I apologize, good readers … once again I have been slack in maintaining the fishing blog, but I have good reasons – a new vehicle had to be purchased this week for navigating all of the logging roads this fall, so it had to be done. German Shorthaired Pointers must ride in style to the hunting grounds …

What of the fishing, you may ask? Nearly all stretches of the Connecticut River continue to produce pretty well, even with the lower water flows that we’ve had to endure.

Though it’s not as dire here as the central and southern parts of New Hampshire, we need rain bad to help us (and the trout) out.

The Trophy Stretch continues to flow at 125 CFS, and there’s plenty of trout and salmon in there to keep you busy. Even with the elevated water temperature here (upper 60’s as of last week), the fish are thriving in the broken, more aerated parts of the river.

Sounds like all of the normal patterns for this time of year are working, with caddis and BWO patterns being the most effective dries (6X is a good idea). As for nymphs, the typical beadhead nymph up front (Prince, PT, Copper John) with a soft hackle dropper (Hatching Pupa, UV2 Glitter Soft Hackle Olive, Zebra Midge, Flashback Quill Midge) off the back is working fine too.

Keep your Stimulators handy, along with some Hopper and Ant patterns, and you should have all of the bases covered.

The flow below Murphy Dam at Lake Francis remains steady at 275 CFS, with a water temp of 55 degrees this morning – in other words, perfect for trout.

There were plenty of them showing themselves this morning, and they apparently had to learn the hard way from Chuck DeGray (pictured above) of North Country Fly Shop that they shouldn’t be doing that sort of thing.

He caught and released quite a few on the “Ugly Duckling” – a hybrid of an elk hair caddis hackle with a BWO body – whatever it is, it works pretty well. Mostly browns from what we could tell down there, but there were a few rainbows around too.

More to the south of Pittsburg, the trout are similarly active. Our guides Dave Poole and Jon Howe have done some drifts from Canaan, VT to Colebrook, NH this week with good results. In addition to small BWO patterns, terrestrials are really starting to produce some fish, so the Cinnamon Ant in particular should be in your arsenal.

You don’t usually hear too much gossip about the pond fishing in Pittsburg at this time of year, but Dave Poole took a chance at Coon Brook Bog this week with some clients and they did great – a Parachute Adams did the trick as they caught and released several dozen brook trout in one morning.

That’s pretty good fishing anytime of the year, but especially good in August.

Give us a call at 1-800-835-6343 if you need to get out on the water.