May is big fish month!

Hi all, we are back from the warm state of Florida and have already had a great week of guiding since we returned! Rivers are running at average to high flows for this time of the year with water temps running from the mid 40’s to low 50’s on most days. Fishing has been good to great on the Saco and Connecticut rivers while the Andro is high and tough to fish at the moment. On all rivers we have mostly been seeing browns as the rainbows are in spawn mode and water temps haven’t warmed up enough for brookies to get active. Looking forward we should start seeing a good number of Landlocked Atlantic Salmon, and Wild brookies in the Upper Andro as soon as the river drops to fishable flows. We will also be seeing more wild and holdover rainbows in the mix as they should be done spawning within a week or so.

Saco

The Saco has been fishing better than we have seen in a few years. As the Saco has a low density mostly wild browns, we are happy to have landed browns on all of our Saco floats so far this season. On our better days we have been landing four and seeing six or seven. We have found the streamer bite is best when flows are on the drop without too much rain water flushing an abundance of food into the water. On days with lots of rain water finding the right water to fish slower and deeper with squirmy worms, mops, and jig style streamers is the ticket.

Client Chris Johnson caught this beautiful wild brown on the Saco. His first wild brown on this River!

Andro

The Andro is currently running at 6k cfs out of Errol and up to 8k cfs in Gorham. Once flows drop below 3k in Errol fishing will improve dramatically. If you do fish the Andro hunt the slow edges of pools and slower sections of the river with large nymphs like mops, squirmy worms and stoneflies.Throwing streamers like olive buggers, circus peanuts, and the like should also produce.

Connecticut

The Connecticut was running from 2k to 4k this weekend from Colebrook south. These were ideal flows for throwing olive, yellow, tan and white, circus peanuts and sex dungeons and drunk and disorderly streamers. Nymph fishing with large food items like mops, jig style baitfish, and crayfish was also very effective. Flows went up Sunday night but have already been dropping in the upper river the river may bump again with tonights rain but should moderate again by this coming weekend. As long as you can find water with at least a couple feet of clarity you should be able to find some fish. We prefer throwing brighter streamers like a gold and copper Kreelix to find fish in the dirtier flows. We have been very impressed with the size quality of browns on the Connecticut so far this season. Many of the browns we saw over the past few days were over 17” with a few in the 22-24” class. The meat bite will continue until water temps consistently stay in the mid-fifties and caddis and mayfly hatches begin to distract fish to those food items. This should happen around the third week of May this year and will result in some of the best dry fly fishing of the season for large trout.

A healthy holdover brown caught by client Matt Mitchell this past Saturday.

Client Chris Chrisifides with his second biggest brown of the day.

Client Christian Mitchell had one heck of a first day fly fishing! He landed many browns including two at 22”!

Client Chris Chrisifides landed this 24” brown with a 14” girth. The biggest trout of our season so far!

Small Streams:

With the fishing so good on our larger rivers we have not been out on our smaller streams yet this spring. That being said, this recent rain should have wild brook trout moving from their winter holding water to their prime time feeding lies. If you decide to explore small water here in the whites look for deeper slow pools where these fish will spend more time as they move up the streams. Be prepared to cover a lot of water fishing a dace or baby trout pattern to get any trout around to move to a sizeable meal.

In Summary and availability:

May is a dynamic month on our rivers changing flows and water temps will have fish feeding heavily at times and so stuffed at other times that you will have to grind to get them to eat. As long as you stay patient and have confidence that the fish are there the rewards can be worth any slow hours you encounter! As the month progresses the fish will shift their feeding habits more to bugs and start feeding higher in the water column. We love the month of May for the big fish we find and the variety of ways in which we catch them. As of this writing Nate has May 12, 13, 22 open, and Kevin is wide open until May 18th, with some dates available through June as well. Please let us know asap if you want to get out this May or June and we will do our best to get you on the calendar!

Tight Lines,

Nate

New Year Report: Welcome 2025!

Happy New Years! It was a pleasure guiding many of you in 2024. Here is a little timeline of what we were up to last season.

April: We started off the season targeting lake run rainbows and salmon in the lakes region. Numbers of both salmon and rainbows were up from past years. We saw more first and second year salmon which is a good sign for this coming spring. There was also a good year class of 2nd and 3rd year rainbows which were much more chrome in color than in the past and fought like wild fish! We look forward to seeing how big these fish will be in 2025. Later in April we began guiding the northern rivers with both nymphs and streamers targeting mostly large browns as the rainbows went through their spawning ritual. The jig and streamer fishing was on fire as water temps neared 50 degrees!

May

The brown trout fishing continued to be productive through mid-May. We landed over 20 trout on many outings with the average fish over two pounds with many in the 4-5 pound range including one monster that taped at 24.5” As water levels dropped in May our tactics shifted from fishing streamers and baitfish jigs to caddis and mayfly nymphs and dries. As the rainbows finished spawning by the second week of May we began seeing more of them in the mix as they fed voraciously after the spawn. The caddis hatches on the Connecticut and Adroscoggin were in full swing by about May 18th and we had some exceptional dry fly fishing on both rivers landing large browns, bows and landlocked salmon on these size 16 tan bugs. By the third week of May flows on the Andro were ideal and we had some unreal days landing over 30 fish, most of which were wild brookies, rainbows and holdover salmon.

June: The Andro continued to fish well in June specifically on the cooler days. The alder fly hatch started early, on June 10th. We landed some good sized browns and bows on size 10 to 12 olive stimulators, grey cdc caddis and X caddis. On days when air and water temps rose we headed to the Connecticut where we continued to have fun chasing large browns and bows on all stages of tan caddis, both nymphs and dries.

July: In July we had a couple of epic dry fly days after thunderstorms made for some high water on the Connecticut. Unfortunately a mega rainstorm blew out the river mid-month and forced us to give the fish a break, until road work and dropping water temps allowed our return in late September. Fortunately the small streams in the White Mountains fished very well through july as larger fish from the bigger rivers pushed up into the tributaires to take advantage of the cool runnoff from the mountains. We even found some decent salmon miles up from the Androscoggin! The dry dropper fishing produced well into August.

August:

In August we found some great fishing on the Saco earlier in the month. Mornings saw the coolest water temps and consistent midge hatches which were about as productive as you could as for as long as you could detect the subtle eats on small indicators. Later in the month we did some guiding on the upper Connecticut as water temps began to drop in the upper float sections. We found some decent sized wild brookies and native whitefish up there as well as some big wild rainbows. The fishing was so good that Kevin and I decided to hit it on a day off. We managed some more wild rainbows as well as a handsome 20” wild brown that ate a 4” white streamer and coughed up a 10” sucker boatside!

September:

The float fishing improved as soon as water temps dropped into the mid 60’s in late August but bite windows were early and late in the day on sunny days through the 3rd week in September. Still we caught some good sized wild bows on most days by griding through the slow periods and trusting the process. By late in the month water temps had stabilized into the low 60’s and the nymph bite windows lengthened. We had some good days for big wild bows on both the Andro and Connecticut with some very large fish from 16” to 23” making it to the net.

October:

The fishing in October was on fire this past year. With water temps dropping into the low 50’s the streamer bite was constistent for most of the month. While the upper Andro closed on October 15th we re-gained access to one of our favorite lower river stretches which produced some quality bows and browns into early November. While the trout fishing was productive we couldn’t help but shift some of our focus to pike fishing. Water temps dropped into the 40’s by mid month and the pike bite turned on as expected. We were able to land some quality fish over 30”s with some exciting topwater eats which gave us more confidence in fishing higher in the water column during this time period.

November: The pike bite continued to improve in November and we began to notice a pattern of which zones fished best on cloudy days and which zones were better on sunny days. Our theory, the clearer the water the better it is in the clouds, the darker the water the more sun you can get away with. Our last day of pike fishing was cold with an east wind. After a promising eat on our first drift we saw nothing for the next three hours. Finally after switching to a jig style streamer tied by the late Johnny Z, I made a cast and felt the line go slack as a 31” pike inhaled my offering. Knowing this might be my last fish before the ice came I stripped earnestly until the fish slid thrashing into the net. Two days later a cold front hit locking up the pike water until spring. It was a fitting end to a productive year.

We thank all of you who shared time on the water with us this past season. We are looking forward to another productive year in 2025. I’ve transitioned from guiding the flowing water to instructing on the frozen water. You can find me supervising the kids ski school at Attitash mountain this winter. Its been a cold one as of late and snowmaking has been cranking out new trails every week. Hopefully the jet stream shifts north and we can get in on this snowy pattern that the southeast is seeing today!

Our rates page has been updated for 2025:

Full day floats are $550, half day floats $425, Full day wades $500 and half day wades $350.

If you are looking to book a day in 2025 hit us up asap. We are about 50% booked for June and 25% booked for May. We highly recommend getting out with us in April to early May this year as we see some of our largest fish this time of the year. That being said I’ll be away on Vacation from April 19th to April 28th but our guide Kevin will be available if you want to get out during that time frame.

I look forward to seeing many of you this coming season. I hope you all stay healthy and warm this winter.

Tight Lines,

Nate

November Report: Prime Time For Pike!

What We’ve been up to:

Since our last report we have been very focused on pike fishing and we have had some successful trips and scouting missions lately. Water temps are now in the mid 40’s and pike fattening up for a long winter. The fish we have been catching have been in very good condition and we’ve even seen some mid-sided pike with pike bites on them! There are some true monsters around! This past wednesday water temps were in the low 40’s with air temps in the mid 60’s and low pressure with west winds 10-20mph. This made for a long duration bite window from 10am until about 3:30 pm. We landed 4 pike with 3 at 30” and lost another 3 good fish with 4 or 5 other eats.

All of our pike were caught on a home tied verson of the Goodspeed Sucker pattern. This fly has been a game changer for our success rate and hook-up to landing ratio. With neutral bouyancy and a side to side swimming action these flies key in on the stalk and swallow instinct of essox predators. We’ve found that we can fish these flies with a slower retrieve than more traditional pike flies. Since these flies are tied on a shank instead of a hook the hook becomes modular. We can add two or three split rings then whatever hook will balance the fly effectively. The split rings allow the hooks to ride further from the fly and move freely in the pikes mouth instead of rotating out like traditional long shank pike hooks tend to do. Also whenever a hook gets dull or bent we can simply swap it out with a new one instead of needing to tie a completely new fly. We’ve done best with barbless 1/0 trebble hooks as they are able to find purchase in the bony mouths of pike 3X more often than single point hooks. We’d love to get you on the water and show you how to fish these innovative flies. Just watching them move through the water is a huge confidence booster!

We have also run a couple of trout trips since we last checked in. As of this writing temps on the andro are still in the mid- to upper 40’s and trout are eating the usual late season fair of worms, mops and eggs. Streamers have also been effective, especially with clouds and low pressure, but they are taking some fish on most days. We’ve done especially well with kreelix style flies. The best bite windows have been later morning throuh early afternoon when temps are at their warmest.

Looking forward:

While a cold front rushes in today we expect temps to bounce back on Sunday and Monday. We have both of these days open abs they look prime for pike! If you would like to get out for Pike or trout give us a shout asap! The next couple weeks look to provide good pike fishing on most days. Expect bite windows to tend to fall late morning into early afternoon on the colder days with wider bite windows on days with temps over 50 F. From here on any days over 50 with low pressure will fish the best and the coldest days will still offer some bite windows but they will be much shorter in duration.

Please give us a shout if you would like to get out before the snow flies. We still have some time but it is going fast! If you are looking to get on the books for next season now is a good time to give us a shout as we have already started booking dates for Spring of 2025. Just a heads up rates are going up for 2025 a bit, prices will run as follows: Full day float $550, half day floats $425, full day wade $500 half day wade $350.

Thank you to all who have fished with us this season! We hope to see some of you this fall and many of you next season!

Tight Lines,

Nate

Mid-October Report

Hi all, it has been a great season here in the Whites. We’ve enjoyed guiding many of you and have had some great trips with some fun and memorable fishing. We have had some real fall weather the past two weeks and the fishing has been really good as of late with many good sized rainbows, salmon, browns and brookies taken on nymphs and streamers.

A 19” wild rainbow caught while nymphing a deep run last week!

Recent observations:

Right now the name of the game has been throwing streamers and nymphing larger food items like pink worms, prince nymphs, stoneflies, and mops. We have been doing well throwing kreelix streamers just about every day. All species seem to like the gold flash of this fly and we have had some very aggressive eats! We’ve also been seeing some BWO hatches in the afternoons with fish keying on the nymphs especially on the warmer days. We’ve seen a few fish rising but have had too much wind for a consistent dry fly bite the last week or so. I predict any days from now through the end of the month with little wind will have the wild rainbows looking up for BWO’s. While the regular trout season closed yesterday we still have four stretches of the Androscoggin open year round. We fished one of those sections yesterday and did well landing a few rainbows and browns see the fish of the day below! This past monday I took advantage of a last minute cancellation to scout for some upcoming pike trips. The weather was a bit spicy with heavy rain and an air temp in the mid 40’s so basically great pike fishing weather. We were able to land two pike on a 9” perch goophead perch fly tied by myself but designed by musky legend Joe Goodspeed. We are gaining a lot of confidence in these flies for their ability to suspend, push water and move laterally through the water column. These are key fly characteristings to entice pike as they are ambush predators that like a vulnerable easy meal. The most exciting part of the day was watching a couple of pike smash this fly as it landed on the surface. Unfortunately we weren’t able to get the hookset on either of these but we will surely be ready for those quick eats next time out! If you are interested in hunting these apex predators we have dates available through November.

Large brown caught 10/15/24 on the Androscoggin section open to fishing year round!

Pike on a goodhead style fly caught 10/14/24

Looking Forward

With warmer weather in the forecast the trout fishing should be very good for the next two weeks. Expect streamers and nymphs to work well in the mornings with potential for good blue winged olive hatches in the afternoons. Don’t neglet the slower water this time of the year as a lot of the trout are holding in tailouts and slower edges of the bigger pools. Habitat that is usually bass and fallfish water is now holding some of the biggest trout. The pike fishing should be good the next few days as cold overnight lows transition to warmer days. Expect the best bites to occur as waters warm in the mornings and right as the sun begins to set. We try to make sure we are fishing over our confidence water at these prime times of the day and it usually pays off with a few opportunities. Look for low pressure days to provide longer bite windows through the middle of the day.

One of many salmon caught streamer fishing last week.

While winter will be here before we know it we still have availability for both trout and Pike trips from now through November. The weather over the next two weeks looks to be near perfect with highs in the 50’s and 60’s nearly every day in the extended forecast. We have this saturday open as well as plenty of dates in the coming weeks so please let us know if you want to get out before the snow really starts to fly.

Tight lines,

Nate