Bitter sweet

A lot of action once salmon season started and the final sections of the rivers opened. Despite the nice fish caught in a little over an hour early in the morning, the season opener left me disgusted. A lot of fish in the river and a lot of fishermen. I got there at 5:30 AM just in time to see the first fish being pulled out of the water. Haven't seen another fly fisherman until my friend Dwayne came over. Shallow water and high fish density was matched by high density of fishermen. I think I saw 50-60 fish killed that morning in just one spot. Released? 2 + the 4 I caught. What worked for me that morning was a pink streamer that tricked the 4 fish, including the beauty below, probably 22-23 inch of pure energy. I hope she learned her lesson and went straight back tot the lake.

 It was a cold morning, and that reminded me why sometimes graphite reels are preferable to aluminum ones. My aluminum hardy kept freezing and getting stuck on me. Also had to clean my guides a few times. "Definitely not a good time to bring your little girl fishing, especially if she is not into fishing at all. But if this will justify some extra rods, why not, more food for the family. At least don't try to convince her that she caught the fish you just killed because she didn't touch the rod, she wasn't even looking at the river, because she was too busy shivering." I know the guy these thoughts are addressed to is less likely to read my post but I jut had to let it out.

 

The remaining of the day and the rest of the week went really well for fishing, except the fact that the water levels kept dropping. Salmon and rainbows were everywhere, hitting streamers like crazy and gorging on the nymphs.

Two friends, 2 simultaneous hook ups, one net is enough:

 

Dwayne was the king of the rainbows on the 1st, this old fat being the biggest rainbow I've seen that day.

 The biggest ones I've caught came later in the week.

Romanian readers, if you see the next one in a fishing magazine don't be surprised :))

Some fight pictures:

 And some releases:

Amazing fishing so far  this season, but I've seen a lot of fish being killed. I heard different reasons: "I 've got a fish fry this weekend and I'm supposed to bring the salmon", or  "I've only kept 2 so far" (it's only 6:30 AM in the first day of the season you idiot!!!!!) and so on, every reason more brilliant then others. What makes it even worse is that there are fly fishermen among them. Now I can't wait for the same people to complain about the lack of fish in NH waters. They actually got another month or so, to clean the freshly stocked rivers.

And the good thing: I got checked twice so far by Fish and Game, so they are out watching, hope they nail some poachers!

Spring!

We had a winter that was out of the ordinary this year. Good news is that fishing was incredible in the first two and a half months of the year. Bad news is that the snow is almost gone and the water levels are ridiculously low, I haven't seen them that low in May or June in other years. So unless we gonna get a lot of rain during the spring (which doesn't look like that yet), the salmon and trout seasons will be extremely short and we'll probably witness high mortality of the fish in the rivers over summer.

The last 2 weeks were really dynamic, with temperatures way bellow freezing, a snow storm, but also tanning temperatures today. The fish were present and ready to fight:















The salmon started to show up also, although we have to wait another 2 weeks until their season starts.

Crazy Canadians

I just found out that a gang of four crazy Canadians packed their stuff in a tiny FJ Cruiser and crossed the border, with the declared purpose of giving free piercings to New Hampshire's trout and salmon population. This is a rare footage with all of them at work in the same time.


Mixed among them was a local fly fisherman of Romanian origins, who took great pride in introducing them to some of the best waters of this state.

Of course, New Hampshire fought back with rain, wind and high water, but at the end they were allowed a few days of fishing, although in pretty harsh conditions.

The fish were determined to demand a lot of work and they didn't capitulate too easy. These are some pictures of the ones that couldn't resist the temptations and indulged with sweet nymphs and streamers:

The happy face in some of the pictures is a trained actor who was selected based on his extraordinary abilities to present fish to the camera.

We are 100% sure that the camera was not hurt during the action.

The cabin at Ramblewood was excellent, the view from the porch amazing, and staff very friendly. Thanks, we would stay there again!

The flies created that night have never seen the water because the tiers woke up in the morning and returned to using their common sense.

None of the fish captured complained about how they were treated during the photo shooting session. They all returned to what they were doing prior to their short dive in the outside world.