It’s may be late April, but it is still the right time to employ cold weather fishing methods here on northern New Hampshire waters. At 37 degrees or so, the Connecticut River is chilly and will remain so until we actually see some concentrated sunshine.

Streamers in general are very effective here on the upper Connecticut River, but it may be all for naught if you’re presenting your flies the wrong way to the fish.

Chuck DeGray of North Country Fly Shop gave this beauty of a 23″ rainbow the proper presentation apparently – it was released to fight again another day.

Think like a small baitfish when you fish with streamers, and think about how they might behave, especially when the water is really cold. Much like when we nymph fish, “slow and low” is the mantra for early season streamer fishing. It is much different than streamer fishing in the summer, when the metabolism of trout and salmon are way up (as well as the baitfish they pursue) and they are most active.

Bumbled along this video the other day while researching proper streamer presentation tactics. Take a look – I found it helpful, especially when I had two tight mouthed Connecticut River trout on a couple of days ago in my first ten minutes on the water.

Now I’ll look for videos on how to actually land fish …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUfBIDv4_vI