Semper on the Fly: July 2025

Blasting up to northern New Hampshire to beat the Florida summer heat meant spending some time at the family camp in Ossipee, seeing family and friends, and oh yeah, spending time on home waters chasing (mostly) trout.

Carole and our grandson Zane spent a few days at Duncan Lake, and we spent a few hours trolling for brookies and/or rainbows. With tempered expectations - July trolling has not historically proven highly successful - we pressed ahead. In two evening outings, Zane caught 4 rainbows and I caught one, but one pushed 14-15"!

They flew back to DC and Florida, not without hiccups in the flights on July 9th out of Manchester, and son Eric flew in from Houston same day in Portland so I had some hopping around. We planned to do some bass fishing to one of our secret local ponds and we also gave Duncan a shot trolling. Archers Pond is a great place to catch fish - any fish. The pond holds largemouth, chain pickerel, yellow perch, bluegill and crappie. We caught'em all! Eric used this wonky crayfish lure that I never would have thought using and he caught all five species (need to come up with a name celebrating catching all five species?). He caught a couple big pickerel, a big perch, but not the big largemouthhe was hoping for. I caught a couple decent bass casting poppers and a few bluegills.

We spent a night trolling Duncan and the bite was on! We caught six - all rainbows - and after a nice 14 incher, Eric landed a a beast that pushed 17-18 inches. A black Wooly Bugger was the hot fly, and they hit everywhere - in front of Browns' camp, off the point, in front of the boat launch, down by the public beach...

After Eric left, I spent three nights trolling for an hour each night before sunset and picked up 2-4 each night, and several nice rainbows once again. Go figure!

Finally, I had the chance to head north to Pittsburg. Marc couldn't make it so I ventured up solo. I did some research on potential new areas to fish and one caught my eye. A feeder stream into the Mohawk River was my target. After checking out several access (and non-access) points, I found a spot to jump in. Three casts with a Golden Retriever netted three brook trout so I switched quickly to dries and the bite stayed on. An Elk Hair Caddis worked well and eventually became waterlogged so I switched to a Parachute Adams and that kept it going. I landed about 15 in 2-3 hours. Nice water, I hope it stays that way in the future.

The next day I went to the Trophy section of the Connecticut, but found 18 vehicles in total at all the pullouts... are you kidding me? So I ventured for some new waters - the river between the 1st and 2nd Connecticut Lakes. After hiking about 30 minutes from the dam downstream I jumped in. Over the next few hours I hit lots of pocket water and caught 20 brookies and salmon - all on dries (Parachute Adams and Caddis). Nothing big. After a short lunch break I headed to the Trophy section for a couple of hours in the late afternoon. I caught a beautiful rainbow in Doc's Pool on a stimulator (pic below), but failed to get a pic. I caught a gorgeous brookie in the Judge pool (pic below) and caught a few others as well - all on dries. I caught a couple more working up to the corner pool. They opened the dam and the flow was a bit too much to hit the home stretch leading up to the dam.

The next day I headed to Colebrook to fish a favorite brook trout stream, but after three hours and 1.5 miles of wading upstream, I walked out skunked! That stream just isn't the same anymore - the water temp felt much warmer than it should have and the trout were nowhere to be found. I did see a group of 4-6 small trout sucking the oxygen and cooler water flowing from a bit of water trickling into the stream. Too bad. After being physically worn out - the deer flies were non-stop, I decided to take a break and play nine holes at the Colebrook Golf Club, a course that includes a Par 6 625 yard uphill hole (I got a 7 on that hole)! Feeling rejuvenated, I headed to where I fished the day prior, but walked downstream a ways before starting - am I glad I did. I caught 10-12 brookies (Adams) in 3-4 pools right from the start. I fished the last pool, which was the first pool from the day before and landed 5-6 from that one hole. Great water... and cold! Only 5 miles from the other lifeless stream, but the temp had to be 8-10 degrees colder. I jumped in the truck and fished part of the stream Marc and I had good luck a few year back... and although it didn't look promising, I caught another 10 brookies, including 5 in one hole before calling it a day.

All of which brought me to my final day in Pittsburg. Truthfully, I was pretty worn out and unsure if I'd fish on my way out of town. My go / no go decision would be the number of fishermen parked at the cemetery on Route 3. I left Lopstick at 10 am and saw there was only one truck, so I stopped and loaded up. I rigged two rods, my 5-wt with a dry, and my 10ft 2-wt Euro nymphing rig, which I have yet to crack the code on. I had low expectation so I thought - why not. I started nymphing at the pool above Doc's pool, and in the first five minutes hooked a huge salmon that skyrocketed out of the water and spit the #18 red copper john. I did catch one smaller salmon with the copper john, but never felt I was Euro nymphing the way I see it done on YouTube by others.

So I walked down to Doc's Pool and began with a dry - a stimulator. The sunshine and water clarity allowed me to see several trout come up and turn so I was encouraged dry fly fishing might be on but that I had the wrong fly. BINGO! I switched to a Green Drake that I had success with last year and added a #16 Light Cahill about three feet behind. The next 45 minutes were arguably the best fly fishing I've ever experienced on the Connecticut, maybe anywhere for that matter. Big rainbows and big salmon - 12-16" continuously across the entire pool. A second person could have captured unbelievable video and pics but I managed to snag a few pics with my phone while worrying about dropping it in the river. Awesome. After the bite finally cooled, i walked down to the Log Pool. The water looked terrific, but nothing on dries. I did Euro nymph another salmon so that was encouraging.

At that point I was ready to call it a morning, and as I walked back out I told myself if the Judge Pool was open I try that for a few minutes otherwise I'm done. It was open and so I jumped in. Yikes! I lost another big salmon right off that bat when it spit the Cahill, but I caught and landed several nice rainbows when the skies opened and a downpour ensued for about 15 minutes. I hung out in the trees until it stopped and caught one more rainbow (no rain no rainbow!) ending my trip trip with a nice fish on my final cast.