Just a short little story about our (T-Bone and Lee) fishing adventures in the White Mountains. Hope you enjoy.
Wildcat River Jackson NH
T-Bone and Lee Fish the Mountain Rivers By: Lee Goldsmith
Site Admin
It was not an early day, got up at 6:45am and met up with T-Bone (Theron) at the North Country Anglers around 8:40am. We headed out because the fly shop did not open until 10am. Off to the Rocky Branch, up 302 out of North Conway over the Ellis in Glen and turning onto Jericho Road. We followed the road to the end and parked at the gated area on Forest Service Land and got ready to fish. Into shorts and wading shoes for me and my trusty 6'6" 4wt glass rod. Theron and I walked up a logging road about 100 yards then cut over to the river which was only a short ways away. River was low but looked good, water is crystal clear in this stream and was not very cold. I did not temp the water but from what the Wildcat temp out at I would say 68 degrees.
First Fish of the Day goes to Theron
Fishing together we each tried a few pools with no results until I spotted a likely place and told Theron to try it. His fly no sooner hit the water and fish on. Theron was into a nice little wild Brook Trout. We kind of leap frogged each other up the river and I soon came to a good looking pool. The fly again just hit the water and fish on, it was a good wild fish about 8 to 9 inches long and he was off as fast as I had hooked it. DAMB that was a nice fish. No picture of that fish. We continued up river for a long stretch catching a few fish here and there when we came across a very large pool.
Theron's nice Brook Trout from the big pool
I happened to look up just as a fish was rising, came completely out of water, and told Theron to look. He saw the rings and proceeded to go after that fish. I walked around him so he could have at the fish and low and behold he caught one of at least two fish in that part of the pool. It was a fish about 9 to 10 inches long. We fished up river for a little longer with some success but not all that good, so we called it a day here at around 11:15am and headed back to the cars for some lunch and water.
After we eat a sandwich and had our fill of water we decided to go fish the Wildcat River in Carter Notch past the Eagle Mountain House. Took us about 20 minutes to get there and we started fishing at Meloon Road. Off to the River and a short walk down stream we came to where I most often start fishing back up stream. I told Theron to try the pool we were by but he told me to try it and that he would go down river after he changed flies. So I fished up stream and Theron fished down stream. It was very slow at first but soon I hooked and lost a wild fish and after a lot of drifts over it a stocked Brookie hit my fly. Landed the fish and tried to get a picture and missed, all I got was my empty hand in the picture. I fished up to the bridge with a few fish but not like I had expected. I temp the water and it was 64 degrees, low but cool. This was at around 1:30 pm so it was in the middle of the day. I then decided to go back down stream and meet up with Theron and see how he was doing. On my way down a missed one good stocky who would not come back for a second chance to get hooked.
One of Theron's good fish in the Wildcat River
Had one other fish, a stocky, hit my fly and miss and then come back and then come off the hook after a few seconds being on. I could see Theron at this point and fished down to him and did get into one real nice fish, a stocky, that was all of 10 inches and was a good fight on that small fly rod. Theron tried to get a picture but the fish would have no part of that and was gone in heart beat out of my hand. Theron informed me that he had gotten quit a few fish and had some good pictures to show me. We decided to call it a day at this spot but I wanted to show Theron one more pool on the River down stream from where we were at. We got back to our cars and had a drink of water and we were off down the road about a mile to another good section of river. We tried the big pool that almost always has a fish in it and we got nothing to come up. I fished a little riffle above that pool and did get two nice wild fish. As I was doing that Theron tried another riffle above me and was fast into a nice stocked Brookie. We went up stream a little more and I got into one more good fish that was also very camera shy and we did not get a picture. We called it a day here and we were both off to get home.
Here is a little slide show of Theron's pictures from this fishing trip.
Slide show of Pictures from the Rocky Branch and Wildcat Rivers
