This fishing trip occurred sometimes at the end of May but I had so many going on at that time, that I just forgot about these pictures. I kept looking for a river that had wild trout and I decided to try Connecticut river in northern NH. It's a well known river especially for its trophy stretch, in Pittsburg, but it takes more than 2 hrs to drive there, so we stopped around 35 miles downstream, in North Strafford. The river is on NH border with Vermont, and the NH resident license allows me to fish the river on both sides. this particularly area is a non-kill flyfishing only, and you have to use barbless hooks. I didn't have any barbless hooks, so I had to pinch the barbs on the flies I used.
It didn't start the way I wanted. The Hendrickson hatch I thought it's going to be on at that time was already gone, and the fish were only raising sporadicly for some small sedges. In the first half an hour I've only seen 3 fish sipping flies from the surface, so it's obvious that my first choices were the nymphs. Heavy tungsten bead headed, to get them on the bottom. It took 10 min to get the first strike, I thought it's a nice brown, but it ended up to be a fall fish ( Semotilus corporalis). I was wondering what's the name of this fish here, and each person I've asked gave me a different version. Some people would call it chub, same as it's very close relative in Europe (Leuciscus cephalis). Other people call it shiner, roach or sand roach. And finally I've found this name on the Fish and Game website. For me it looks and behaves exactly like its cousin from Europe. I managed to catch it here with spinners, crankbaits and flies, in Winnipesauke, Merrimack, Pemigewasset and now in Connecticut rivers. It puts up a good fight and I don't dislike when I catch it.
By the time I let it go, I noticed on the other side a couple of people that started to fish a few hundreds feet upstream from my location. I was curious to see what kind of flies they were using so i wadded there to say hi. They were really nice, gave me tips, flies, even got in the water with me to help with my casting. It was basically the first time I was fishing a river that wide, and my casting wasn't good enough to reach across. And I never had anybody around me to tell me what am I doing wrong. Anyway, Pep was really helpful and I thank him one more time.
After this I managed to catch a few trouts. The first one, a brown, took advantage of my lack of experience in fishing with barbless hooks, and escaped before reaching my net. But the next three, all rainbows, took a short stop out of the water, before returning to their place.
Overall it was a wonderful day, until the mosquitoes and black flies made it impossible to feel comfortable outside. It was getting late anyway, and I had two hours of driving ahead, so we decided to pack and go, but not without promising in my mind that I'll be back.
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