Grand Slam + Brown Ale on the Upper Conneticut River with Marc

A Rainbow falls for a Prince nymph on the Upper Ct River

 and so I hear that...a river runs through it

Inspired by Scott and Marc's yearly reports of great fishing on the Upper Connecticut River I decided to leverage a trip to NH for my brother Tim's birthday to steal a day on the river.   Scott and I chatted about it and I was soon on the phone with his brother Marc working out the details.   I arrived in Manchester Thursday evening and Friday morning I found Marc at the Buck Rub Pub a few miles north of Pittsburg, NH. 

As a boy I'd been as far north as Colebrook hunting rabbits with my friend Phil Bruce, but I'd never been this far north in my home state...you're really up there, 30% of the radio stations are in French and you pass a sign for the 45 parallel on the way north.

LopStick Outfitters (with a small Orvis Fly Shop) has a really nice map of the trophy section of the upper Ct (as you can see here) with all the pools and runs named. For later reference we fished the spillway down to  'Pockets' pool.

Upper Ct River flowing beside Daniel Webster Hwy at Sunrise

The Connecticut River is one of our nation's great river systems, it's rich in history and fish, lies west of the Merrimack River and for much of its course is the border between NH and Vermont as it carves a beautiful river valley.  It's a mighty warm-water fishery as it enters Long Island Sound and a far smaller tail-water as it gains volume spilling between the 4 Connecticut Lakes in Northern New Hampshire.  

Looking up at 1st Ct Lake Spillway from trail terminus

The Connecticut used to have Atlantic sea run salmon and other anadromous species running up it in spawning-swarms, but over our countries' earliest years progress happened and damming the river killed off the great fish runs.   In 1866 Atlantic salmon were brought to the Connecticut Lakes from the St. Croix River and have reproduced naturally re-developing a mature salmon fishery in these northern waters.  These are the same species as Atlantic sea-run salmon, the ancestors of these salmon were trapped in fresh water lakes at the end of the last glacial period.

Brown trout from Pool behind me. This was as far up as we could venture

 Along with the landlocked salmon, the Upper Ct, like its famous eastern neighbor the Rapid River, has a healthy population of feisty brook trout.  While this may seem curious, recall that that "brook trout" are actually in the char family, the same as Salmon, and are not genetically trout (like a rainbow or a brown) "brook trout" is just a naming convention.   The Upper Ct also harbors a resident population of rainbow and brown trout that will bend your rod.

Turbulence evident as I kept this little brown in the water

Marc and I had a nice breakfast and made our way to the spillway access road below the 1st Ct Lake and rigged up.  Scott recommended that I fish with a 4wt, but having loaned my best 4wt to a friend for a trip to the Yellow Breeches I began the day with a newish medium-fast ROSS 9' 5wt, a proven smallmouth slayer, but had yet to bring a trout to hand.  I rigged with a 9' 4x Leader with a strike indicator, #16 beadhead pheasant tail nymph, dropper-tippet, split shot and then a #16 copper john.  Marc rigged similarly with a 5wt Access.

River was loaded with these fiesty little browns

I was anxious and ready a few beats before Marc so I made my way down the path and headed toward the spillway.  The water was lower than Scott and Marc had fished it last and immediately fishable.  I had two roll-rises but no hook ups in the first 'slow-water' pool as my rig drifted from left to right.   I knew it would be a good day. In the second pool I was reminded of the importance of line-maintenance and discipline when casting a tandem rig with indicator and split shot as I had to re-rig quickly to get rid of a tight nest of knots.  While I was re-tying Marc approached from below and quickly hooked a good sized fish that he enjoyed for two minutes before it spit his fly and returned to the deep, turbulent run. We each caught a small fish or two, browns and brookies as we made our way toward the spillway as far as the cliff would allow.  I was rewarded by a nice brown trout in uppermost pool and after a quick pic we retreated back happy with the brown and equally happy not to have taken a dunk in the fast cold water.

River in Vicinity of pockets pool where we jumped back in

We walked back to the truck and then two wooded hills downstream and made our way back into the water in the vicinity of Pockets Pool.  Mark took up station below me and we were soon stalking runs and pools hollering at each other with each new hook-up.

Marc, 'Fish-on' in vicinity of Pockets Pool

Marc noticed trout rising to his indicator and switched to a large stimulator pattern and caught 4-5 beauties and missed as many in a run-pool formed by a large log jutting out into the river.

Marc smartly changed to a large dry and slammed several including this nice rainbow

After a fish of three he called me down and put me on my largest brookie of the day in the same run.

Marc put me on this large brookie and put a smile on both our faces

Fish on with Marc looking on

We fished upstream together and fished the heck-outta Judge's Jury Box Pool, Marc from bank-side casting upstream me from the left side casting up and across and sweeping down from left to right. We took salmon and trout from the pool until after 5 fish the pool needed a rest. 

 By this time a guide returned upstream of us with 2 novice anglers and with upstream having been walked through/fished through we headed back to the truck to re-group.

Above the dam looking at the 2nd Ct Lake

Path to river below 2nd Ct...we took the path for 200 yards

Marc suggested that we hit the river just under the 2nd Ct Lake for and see if we could raise some trout in this skinnier water.

skinnier water

The river here is 50% smaller but channelized and still fast as it cuts its way through a gorge enroute to the 1st Ct Lake, for the first 30-minutes we (Marc) only brought one small trout to hand.

We resolved to move more quickly toward the spillway and were rewarded by more trout in lovely pools and runs.  We each caught several as we approached the spillway.  Sore but with big smiles, ready to catch more but knowing we each had long drives ahead we fist bumped and called it a great day on the upper Ct river.  A grand-slam of brookies, browns, rainbows and salmon behind me, I can see why Scott and Marc each love this river.

We ended the day where we began at the Buck Rub Pub with brown ale and pizza before the long slog back to southern NH.

end of a great day