2023: What a whirlwind of a year it has been! As a senior in high school, it’s been the year of college for me – even though my time in college won’t start until next year. While college applications and an intense academic and athletic schedule sucked up much of my time, I made a point to self-prescribe regular doses of outdoor medicine (or perhaps I was just fueling an addiction). According to my fishing log, I had 78 successful outings this year, plus a couple more without any fish. I caught fish every month, with July being the “fishiest”. Along the way, I met new friends, picked up new tricks, and discovered new spots. Here’s how my fishing went in 2023:
Winter
As we all know, last winter was one big disappointment on the ice fishing front. Save for one day in early February when the temperature dipped well into the negatives, the weather was never really cold enough for the ice to set up safely, at least not here in northeastern Mass. And when it was cold enough, the wind churned local ponds and broke apart whatever fragments of ice that had formed. I did manage one ice fishing trip to central NH, but the results were disappointing at best.
This meant, in large part, an extended fly fishing season. Despite conventional wisdom, which says that trout migrate out of small streams in search of deeper, larger water in the winter, I was surprised to find wild trout in many of the same spots I catch them throughout the rest of the year. Tail-outs of large pools proved to be the most productive spots. And although the general tendency is to limit a fly selection to only small nymphs, I found other patterns like junk flies, streamers, wet flies, and mid-sized nymphs to be just as effective when fished at strategic times.
Late season snows in March seemed to prolong that unbearable period between ice fishing and true spring fishing. They also began the frequent cycle of flooding that occurred throughout the rest of the year. This was a time for me to explore some local suburban streams that tend to get the bulk of my attention once the stocking trucks make their visits. Unsurprisingly, I found most of the fish in these rivers were fallfish, though a few wild trout also appeared irregularly.
Spring
Once trout were stocked in those same local streams, my fishing attention was devoted almost entirely to them. Over the years, I’ve found stockers to be very temperamental: one year you can have an absolute banner season, and the next you can fish in the same spots with the same flies and catch zilch. It’s ironic, because being as “mass-produced” and “industrial” as they are, stocked trout should be as easy to predict as feeding times in a hatchery.
Well, I don’t know if it was just one of those banner seasons, or maybe I really did find a stocked trout pattern. Regardless, I seemed to do pretty well this spring. With some insightful guidance from fellow Blog Fly Fish blogger Joel Watson, I really honed my tightline nymphing game. If I had one takeaway, it was that it is okay to fish a single nymph. It seems the current nymphing culture is hyper-focused on using two or even three-fly rigs. Logically, this doubles your efficiency by presenting multiple patterns at varying depths. However, anyone that’s fished with multiple flies understands there are inherent drawbacks. Rigging struggles (distance between flies, point vs. anchor, weight) and tangles unnecessarily complicate an otherwise simple activity. By using a single fly, you are free to experiment with bead size (the true difference maker) without the hassles of multiple flies. During the spring, that single fly was most commonly a Frenchie with a white collar. Bead sizes varied from 2.8 mm to 3.8 mm based on the speed of the water and the activity of the fish.
Come late spring, the variety of fishing quickly increased. Trying for shad in the Merrimack River proved a valuable learning experience, though ultimately fruitless. Some largemouth bass began to break up the monotony of trout fishing, and I even got out to the salt a couple of times for stripers.
As May turned to June, I took my first Maine trip of the year. Traveling and fishing with my grandfather, our destinations were the fertile ponds and rivers of the Rangeley region. One evening ended up being my most succesful stillwater outing to date, with nonstop action on emergers and streamers. The smaller fish seemed eager to come up and take a quickly stripped soft hackle right off the surface, while the larger trout stayed closer to the bottom, waiting for a streamer or a slower-moving soft nymph.
The remainder of the trip was spent at some popular spots on the region’s rivers. With the euro nymphing tricks I learned during the stocker season, I fully expected to catch just about every damn fish in the Magalloway River. Thankfully the confidence didn’t prove to be completely unwarranted, but the fishing didn’t play out quite as I’d expected. Though I was proud of the chunky salmon I fooled (and nearly drowned trying to land) at the Magalloway, it was the fallfish in the Kennebago that won the Largest Fish award. I am consistently impressed by the aggressiveness and power of fallfish, especially when chasing them with large streamers. Perhaps my favorite moment of the trip was the peaceful evening at the Rangeley River, where small trout, salmon, and shiners peacefully sipped dry flies under the hazy glow of the setting sun.
Summer
Just a few weeks later, I was back in Maine, this time on the expansive Sebago Lake. My quarry were the plus-sized smallmouth bass that lined the shallow, rocky shorelines as they prepared to spawn. This is easily my favorite time on the lake because big bass are easy to find, coldwater species are still fairly shallow, and the pleasure boaters are yet to arrive in full-force. Largemouth were also busy digging their beds in shallow, weedy bays, but they suffered from a serious case of lock jaw. No matter, since the smallies kept me plenty busy. All-in-all, I broke my personal best with a twenty-inch, four-pound fish, and caught plenty more in the three-pound range. Both a topwater Whopper Plopper and a Ned Rig tag-teamed to fool the bass. As with any good fishing trip, it was the biggest ones that managed to get away. Any fish over four pounds seemed adept at finding the nearest dock piling or sharp boulder to break me off on. They’ll haunt my dreams until I return next year.
The “grand finale” of the summer was my family’s trip to Montana for the Trout Unlimited Teen Summit. The fishing in Montana certainly spoiled me, but also refreshed my mindset by offering Western influences to my East Coast tactics. Coming off a big snow year, the Rocky Mountain rivers were still swollen and cold from runoff. For my first outing, I was directed to a small mountain stream where I was told I could gain some confidence. In truth, the experience did anything but that, as I learned that runoff in Montana is not to be taken lightly. Even though it was late June, the high water turned what might otherwise be a small creek into roiling Class IV rapids. However, this was an important learning experience. I discovered that anywhere there was slow water, there were trout. I came out of that first outing with just one streamer-eating trout to my name, but a wealth of new knowledge gained.
Subsequent trips on the larger waters of the Madison River and Flint Creek sharpened my dry-dropper game. Though I’ve used the rig at various times before, a dry-dropper with a high-floating Chubby Chernobyl and some type of tungsten-beaded nymph (Walt’s Worm, Higa’s SOS, Frenchie) now seems to have a permanent place on my leader during the warmer months. Again, anywhere there was slow water, there were fish, including my first-ever cutthroat trout. In a couple of hours at Flint, I even managed the Wild Trout Slam: a brook, brown, rainbow, and cutthroat.
During the Summit, I was grateful for the confidence boost the “pre-fishing” gave me. I attacked the streams we fished with an air of familiarity, assured that a dry-dropper in slower currents would typically produce a fish. What the trout lacked in size (my biggest were both around 14 inches, a brown and a cutthroat) they made up for in numbers, catchability, and sheer beauty. My big takeaway from this trip? I was in dire need of a new net. Damn-near every trout under 12 inches managed to wriggle its way through the large gaps in my rubber net. This wasn’t a new problem, but was exacerbated by the slender, muscular builds of the wild trout. I finally just gave up and asked other people to net my fish.
Local warmwater trips bridged the gap between fly fishing adventures. If it’s possible, I feel I’ve regressed in my bass fishing abilities. What used to be a super-tactical sport for me has often turned into a mere excuse to get outside. I still geek out on catching big bass occasionally, but fly fishing now consumes the bulk of my fishing energy.
I made a last-minute decision to join fellow board members of Native Fish Coalition on a White Mountain trout extravaganza in late July, and boy am I glad I did. I’ve fished a bit in that area of New Hampshire before, but never in the Presidential Range streams we fished on this trip. With plenty of rain throughout the summer (the devastating flooding was just a month prior), water levels and temperatures were ideal. The first day yielded a bounty of stocked rainbows and brookies, as well as some wild individuals of the latter. The second day offered the silliest dry fly fishing I’ve ever had, with both wild and stocked ‘bows and brookies on nearly every cast. While the fishing was lights-out, the real boon of the trip was fishing with some of my greatest mentors. Many lessons were learned as we leapfrogged up and down those mountain creeks.
In mid-August, a friend and I went on an epic adventure to Baxter State Park. I regret letting this trip go largely undocumented, but whenever I sat down to write about it, I felt I couldn’t effectively capture our energy in words. Our main objective for the trip was to climb Mount Katahdin – which we accomplished via a 2:15 AM wakeup and thrilling journey across Knife’s Edge. But I couldn’t travel all the way up there and ignore the world-class fishing opportunities. Roaring Brook, flowing off the steep faces of Katahdin, provided a cool respite for our weary legs upon our return down the mountain, not to mention some phenomanal small-stream brook trout fishing. The West Branch of the Penobscot, flowing right beside our Big Eddy campsite, yielded many hungry landlocked salmon that were happy to eat dry flies despite a chilling downpour and driving winds.
Even with the fantastic hiking and fishing, my favorite part of the trip was the accomodating ammenities provided by Big Eddy Campground. When the tire pressure indicator lit up my car’s dashboard 12 miles into the remote Golden Road, campground staff were happy to help us patch the tire and fill it up. In the evening, a respectful silence hushed the campground, despite all neighboring campsites being filled. And perhaps best of all, the outhouses were clean and dry. It’s these small details that make my return to the region inevitable.
Discovering new wild trout streams is a passion of mine, and I was lucky to do some of that as summer waned to autumn. Many of the streams were classic spring-fed, lowland brooks like you frequently find across Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire. The brook trout in these streams were dark, elusive, and, at times, quite large for small-stream fish. However nice these brooks were, they didn’t scratch an itch I’d had since my return from Montana: a mid-sized stream with a diverse population of wild trout, not just the cut-and-dry native brookies (I never said this itch was ecologically sound!). Finally, in the hills of central Mass, I discovered a river eerily similar to the Flint Creek I fished in Montana. Its wild browns don’t come easy, but that stream gives me a taste of the West whenever I find myself reminiscing.
Fall
In a grand finale, my family returned to Rangeley for one final Maine adventure of the season. All year, I dream about late September in western Maine: big fish, vibrant foliage, crisp air, and most importantly, no bugs. This trip began bright-and-early at a popular pool, where I only landed one trout before being crowded out by late risers (the human variety, not trout). Then it was off to a more remote stream, where the streamer fishing was as lights-out as I’ve ever seen it. Huge brook trout, landlocked salmon, and smallmouth bass greedily crushed SPF40 and Sex Dungeon streamers. One eager bass even took a swipe at my thumb when I let it linger too long in the water!
To close out the year, I’ve again found success tightline nymphing the white collar Frenchie for stockers. I’ve even mixed in a little indicator nymphing. Check out those Oros indicators if you haven’t yet – they’re game changers!Time has been very limited this fall , but fish have thankfully come easily when I get the chance.
In a busy, stressful year, fishing has kept me grounded to the thing I value most: the outdoors. Though I go fishing in search of adventure and fun, I cannot ignore the healing properties of the sport. When college applications or sports injuries got the best of me, a simple trip to a nearby pond, rod in hand, allowed for a peaceful, contemplative time. Going forward, I’ll appreciate the pleasant times had on the water with friends and family, but more than that, revere the pensive serenity of fishing.
Current Angler 