Upper CT w Marc and Henry

Matt with first Salmon of the Adventure

Wednesday night found Henry, Marc and I eager with anticipation and sharing fishing stories over dinner and brown ale at Buck Rub Pub in Pittsburg, NH. This expedition to the trophy stretch of the upper Connecticut River had been almost a year in the making after my salmon-trout slam last year. Scott's brother Marc traveled up from Rochester and Henry from Philadelphia to make this adventure. After more liquid calories on the porch we settled into our bunks and slept fitfully anticipating the river. 

Matt, Marc and Harry (Henry)

We rigged up 4 and 5wts in the lot just below the 1st Ct Lake Dam accompanied by 2 other trucks, we had plenty of company.  There were two anglers between the path access and the dam so we elected to head down stream to familiar water where Marc and I waded in last year. There's a run-pool here characterized by 3 30' logs jutting out from a bend creating a banked "log pool" where we've had consistent success.  The fun started when I noticed a 15-16" salmon shrug his shoulders and latched onto my trail dropper about 12 feet away from my boots. This salmon wasn't an Ali-esque fighter but what he lacked in punch he made up for with beauty.

These cold water fish loved the prince nymph

Marc had started out a 150m downstream and by the time he worked up to us he'd already BTH two bows. Henry struck next in log pool with a rainbow seen here.

We continued to work out way up toward  the dam until we ran into anglers pushing downstream in our direction. There didn't seem to be a lot of action on this part of the run, but as our confidence and dual dropper technique improved we continued to pickup a mix of browns and bows almost exclusively on the lower (BH Prince) dropper.  

buy all the flies you want....then fish this set-up

Soggy subway Sammies lent us some energy at 1300 and we decided to head down to the Lake Francis Campground and fish up toward the skating rink. Marc and Scott had fished this water before but it was new to Henry and I. Above the campground we were alone, Marc pushed ahead to give us some space and Henry and I partner fished up toward the Skating Rink Pool. This is lovely fast water, more volume than at the dam as the river has been augmented by Perry Stream (at Junction Pool) flowing due south from its Canadian headwaters. We all picked up 2-3 trout in this stretch (small browns and bows) and ended our venture north at Docs Pool where the river bends 90 degrees to the East before entering the relatively hard to access "in-betweens".  Plumb tired and with the promise of ale.

Day two started back below the dam, Henry and I were determined to get as close as we could a fish the pools along the rocks just below the outflow.  This is fast, cold, brutal water, 46 degrees of channelized flow carving granite and creating a misty wind to slick the rocks.  Here's Henry teetering on stegosaurus plates with a rainbow. Make sure you watch for his priceless expression as he "Releases" his trout.

After the upper river we trekked back to log-pool to meet Marc who had walked a fair piece beyond the Log Pool into the in-betweens before he met us.   Marc was catching gorgeous bows and bowns like this.

I was fortunate again to pull a gorgeous brown out of log pool.    Here's the catch.

The three of us worked out way together back up toward judges pool and had a great time until we once again ran into other anglers beginning to push down from the Dam access.   Here's what it looked like looking upstream as we moved.

We caught a few more on the way up but this water had already been fished over still the rainbows provided some fun and great runs in the fast water.

Not wanting to get quite as starved as were yesterday we retired to the friendly (well sorta) tables of Happy Corner Cafe for a well deserved breakfast. We broke up at this point with Marc wanting to try his luck on the Mohawk East of Colebrook and Henry and I determined to try our luck in the smaller water beneath 2nd Connecticut lake where we'd heard from our new friend Tom, "I can't catch and brookies there cause the small salmon won't let it get to em".   This was too much for us to ignore so we drove about 10 miles north, rigged with 2wts and EH Caddis and walked down the streamside path until we slid into the cold water deep and dark in the small gorge.   The water is thinner here but still smokin through the narrow gorge and we quickly started picking up small (6-8") salmon in normal brook trout feeding spots.   These are beautiful little salmon and really very hard to tell from juvenile brown trout.  Here's a primer to tell the difference.

After the sheer pleasure of taking taking small salmon on 2wts we decided to give the big river one more go before heading south ourselves.   We walked in from Junction pool, new water for me and walked up river until we shede any other anglers.    This is lovely water, more runs then pools, but lots of pocket water and fishable runs can be found.  Here are two shots showing this great water.

Henry caught two browns in this section and I hooked an played a nice bow while sitting (exhausted) lazily on a rock.  Worn out and ready for a break we headed back on a fortunately found fisherman's trail on the East side of the river to end our time on the Connecticut.