I had the pleasure of volunteering as a counselor for New Hampshire’s Trout Unlimited Trout camp earlier this week.

As a habit, I like to pre-fish. Fellow counselor and friend Robert Lafreniere was gracious enough to invite me to fish and camp with him the night before. His plan was to start late and target some of the larger wild browns in the Saco River with mouse patterns.

After a quick stop at North Country Angler, I met with Robert and his friend Griff at a popular access point in the fly fishing only section. With no discernible hatches, we decided to fish terrestrial patterns. Unfortunately, the fishing was fruitless for the most part. We fished all the likely areas with only a few takes from overzealous chubs. Despite the heavy rain the night before, the water was quite skinny.

The action seemed to pick up slightly approaching nightfall. I saw a couple rises and picked up a lone brown before re-rigging to fish mice. However, our mousing was cut short due to an approaching thunderstorm.

Overall, I enjoyed my experience despite the lackluster fishing that evening. The river definitely has potential, and it is easy to see why it’s lauded as a great dry fly fishery.