Upper Connecticut Trophy Section October 11th and 12th 2008

We made it to the Upper Connecticut for the last weekend of the 2008 season. We drove up from our place in Lincoln, stopped in Colebrook for breakfast and then continued north until the cell phones could not pick up a signal. We drove northwards in our quest for trout and eventually sound ourselves at River Road. We admired the Lopstick sign and the 4 legged butcher shop sign. The weekend was dry which was a pleasant surprise for us because every other trip was a soaker. The water level was a little lower than our last trip but the fishing was good nonetheless. The mornings were cold so we got a late start on both days. On Sunday morning we ate breakfast at Tall Timbers and the pancakes and french toast were delicious. Back Lake was as flat as a mill pond and the tourists were having a great time strolling around the shore.

After a wild ride Ethan landed this nice salmon on the Sunday. He caught two on the day. This one was around 18 inches long.

Ethan out-fished me on both days and completed the Trophy section grand slam (rainbow, brookie, brown and salmon) on the Sunday when he landed this brown trout. This was the first brown we ever caught up here. The lad is a master with a double nymph below a strike indicator. I am far from a master of this technique.

Here is one of three nice Rainbows that I caught on Saturday. I caught all of them on dry flies. I had a lot of hits on a hares ear nymph and have to admit that I missed way more than I should have. The fishing at the Upper Connecticut is great but the best thing is that you really can get away from it all.



Here is a clip of Ethan fighting a salmon. Oscar our crazy hound, decided to swim over and check out the action. I had to cut the action short because I had to scamper down stream and net the bugger.


The banks of the Upper Ct are pretty steep and you have to be prepared to bushwhack your way to the good spots.

We finally made it to the trophy section of the Upper Connecticut over the weekend of August 2nd. It rained most of the time and the with the river at flood stage on the Monday it was essentially unfishable. This picture shows the pool right below the Carr Ridge Road bridge. This has to be the most over fished stretch of the river. We had a great weekend and caught rainbows, brookies and some salmon. Ethan did much better than me and battled a big landlocked salmon for twenty minutes. After fighting the monster all over the river it bore down and glued itself to the bottom where it eventually worked it's way loose.

Oscar at Pearl Lake

Oscar decided to take a break from swimming in favor of a boat ride. I fished Pearl Lake for hours with some results. I lost two big trout to a deep trolled wooly bugger. I took a couple of perch on a gray ghost and a nice rainbow to a mayfly. As you can see from this video the trout were rising all over. I couldn't figure it out what they were rising for but I'm not complaining.

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We fished Archery Pond in Hookset and caught some smallish brookies and some hefty rainbows ... I caught the smallish brookies and Ethan got the hefty rainbows. The fishing really heated up when the sun started to fade and the mayflies drifted down from the trees and flitted across the surface to lay their eggs. The trout were going wild and we simply cast mayfly patterns toward the real flies.

We had no luck in the rivers. We tried the Swift, Saco and the Pemi without any success. We caught a few brookies at Sky pond. A sink tip line was essential although I bet you could catch them on the surface in the evening. The trout hit a chartreuse wooly bugger and an olive hares tail nymph. We saw some surface activity but nothing to write home about.

Sky Pond is close to a perfect spot to fish. The pond is isolated, lined with trees with no roads within earshot. There are herons and hawks overhead and the loudest noise comes from the resident beaver.

We had some luck at Profile. The best fish was this 14" brookie caught on a woolly bugger. We did see an 18 incher come out of the lake.


People who don't go fishing are missing out on some pretty impressive scenery. Eventually the clouds rolled through the notch and we fished until dusk in the mist under a thick blanket of low cloud.

Nissitissit revisited

We took another crack at the Niss. This time we fished above the Prescott Street bridge. The river recently had a hefty canoe stocking of browns and rainbows. This method introduces fish all along the river rather than a simple mass dumping into a couple of pools. We made our way downstream and eventually spotted some trout rising. I switched from a weighted nymph to a big elk hair caddis and immediately got a hit which I promptly missed by a country mile. I eventually lost the elk hair and decided to go with a royal wulff which produced the results below.

Lamprey River April 26th 2008

Ethan had some success today. He caught a 12 inch brookie and a 16 inch rainbow using a double nymph rig (copper john and prince) with a strike indicator. I broke my personal skunking record after missing a number of decent hits.

Lamprey sucker action!

Ethan caught this hefy sucker on woolly bugger. If you ever hook a sucker it will put up a heck of a fight. It took 20 minutes to land this bruiser after it dragged him all over the river.
If you would like to read an article about the gentle art of spearing suckers you can click on this link. The article is from the New York Times in 1890.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9904EED71539E033A25750C2A9629C94619ED7CF&oref=slogin