Creek Addict

The wife and I spent our 4th of July holiday up in New Hampshire at her father’s bed and breakfast, The Eastman Inn. (Mention creekaddict.com and get 10% off your next stay.) I guess for the past week or so they had been getting some serious rain, which, obviously, caused the rivers to be ridiculously high. Luckily the rain stopped long enough for us to watch some fireworks and catch a few fish.

I fished the Androscoggin River on Friday up near Errol, NH. The river was high, and moving really fast, so wading was not an option. I decided to euro nymph the slower pockets near the dam and netted myself a few fish. I actually caught a small landlocked salmon, my first ever, and snapped a few shots of the little guy. I also caught a small mouth, and a small brown. Not a stellar day, but just catching a few in those conditions was all I could ask for.

Saturday and Sunday I stayed near the inn and fished a slower section of the Ellis River near Jackson. The river was high but manageable. I caught a few stockers there and decided my time was probably better spent on the porch drinking beer than in the freezing water catching stockies. (The water there is still 58 degrees!) The fishing up there is normally amazing, but with all the rain and high water, the fishing just wasn’t that good. Others that I talked to had the same experience as me. Last year at this time we where catching so many you couldn’t count em. This year, you worked your ass off for a small number of stockers. In retrospect, I should have fished some of the mountain ponds, or the smaller wild brookie streams. I probably would have had a lot more fish to talk about. In any case, it’s beautiful country up there, and it’s always a treat just to be up there on the river, regardless of the catching.

Close up of the land locked salmon. I was stoked to finally catch one of these things, even if it’s a small one.

We have yet to see a moose in NH. My wife has never seen one in the wild so I tried to give her an idea of what one might look like.

The raging Androscoggin River.