Backwoods bassin' in northern New Hampshire

     Summer's are too short, especially when you're a high school  JROTC instructor/teacher on a 12-month contract with plans to do more and see more people than can possibly be squeezed into a 2500 mile road trip two-week vacation. But that doesn't stop me from trying.  As I'm writing this, I'm doing so from a hospital bed at St. Vincent's Hospital in Jacksonville, Florida recovering from total knee replacement surgery.

Native NH Brookie

    So I had 5 short days in the Granite State and those days would be filled with a golf outing with 3 high school buddies at Portsmouth Country Club, a family reunion at my brother's Maine camp, a day hiking with my bride on the Kancamagus Highway in the White Mountains (one fish / one cast ... see pic), a day driving up to the NH-Canadian border with my brother Marc for remote wilderness fly fishing on the Connecticut River in Pittsburg (covered in next post), and one day fishing with my son Eric at Archer's Pond in Ossipee.
     I am thrilled my son enjoys fishing.  So when he came up to New England, we planned a day of bass fishing since that's the species he's been targeting the past year or two in Texas. We decided to have a spin fishing versus fly fishing competition, and I humbly report he outfished me in both numbers and quantity.
     We used my dad's old 11-ft aluminum boat... the same one he used to troll for those big lakers on nearby Dan Hole Pond.  It's been patched about a dozen times, but it's lightweight and stable - ideal for paddling around a 10 acre backwoods pond.  We fished around the shoreline, honing in on submerged structure and there was a lot of downed timber. Eric caught a few really nice largemouth using a small lure that resembled a crawfish and had terrific action through the water.
    We missed a couple of really big ones that got tangled in submerged logs as the water clarity allowed for front row viewing. But god things come to those who wait... and are persistent and when Eric hooked into another big one, I paddled out to deep water as soon as he hooked up.  His biggest fish ever.

All in all we had a terrific time. He's now off to school at Texas Tech this fall.  I know he'll find a few bass ponds in the area.  I'm thankful there's another fisherman in the LaRochelle family.