Sometimes, last-minute plans come together.
Since I had no obligations last weekend, I decided to fish the White Mountains. Due to my late planning, I didn’t expect to find a room. Surprisingly, I found one in Gorham at a pretty reasonable rate.
Saturday
I returned to the wild fish section of the Androscoggin. Last fall, I fished this section and got into some quality bows. Today, I started at a familiar access point and explored a few more spots that I found on Google Maps.
The action was a bit slow early on. Some usual spots did not produce and I missed a number of fish.
However, it soon picked up, and I got into several fish. Although this section has quality fish, most of my fish were small. They fought remarkably like salmon, jumping and cartwheeling all over the place. My best fish of the day was a 12″+ beauty that tore off downstream after getting hooked.
I caught fish on pheasant tails and olive soft hackles, with many of the strikes occurring at the end of the drift, on the rise.
In the evening, I found some rising fish. Since there was a variety of insect species hatching, it was tough to narrow down fly selection, and I had to rotate flies. Most of my patterns were either ignored or splashily refused.
Eventually, I had success on an #14 EHC with an olive soft hackle dropper. A mix of wild brookies and bows came to the net with some fish launching themselves completely out of the water! I left the river at dark. Overall, I went 11-for-22.
Sunday
I woke up early this morning to squeeze a few hours of fishing in. I drove north to another stretch of river.
It was around 39˚F at daybreak, and the bite didn’t turn on until around 7:30. As such, it was a low-volume outing.
Overall, I went 3 of 4 with a holdover brown, stocked brookie, and baby smallmouth. I also had a handful of missed strikes. Pheasant tails and caddis pupa accounted for all the fish. I was off the water by 10 am.
Perhaps, the real highlights of the day were all the unique wildlife sightings I had while fishing. A couple ospreys had a field day catching recently stocked brook trout. A black bear effortlessly crossed the river about 100′ upstream of me, barely taking notice of me. I even saw a moose hanging out near the road.
Can you spot the moose?
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I’m only familiar with the stretch along 13 mile woods below Errol. Never Fished it but saw emense Alderfly Hatchs. Is that all wild fish?
The stretch in Errol has mostly stocked fish, although there are a few wild ones around. A lot of the wild fish consist of drop down salmon from Umbagog as well as some resident brookies. Further down in Gorham is all wild fish (and very few stockies from stocked tribs), but it’s mostly rainbows. I’ve never fished during the Alder fly hatch, but I’ve heard it’s great. Do they have the same hatch in Maine?
No clue about Maine hatches. When I am traveling through to Rangeley and have stopped for a break by the river, I thought the bushes were alive! they were with Alderflies!
Wow, that’s awesome! I’ve read other reports saying roughly the same. I feel at that point, the fishing would suck since there are too many naturals for fish to consider a few feathers tied to a hook.