago Lake to the Canadian border have good populations of smallmouth. I would love to have a summer to explore some of them.

So to sum up. To have top notch fishing for two great gamefish, I think we are pretty lucky. No one would ever say that smallies are stripers are over rated. They compare with all the greatest fish in the world. If you get a chance to head up north or can get a day off to head to the Cape get out and enjoy our world class fishing!

By the way the picture at the top was just a typical bass I caught on Squam Lake.I caught 33 more about the same size. I know what your thinking " Those shades make me look hot"... I know right