New Hampshire, and the entire fly fishing world for that matter, lost a great one this week as Ellis Hatch, legendary fly tier, angler, and conservationist passed away. We got to know Ellis as a long time guest here at Tall Timber, and he was a kind, thoughtful gentleman, and we were fortunate to secure his fly tying services for our fly shop for many years.
Our Tall Timber family of fishermen lost a good one this week, Richard Puttkamer, but everyone around here called him simply “Putt”.
The Trophy Stretch continues to fish great . Actually, I’ve heard it’s AWESOME!
OMR guided Ginette White and myself yesterday on the Connecticut River. We did the upper drift from Canaan, VT to the Rest Area just north of Colebrook. We had a fabulous day. Lots of fish, especially at the top end of the drift.
Jon had us running two nymphs, a TH Pheasant Tail up front, with a BH Dirty Bird as the dropper. The Dirty Bird (OMR’s go to nymph)slayed em and the PT picked up a few nice trout as well. There were a few caddis around.
We picked up lots of really nice rainbows in the 13 to 14 inch range, a few brook trout and one brown.
We also ran into a few rising fish. We noticed Blue Wing Olives coming off also. My BWO dry fly of choice is the Challenged Pheasant Tail and it worked great on those feeding fish.
We got several more trout in the afternoon still nymphing but then I did decided to change it up and bang the banks with a Zoo Cougar. The Zoo Cougar moved a few fish and I landed several nice rainbows. I did hook a monster Brown??? that was laying by a log jam. That got my heart pumping.
Next time Mr. Brown……I know where you live!
We had a great shore lunch, with some adult beverages and the weather cooperated too. It was a great day to be on the Upper Connecticut River.
The Trophy Stretch is still fishing well and the water flows are great from all three dams in Pittsburg. Cold water too.
If you can sneak away, especially mid week, come on up for some great trout fishing.
Greetings from Antarctica. At least that’s what it feels like especially for Jon and me. We just returned from a bonefishing trip to Andros Island, so these cold temperatures are a little hard to take.
We weren’t sure if we had Yosemite Sam or Scarface in the boat with us yesterday. Tom wanted to catch fish no matter what. (No worries folks. It was only his starting pistol to train the dogs).