Some Chilly Browns

Howdy Nation!  It has been quite some time!  I haven't been able to fish as much as I would like lately due to all the school work that comes with the end of the semester and annual snowboard instructor training.  But I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!  In less than a week I will be on Christmas break and hopefully spitting out fishing reports like it's my job.

I've managed to sneak in a few hours on the water here and there over the past few weekends since Thanksgiving.  I had quite the streak going of catching one trout every time that I went out over the past few weeks... until today.  I hit The Contoocook at around 9:00 this morning and fished for about two and a half hours.  You know that it's going to be an interesting day when your guides start to ice up on your second cast.  My first stop was at one of my favorite pools that's been producing really well lately.  Only this time I fished it from the opposite side of the river that I always have.  Despite needing to scale a vertical granite ledge covered in ice, I really liked the approach from that side.  After observing no fish activity in that pool, I made my way onto some other ones that have been fishing well lately.  Between the next two pools I had three definite hits and a possible fourth one.  This morning was my only chance to fish today, I think it probably would have been better in the middle of the day once things "warm up" slightly.

Here's a few brownies from the past couple weekends.  Both caught on... you guessed it, woolly buggers!

The first one really had some great looking bright red spots that unfortunately didn't show up on my phone's camera.  The second one is probably one of my better browns this year.  I didn't measure it but was probably over 14 inches.  My dad really wanted to eat a trout for dinner so I decided to give this one to him.    I'm a strong believer in catch and release fishing but I do enjoy eating a nice trout dinner every once in a while.

One tip that I would really like to give for using streamers and woolly buggers (which can really fall under any of the "wet fly" families) is to use mending to your advantage to control depth.  Many of the fish that I've caught lately were when I mended my line so that my fly would swing deep through the bottom of pools.  Especially this time of year, the fish are going to be down on the bottom and don't want to move very far.  For example, lets say your fishing the main run of a pool and there's slack water in between you and the faster water where you think the fish are sitting.  You cast at about a 45 degree angle upstream and then mend your line downstream so that it creates a 90 degree angle in your line.  By the time your line straightens out in front of you, your fly will be dredging the bottom and ready for a nice slow retrieve or you can mend downstream even more for a deep swing.