A Week in the Whites

I spent the last week of August fishing and camping with a friend in the beautiful White Mountains of New Hampshire. The weather forecast leading up to the week looked iffy, with at least a 50% chance of rain every day, but we elected to go anyway - a little rain rarely inhibits fishing. In fact, some of my best days of fishing have come in the rain.

In the end, the weather turned out better than expected. Though we did get rained on a few times, it was mostly overcast with temps in the 60s - perfect trout fishing weather.

Our first destination was my favorite remote pond. I was hoping to match the success of my previous trips to this pond, but unfortunately conditions did not cooperate. We found the pond quite low and fairly warm. The only place we found fish was at the mouth of a frigid tributary, but we stopped fishing after realizing nearly every fish in the pond was holding there.

On Day 2 we drove north to fish a few streams originating high in the Presidential Range. The first stream emerges at over 4000' in elevation, then falls about 2500' over 3.5 miles before entering a relatively flat meadow in the valley. We knew the meadow stretch would have cold water due to the stream's high elevation and steep gradient, but would also likely have deeper, slower water than most of mountain streams, and therefore could possibly have some bigger fish.

One of the prettiest fish of the trip 

Wild Blueberries

We caught brookies in nearly every pool. It's rare to find a nice meadow stretch in New England - most meadow streams are too warm for trout. The combination of deep, slow pools and ample casting room made for some fun fishing.

Later in the afternoon we fished the Peabody River, which also has its source in the Presidential Range. We caught stocked brookies, stocked rainbows, and even a few small wild rainbows. The water here was crystal clear, and the fish were much more selective than typical mountain stream trout. The fishing was a little slower than the morning, but it was a fun challenge.

Peabody River wild rainbow

Mt. Jefferson covered by clouds

On Day 3 we packed up camp and fished the upper section of the Pemigewasset River in Franconia notch. We both caught several nice brookies in the deep pools formed from the granite bedrock. The water here was crystal clear, so we could see the fish dart through the water column to smash our hopper patterns.

Pemi Brookie with a broken mandible

After that we headed home, satisfied from a great fishing trip.