Troutnarnia

I hope eveyone had a great Thanksgiving!  I know I did, I was determined to catch a Thanksgiving trout so I went down to one of my usual spots on The Contoocook that I hadn't check out all week.  The weather was perfect, sunny and in the mid 50's.  After I caught that brown the other day on my own woolly bugger, I've been able to fish them with much more confidence lately so that was what I started with.  I remembered a podcast that I listened to recently that talked about fishing streamers from this time of year through winter and the guy said that most of the hold over trout can be found in the heads of pools.  So I started with a nice swing right at the head of the pool.  After a strip or two of line, my woolly bugger got clobbered!  Ahhh finally a rainbow!  I had been wanting to land one for so long because it seems that all I could find in the river were browns! Which I am okay with, it was just nice to see some variety.  It was a great fish, about 15-16 inches and very thick. Put up a great fight.

I didn't get to fish much on Friday but me and my buddy Steve got to head out for a while yesterday.  It was quite chilly with some wind mixed in.  We started at an old favorite pool of mine and didn't get a single bite.  So we decided to head down to the next pool which was a little bit less windy and happened to be the same pool I caught a brown in on Wednesday.  A few casts into that pool and I hooked a fish by dredging my olive bugger across the bottom of the pool.  It put up a great fight and ended up to be one of the biggest and prettiest browns I've ever caught in The Contoocook and NH for that matter.

That fish was at about the middle of the pool so after that, I started to work the tail while Steve was at the head.  No action for either of us.  After casting through the wind I realized that my line got completely tangled around the tip of my pole.  As I worked to untangle it, my woolly bugger dangled on the surface of the water just five feet downstream from me.  All of a sudden a nice little brownie went full airborne after my bugger and missed it.  I tried working the bank where it was with no results.  After a while, me and Steve switched spots and he tried his luck with the stubborn fish.  Steve's toes were just about frozen and he wanted to leave but he decided to take a few more casts.  When I first saw his rod bent and heard him yelling I thought he was snagged and just trying to trick me.  But after I saw the infamous tip bounces I knew it was the real deal.  Steve's first trout on a fly rod!  I threw my pole on the ground and ran over to ensure that the fish was landed.  

You can ask Steve, when I throw my pole on the ground, someones either got a really big fish on or it's a very important one to land.  We've had a few of those moments that didn't exactly turn out the way we would have hoped for.

The fish are still out there nation!  Water levels are low which has made prospecting much easier!  Fish seams and the bottoms of pools.  Also try fishing the banks, but be sneaky.  You might be in for a surprise!

Hopefully Trout are Planning on Feasting Today

Happy Turkey day nation!  We've got a lot of fishing to catch up on over the the past week.

Last Thursday 11/15, a few friends and I fished the Pemi down in Bristol with ambitious hopes of tangling with a broodstock salmon.  We tried swinging and stripping streamers in spots that produced very well back in October with no results.  I feel that most of the salmon drop down from Bristol by this point in the year, especially after the high waters that Sandy brought.  We then switched over to target trout with just about every technique, also showing no results.

Last Friday, I went out to Mirror Lake up in Woodstock.  I don't have my kayak up at school as of now but Mirror Lake is an easy wade for most of the shore line.  I started with woolly buggers and streamers and just started blind casting and stripping.  For the first half of an hour that I was there, I kept seeing surface activity around a down tree off shore.  I crept over withing casting range of the tree and realized that there was a significant change in depth just on the other side of the tree where I saw the rises.  I was running low on woolly buggers so I threw on a black and orange egg sucking leech and attached a tungsten split shot just above the hook eye.  I threw it out just over the side of the drop off and instead of stripping it immediately, I let it sink for quite some time.  On the first strip the line was tight and my rod was bent in half!  I had the fish on for quite a while but it was staying deep.  It ran to the surface and did that all too familiar splashy hook shake move that gets all of us from time to time.

Sunday, I went to Robartwood Pond in Campton.  I totally was not expecting to find a completely frozen over pond when I got there but there was about an inch of ice covering the whole pond except for the area right next to the dam.  It was like fishing in a swimming pool with the amount of open water but I managed a scrappy little brookie on a white woolly bugger.  For the most part I was just throwing streamers and woolly buggers and stripping them back in.  I decided to switch up my tactics and try a very slow retrieve because I imagined the water was quite cold already and the fish may be slowing down.  I stripped in my olive woolly bugger veeeeerrrryyyy slooooowwwlly and hooked a small rainbow on the first cast of this method.  It shook not long after it was hooked.  That fish was hooked in only about 6 inches of water.  A few casts later, I was targeting the deepest part of the water that was open and retrieving right along the edge of the ice.  I let my bugger sink down to the bottom and started my extremely slow retrieve and then my indicator went under.  This fish had some real muscle to it unlike the last two.  It was a great fight and pretty unique to have it run under the ice.  I pulled it up on top of the skim ice that was directly in front of where I was standing and all of a sudden it shook free.  I immediately jumped down there breaking through the ice in just six inches of water.  And of course the beautiful dark red rainbow flopped right into the hole in the ice created by my feet.  I started moving the thick weeds around below my feet and saw a great spotted tail and lunged for it.  The fish escaped my grasps and freely swam back into deeper water.  All I wanted was a picture!  -__-

Here's the brookie that I caught there.

Yesterday I got to reunite with my home water again, The Contoocook!  I was eager to head back to the area where I caught trout last week.  Me and my good friend Lucas started at the pool where I caught those two browns with no results.  We decided to head to the next pool down which I haven't fished for years.  The last time I went there I was probably about 14 and for some reason decided I didn't like it so I never really returned.  When I got to the pool yesterday, I couldn't believe my eyes.  It is probably one of the most beautiful looking pools on the Contoocook.  There were steep rock ledges on the other side of the river with a small stream cascading down the rocks.  I started throwing an olive woolly bugger that I tied myself into the head of the pool right in the top of the seam.  A few casts later I hooked and landed a beauty of a brown, it was about 12 inches and appeared to be very healthy and thick.  We didn't have much luck after that but I'm heading back to The Contoocook today!

Have a great Thanksgiving everyone!!

Home to the Tooky

I spent this past three day weekend at home in Henniker.  I fished The Contoocook River in downtown Henniker Friday night with no results. While the Tooky is great fishing in down town Henniker during the spring and early summer, it tends to get quite slow throughout the summer and fall.  This is due to the fact that there is not much holding water in this area.  Trout need cold and heavily oxygenated water to survive and without that, many die or migrate to new areas during the summer months.  If follow The Contoocook upstream into West Henniker, you will start to find deeper and faster water that are ideal holding areas for trout to survive the tough months of the year.  I believe that some of the best pools on The Contoocook are in this area and many are well off the beaten path, which means less fishing pressure and less fishing pressure=more fish!  And plus you get the satisfaction of enjoying the wilderness.

On Saturday, I didn't get to go out due to work.  Although, on Sunday I decided to go with my instinct and head upstream to where I knew there was a better possibility of finding some trout.  My buddy Steve came along with me again, it was only one of his first times really giving fly fishing a go.  A few casts in with an olive woolly bugger and I already had a hook up!  It was an average sized brown about 10 inches and put up a great fight!  I was ecstatic when I landed it because I haven't caught a trout from my home river since sometime in July!  After that, Steve decided to test his luck by himself and head to the next pool down. A few minutes later I decided to throw on a random old streamer that I got at a flea market. The hook was rusty and the feathers had clearly seen better days.  My antique ghetto fly wasn't pretty but apparently it looked appetizing to a brown trout I found attached to the end of it.  This one was slightly bigger than the first, about 11 inches and also put up a great fight.

I tried a number of techniques while I was fishing on Saturday.  The only one that seemed to produce was by casting straight into seams and letting my streamers sink down for a minute and then start stripping line in.  Much of the time, I use a small split shot placed directly above my streamers so that they can get down faster and are not immediately pulled to the surface once I start stripping line.  The fish usually strike in the first strip or two if they are sitting directly in the seam.  So cast, wait, strip and hang on! 

Steve didn't manage to catch anything but he did come back to the truck with a definite strike from a fish!  Got to give him props there, this is a tough time of year to pick up fly fishing and the fact that he was able to get a strike in November is a great accomplishment if you ask me.  

Can't wait to reunite with my river over Thanksgiving break next week!

Brookies and Buggers

So on Saturday, I unfortunately didn't go to the pond in Woodstock that I originally wanted to go to because I didn't have much gas.  Instead, I decided to go back to Robartwood which is right up the road in Campton.  Because of thick brush and posted land there is really only one area to fly cast from the shallows at Robartwood.  With my luck, there was a strong wind coming straight at me.  I felt like I was trying to throw a paper airplane into a box fan.  Although conditions were not ideal, my persistence prevailed and I managed to lay a few casts onto the water.  High line speeds and keeping it low are key when casting in high wind.  I also switched to a full sink line for a while which was casting much better into the wind.  Heavier lines are less affected by the wind.

I started out with a size 8 olive woolly bugger bead head.  It's one of my go-to searching patterns when I really have no idea what the fish are feeding on.  The great thing about the woolly bugger is that it doesn't resemble one particular food source,  it has characteristics of a large variety of foods that trout feed on.  There really is no wrong way to fish a woolly bugger.

For any beginners out there, this is your typical woolly bugger.  It's the perfect beginner fly, easy to fish and easy to tie.  You can fish it by stripping, swinging, dead drifting and even floating the un-weighted ones.  It catches trout and salmon all over the world.  There aren't many days that a trout won't bite a woolly bugger if fished properly.  They come in all colors and sizes.  You've just got to try them all to find out which ones you like best for different situations! 

Here's on that I tied myself.  Let me know what you think of it!

 About 20 minutes after I got there, the line finally became tight!  It was a beautiful female brook trout in it's spawning colors!  When I picked it up for the release a couple eggs fell out into the water.  Don't want to harm those!

After I released her I spent a few more minutes casting around the olive woolly bugger with no results.  I didn't even want to think about trying to cast an un-weighted fly straight into the wind so I threw on a rust colored woolly bugger size 6.  I had a couple hits from fast stripping the rusty bugger back in but didn't end up hooking anything.  I went with a new approach and decided to let it sink down for a while after I cast under an overhanging hemlock branch.  When I made my first pull to start stripping line back in it was already tight and my rod was bent in half.  The fish wasn't going crazy making any runs but it clearly had a good amount of weight to it.  After a few more rod tip bounces, the fish started causing a commotion on the surface.  I saw a wide off white tail covered in black spots come splashing out of the water and then... it was gone.  No more tension.  By the looks of it that fish may have been close to two pounds.  The massive splashing tail scene was almost an instant replay of a fish that my buddy Steve lost in the Tooky a few years back.  I guess that's just karma repaying me for the flak I gave Steve for losing that  beastly rainbow in the Tooky.

In a bit of a frustrated mood, I went back to stripping the rusty bugger in.  After a while I hooked another beautiful brookie!  This one was a male.  He actually had quite the kype (hook jaw) on him for such a little guy.  Can't really see it that well in the picture due to a very inconveniently placed piece of grass.  After releasing this one, fingers felt like they were going to fall off from the wind chill so I decided to call it a day.

I'm not exactly sure where or when my next fishing adventure will be but I will keep my results posted!  I will definitely be fishing the Contoocook this upcoming weekend.  The fish are still biting so get out there!  Can't be afraid of a little cold weather if you live in NH.  They make warm clothes for a reason!

Thank God It's The Weekend!!!!!

Hey there Nation!  Sorry I haven't been posting lately.  I've had no time to fish all week!  I can't wait to finally wet a line this weekend.  Tomorrow I think I will head to a pond up in Woodstock that's open year round.  I had good luck there in the spring.  Fish and Game stocks two year old brown trout and three year old brookies in this pond as well as one year old brookies, browns and rainbows.  Say what you want about stocked fish but the fact that they are already quite large when they're stocked leaves some tempting possibilities at catching a real hog.  I've heard stories from some local old timers about browns over 7 pounds!  A fish like that would make my whole season, but I would be delighted just to catch an 8 incher this weekend.  It's going to feel great just to get out there, fish or no fish.  Hopefully there will be some browns cruising the shallows!  Ponds are pretty much the only option right now.  Hurricane Sandy brought most of the rivers up to an un-fishable level.

One of my best friends and fishing buddy is heading out to the Salmon River for some steelies on Sunday.  I was supposed to join him but classes and money are tight for me right now.  I'm bummed that I couldn't go but I'm excited to hear how he does and will probably post a report about his trip on here.  So Steve, if your reading this, you better come back with some good fish pics!  And also anyone out there with recent fishing stories, feel free to share them on this blog!  If I'm not catching fish we might as well talk about someone who is!

Here's a great video I found today.  I know exactly how this guy feels, I often find myself in this same situation when doing home work.