Outdoor Almanac
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KTP-Weekly Fishing Report

...very enthusiastic about the early season flounder reports. “We’ve seen a big resurgence in the amount of anglers that are out for flounder lately. This is a good sign that there are enough of these fish to warrant the enthusiasm. Right now it seems that the area around Rye Harbor and off the jetties there is a good bet with Hampton Harbor also producing good catches. Coming third would be the Little Harbor area in Newcastle, out in front of the Wentworth Hotel. Clams and seaworms are best baits.”

“The next best news is about mackerel. They seem to be everywhere from the Portsmouth bridges downriver to the ocean. From shore they’ve been catching them off of Newcastle’s shoreline and along the Portsmouth riverfront. Several people have told us that they’ve been hitting the mackerel with Sabiki rigs cut in half and taking the live mackerel and using them as live bait below balloon bobbers, allowing the mackerel to swim out into deeper water where they are getting stripers to take the macs.”

“Striper fishing has been very, very good. My brother Jim has already landed quite a few big fish, one 40 and one 44 inches long. Lots of other people have had similar luck. Striper guide Dick Pinney has caught 73 stripers in his last four trips with 16 of those being over the keeper size of 28 inches.”

“Outside in the deeper water, cod and haddock fishing remain very good, with haddock catches reminding us of the good-old-days. And some of the codfish are huge, up to and over 50 pounds. The area that is called the Mud-Hole about two miles south of the Isles of Shoals seems to be the hot codfish spot and Jeffrey’s Ledge, especially the northern end has been great for haddock.”

George Taylor at Taylor’s Trading Post in Madbury reports that along with the New Hampshire flounder spots, he has a group of fishermen that have been fishing the York River and they have had very good luck.

“Most of our striper fishermen are fishing from shore or the bridges. They are doing pretty well on schoolies with the Dover/Eliot Bridge doing well along with the Scammell Bridge at Dover Point. The shoreline fishermen at Dover Point’s Hilton Park always seem to pick up a few nice fish as well and we have quite a few that like the Newcastle Bridges down on the Piscataqua.”

“We’ve got some trout ponds nearby that continue to provide some quality fishing. Nearby Barbados Pond has great holdover trout and is open to both bait and artificals as is Wiland Pond in Somersworth. A real sleeper is the fly-only Stonehouse Pond in Barrington. This beautiful pond has no camps and when the sun is out and there are hatches, the brookies will feed on the surface providing some great dry fly fishing. Small midge dries or tiny emergers work well.”

“One of our other trout ponds that seems to be pretty slow so far this year is Bow Lake in Strafford. It may be because of late stocking but another lake, Pleasant in Deerfield has an improved launching and parking area and has seen some very steady fishing for brook, brown and an occasional tiger trout (which is a cross between a brook trout and a brown trout).”

In the Lakes Region, we caught up with Alan Nute from AJ’s Bait and Tackle in Meredith on his cell phone when he was out on the lake fishing. “We’re just setting out right now so we can’t give you any immediate news but the fishing has changed a bit with the emphasis changing from landlocked salmon and rainbow trout to lakers. And there has been some great catches with almost everyone that is targeting lakers landing from five to ten fish a day – no problem. Most of the fish are in the 40 to 50 foot range with the most productive baits being sewed-on shiners fished on leadcore line or off downriggers. The fish are not huge but nice size – three to four pounds and fat.”

“Bass on the beds-fishing is peaking. Lake Winnipesaukee and just about all the other mid-state lakes are just about as good as it gets! Non-stop action on the smallies. But as good as the bass fishing has been, it seems like we’ve hit a blank period for panfish. Not much doing that we’ve heard of about white perch or crappie but that can change from day to day.”

“We don’t get much information about the Squam Lakes, Lake Sunapee or some of the other big lakes but Sunapee had some of the larger salmon that were checked out last fall as did the Squams. Lake Winnisquam continues to provide some very good laker fishing with scattered salmon and rainbow trout but this lake is also a red-hot smallie producer this time of year.”

This just in from Captain Jamie Savage at Dover Marine: “The salt-water bite is officially on! Cod and haddock have been consistent on New Scantum, Jeffrey's Ledge and Stellwagon Bank but the inshore spawning grounds dried up this week. Teasers tipped with clams are producing big catches of haddock and several big wolf fish were taken on butterfly jigs. Big striped bass were landed last week as well – most caught on live mackerel on the coast and live river-herring up the rivers. Flounder seem to be plentiful this year with many reports of keeper sized fish coming from all along the NH and ME coast on seaworms and clams. Last but not least, the tuna are back earlier than ever. Several giants were boated last week on Jeffrey's and Stellwagon and many school-fish were hooked from Cape Cod to the Northwest Corner, although only a few were landed. These fish are measuring at 67-71 inches in the 200 pound range and reportedly liked a Sluggo spreader bar.”

“On our freshwater scene the rivers have been very productive for fly-fishermen. The Lamprey in Newmarket and Durham has had many hatches coming off lately including Mayflies, caddis and a few giant (2-inch) black stones! The Cocheco in Dover has lots of feeding trout as well – reportedly the riffles are holding browns and rainbows susceptible to prince-nymphs under a strike indicator,” Jamie ended.

Gabe Gries, Fisheries Biologist, Region 4/Keene produced this report that was just emailed to us: “I have been doing my best over the past month to reconnect with many angling friends and bass fish as much as possible before the busy upcoming field season. I started out fishing Thorndike Pond (Jaffrey) for smallmouth bass when water temperatures were still in the low 50s. While the bite was expectedly slow, we managed four nice bass on jerkbaits and caught a big yellow perch and pickerel as a bonus.”

“Traveling up north two weeks later to Forest Lake (Whitefield) had me fishing similar water temperatures. A few nice smallmouths were it for the day. Just like the previous trip, all fish came on jerkbaits in 6-8 feet of water off rocky points. One of my favorite spots, the Connecticut River, was next. Water temperatures were in the mid-50s and the water was up a bit that day (and muddy) as we fished in the Westmoreland section. The bass didn’t appear to be on the drop-offs just off shore, so we tried river mouths for a while and picked up a few bass at each, but nothing impressive in terms of size. We finally found them tight to the bank in scattered locations. Any fallen wood provided at least three good fish. We ended up catching over a dozen smallmouth with the biggest two going 4 lbs. Lures included tubes, jigs and crankbaits.”

“I still had yet to put a largemouth in the boat so we headed to a small pond in Richmond where even when water temperatures are low, there can be a surprisingly good topwater bite in some shallow coves. Well, we missed the low water temperatures on that trip, having the fish finder reading 63 degrees F, and quickly shifted tactics. We ended up fishing drop-offs with crankbaits and pitchin’ jigs into fallen trees. We managed a 3-lb. largemouth and another smaller one after a couple hours of fishing.”

“Catching the largemouth bug, I now wanted more, so we headed back to the Connecticut River’s setbacks in Hinsdale. These areas become quite vegetated by early summer, but when we fished them the vegetation was just below the surface, making for a terrific opportunity for some topwater action. Three fishing trips in 65-69 degree water yielded about 25 largemouths. Most fish came on buzzbaits, frogs, and Mann’s Wakebaits. The majority of fish were caught in scattered vegetation in 2-4 feet of water, while we caught some smaller bass tight to the shore by pitchin’ jigs and tubes. All fish were spawned out with the exception of one nice 4-lb. female.”

“A final mixed bag trip for smallmouth and largemouth to Monomonac Lake (Rindge) rounded out the month. We had a beautiful day in terms of weather, but not in regards to the fishing. Pickerel, perch and black crappie were abundant and couldn’t keep their mouths off the lures, but bass were harder to come by. The shorelines produced only a few small largemouths on tubes throughout the morning. Just before leaving, we decided to try drop-shotting off a sunken rocky reef in the middle of the lake. This tactic produced well, giving us several larger bass including a 3-lb. largemouth and 3-lb. smallmouth.”

“Don’t forget that at this time of year, walleye and bass can often be found in the lower reaches of larger rivers that flow into the Connecticut River. Some of my favorite spots include the Ashuelot River, Partridge Brook (Westmoreland), Mascoma River, and the Sugar River. My top picks this week for trout-fishing destinations include Dublin Lake (Dublin), Nissitissit River (Brookline), Frenches Pond (Henniker), South Branch Piscataquog River (New Boston), Granite Lake (Stoddard), Silver Lake (Harrisville), Stone Pond (Marlborough), and the Ashuelot River (Marlow, Surry). We hope you enjoy fishing this year in the Monadnock/Upper Valley Region and don’t forget to take a kid fishing anytime you can.”

“We are always happy to talk to you about fish and fishing so please contact us at Region 4 (352-9669; reg4@wildlife.nh.gov) if you have any questions. For a list of popular waterbodies to fish for by species, check out Suggested Fishing Locations for the Monadnock Region/Southwest NH at http://www.wildlife.state.nh.us/Fishing/fishing_forecast/Locations_Southwest.htm

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