We’ve had some unsettled weather here in northern New Hampshire this week, with reports of a tornado having touched down in the area of Back Lake on Monday afternoon – thankfully, no damage for us on our property, but there were quite a few trees taken down not too far away.

What does this have to do with fishing?

Not much – just wanted you all to know that we bring you these reports under duress, at times. It’s not all peaches and cream on the Upper Connecticut River folks …

It was pretty good however for long time guest (and Jon Howe client) John Bosch – he caught and released this beautiful 5 lb. Connecticut River brown trout on Tuesday.  He caught it on a fly very similar to the “Scout”, a famous streamer pattern tied by Angus Boezeman.

The official story is that John and Jon had just spied a fleeing smaller trout, skipping across the water.  Being “OMR”, Jon has literally seen it all, and correctly deduced that the smaller trout was trying to escape from a larger trout.

Quickly tying on the Scout, Bosch had the trout pictured above a cast or two later – yes, that fish had the feed bag on and nothing would stop it from eating.

The fight was a good back and forth, with backing involved, but Bosch goes fishing for steelhead – in other words, this isn’t his first rodeo, so he knows how to handle large salmonids. The behemoth was released to the depths to prey on more small trout, ducks and mammals presumably.

Even with the dumping of rain that we received on Monday, the Connecticut Lakes remain lower than normal – we just haven’t been able to recover from our less than stellar snowfall last winter. This has meant another drop, albeit a small one, in the river flows out of 1st Connecticut Lake (flow now at 125 CFS) and Lake Francis (flow now at 270 CFS).

A colorful Trophy Stretch brown trout, landed by a client of Chuck DeGray.

While these sections of the river may be easier for us wading fishermen, the trout will be extra wary now, so approach the river quietly and bring along your 6x leaders and tippet – you’re going to need it.

While the occasional big fish is still landed on a big streamer, it sounds as though small (18 or 20) caddis  and BWO patterns are still your best bet for the most part.

CDC Caddis, Cornfed Caddis, CDC BWO, etc. are all good ones to take with you to the river, and don’t forget the Yellow Sally – stoneflies are a big part of our trout’s diet, so have a few with you just in case.