Connecticut River Flow Update: 7/12

It’s been quite a forty-eight hour period that we just had here in northern New Hampshire. Lots of rain fell, maybe 4″-5″ of it total, which has dramatically changed our opportunities for fishing in our area.

Some parts of central and southern Vermont and New Hampshire received as much as 7″ of rain, an incredible amount that brings back bad memories of tropical storm Irene a while ago. Thankfully, our region didn’t get as much rain as that, but we still received a healthy dose, which has impacted our opportunities to get out on the water.

To give you an idea of the rain’s impact, the USGS river gauge below the Connecticut River’s junction with Indian Stream was around 450 CFS (295 CFS of which was from Murphy Dam at Lake Francis) prior to the storms. When it finally crested yesterday afternoon, the flow at the gauge registered 5720 CFS. It just got worse going downstream from there, as several more major (Halls Stream) and minor tributaries were dumping plenty more water in to the system.

It is dropping rapidly this morning at this writing, but it may take a period of days for drift trips to resume to the south of us. In response to the flooding through the valley, the flow at Murphy Dam has been dropped further to 187 CFS, and it might stay this way for a few days as things get under control. Meanwhile the Connecticut Lakes are filling from this event, so the flows in each section will increase at some point in order to get them back down to suitable levels.

Right now, the only fishable part of the river in Pittsburg is from First Lake Dam down to about Carr Ridge Bridge (flowing at 156 CFS today), where the flow is moderate and the water is clear. Below that point however, the river will be too high and presumably muddy to safely wade due to Perry Stream’s influence. Even below Murphy Dam, an area that is usually immune to the effects of big rain events, it was far too muddy to fish yesterday (image above).

We’re not sure when the flows below First Lake Dam and Murphy Dam will be increased, but we can expect the flows to perhaps go to 250 CFS below First Lake and 500 CFS below Lake Francis. Bring your wading staff if you’re coming up in the next couple of weeks … Streamers and nymphs should be the go to methods to catch fish when the flows go up.

In the meantime, Pittsburg has plentiful pond fishing opportunities to fish for willing brook trout. Bringing a kayak, canoe or float tube allows anglers more opportunities to fish when conditions are like this, and I took advantage of it last night on one of our local ponds. It fished well, and was a reminder that there’s plenty of other places to fish in our area when the river is blown out.