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.

2011: Canada trip

Back to 2011 until the temperatures get back to being fishing friendly...

The trip to Canada was intended to be a stealheading trip and everything looked so good until a week before. Then a wave of hot air brought abrupt summer into the southern Ontario. The water warmed up quickly and the remaining steelheads ran back to the lakes in a hurry. The bass were pushing upstream in high numbers and only 2 weeks after the season opener we were forced to fish for bass because the steelhead were not to be found.
But that doesn't mean we didn't have fun. The best technique was using my 8 weight to push a 7 wt floating line combined with a short sink tip, that allowed me to whip heavier, bushier flies to the other side of the river. The transition between the shallow water next to the bank and the deep middle channel was quite sudden and that's where the bad guys were waiting to ambush the little baitfish that were venturing out of the relative safety of the shore.

Soon we found the right speed, depth, fly colors and the show began.





Hari got the bass of the day:


My biggest fish of the day was actually a white sucker that gave me some thrills (I thought for a second I was hooked onto my first steelhead).



The second day we opted for some wilder nature and we headed to the Credit river. Gorgeous water, very similar to the rivers I used to fish in Romania. Wild fish, not as abundant, but making you work hard before you landed them. The only drawback was the rain that did not stop all day long.






And an interesting discovery, a scene i haven't seen before: lampreys spawning. They were not shy at all, I was actually sticking my camera down into the water right between them. All they were focused on was fulfilling the call of the nature. I know they are technically a pest but I was just sat down and watched them for a minute and left them undisturbed.



The champion was Sotto with this beautiful brown:


Water everywhere:

Winter fishing

Mild winter in New Hampshire. Last year at this time we already had 2 feet of snow and the lakes were completely frozen. This winter we still have negligible amounts of snow and rain is on the forecast for next week. But if there's no skiing, I prefer to go fishing. And the fish are still around...This weekend was new water, different conditions, different winning fly... But the beauty of the nature continues to amaze the eye of my camera. Life is beautiful!

2012: RAINBOW ALERT!!!!

I have to interrupt the 2011 retrospective after my first day of fishing in 2012. This is the story:

I was joking on the New Years Day saying that I will call in sick the next day and go fishing instead. But once I got to work and I saw that I have a chance to catch an hour of good light, nothing stood in my way... left work at 2:00 had my license printed at 2:22 and I was in the water by 3:30. The fish were there and they were waiting for me. Seven. All rainbows, in the 37-43 cm range (roughly 15-17 inches), very aggressive for this time of the year. I was expecting to have little nibs but instead I got angry hits.

All of them returned to the water to fight another day. By 5 pm the only light available was coming from the moon and the tears were starting to freeze on my face...Time to head back.

I could say this was a pretty good start for the season, I hope it stays that way!!!