Here We Go Again!

It is finally April!  This is the month of the holdover fish!  The giant snow pack is slowly melting and the fish are waking up.  I was able to get out with a buddy this past weekend and we were not disappointed.  There are a few areas with early season potential and more than anything I figured I would be practicing my casting.  After about a half hour of no strikes, I made a few changes and hooked into a nice bow.  The feeling of electricity was shooting through my body and the blood was pumping through my veins.  The bow leapt three times and was surprisingly active for the water temps he was swimming in.  I got him to net and took an extra few seconds to admire the beauty of his colors and then he was back off and swimming.  My buddy hooked a real honker as well and we had a great few hours of early season fishing.  This is just the beginning and I am eagerly looking forward to this season.  I enjoy nothing more than the anticipation of what a full season ahead of me may bring.  More than anything I am looking forward to guiding and fishing with like minded people and creating some great memories and stories for years to come.  I am completely booked for southern NH at this point and have already started to book Pittsburg trips!  If you have any interest in getting a Pittsburg trip in the books, get in touch soon as the prime dates are going fast!  In the meantime, if you have any questions, feel free to ask!  Here are a couple of our bows from this past weekend!

Happy 2015 and Pelham Fly Fishing Show Presentation!

Hi Everyone!
     It's a new year and there is a lot of work to be done in preparation for a great year of guiding! Though it sure doesn't feel like it, spring is just around the bend.  I am already booking spring local trips as well as Pittsburg trips for the summer!  The next big mark on the calendar is the Pelham Fly Fishing Show which takes place on March 7th and 8th this year.  I will be doing a presentation on Fly Fishing Pittsburg around midday on both days.  I am very excited to share some detailed videos and pictures of some of the adventures you can have in Pittsburg!  I will once again be sharing a booth with Tom Jutras as well.  He is also doing a presentation on Fishing Northwestern Maine so be sure to stop in for that as well!  Here is a schedule of events so please stop over to our booth and chew the fat a bit with us!  If you are interested in booking, I will be offering my "Pelham Deal" once again.  If you get a trip in the books while you are at the show, I will take $25.00 off the top!  Looking forward to a great year!

Patrick@fishstoryguideservice.com  

Catch UP!

Hello Everyone!
     I have a bit of catching up to do!  Lets get to it. After the season finale in Pittsburg, my main focus quickly switched to hunting.  I was lucky and did actually tag a deer this fall with my muzzleloader.  I just put a few packs of steak on the counter to unthaw as I plan to make some steak and cheese subs later this afternoon with a friend.  But I digress... So mixed in with the hunting, I did get out one last time for some big land locked salmon.  What a great way to end the regular season!


Kev with a big boy!

Mr. Kyper

 

After our season closed here, it was off to the Salmon River in November.  This year was going to be a blast mainly due to the people who would be fishing with us.  My buddies Kev, Greg and Nate were all ready to get in on some serious steelhead mayhem.  This was to be my only trip out to NY this fall and I wanted to make the best of it.  It has really come to a point now, after fishing the SR for many years, that numbers are not what we need.  Instead, it is more important for some sort of adventure to take place, stories to be told and new catch phrases to be created.  With home made brews and "Electric Chickens" mixed together, it turned out to be a great trip.  As far as the fishing went, I would say it ranked right up there as one of my most successful trips ever. The hookup to landed ratio was great.  The water flows were perfect at around 1000 cfs the entire trip and the fish were where they were supposed to be.  Between Kev and I we went 24 for 50 on landed to hookups in 2 and a half days of fishing.  As always this just leaves me wanting more.  I hope to give it another go in the winter, but usually run out of time!  Either way here are some of my favorite fish.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Pittsburg "Thunk and Dunk"

So how is everyone?!  I am skipping the apologies and going right for the goods here.  Lots of people have been asking me to get on the ball and get this blog updated!  So here we go!  The past month has been the first half of my favorite time of year.  We are just starting the second half and I am really looking forward to it.  I spent almost all of my weekends in Pittsburg right up until the end of the fishing season up there and it was a blast!  The salmon showed up just about right on time and the anticipation of searching for the "monsters" drove us forward each day.  I mixed in guiding, fishing with my father and bow hunting and the balancing act was not a bad problem to have.  When October came around the "Cast and Blast" crew arrived and there seemed to be quite a few folks on the popular sections of river.  I decided to call my endeavor a "Thunk and Dunk" as I was not bird hunting with the gun, but rather bow hunting.  Unfortunately I have yet to "Thunk" my deer, but I have dunked many fly lines and clients were rewarded nicely.  I will leave the rest of the explanations to the pictures.  I am completely booked up for the fall and am starting to book for the spring and summer of 2015!  Let me know ahead of time if you are looking to get a trip in the books! I will continue to update throughout the fall with personal trips and hunting adventures, so check back and leave a comment anytime!   

Fall Colors on the Connecticut

Peter and his nice brown!

My Last Pittsburg Salmon of the year!

Fall in New Hampshire!

Sorry for the long delay everyone!  Things get a bit crazy when I return south and start a new school year of teaching!  We are in full swing Fall Mode right now!  Bow season starts on Monday and the leaves are beginning to change.  Salmon are around in a lot of the normal areas.  Brookies are getting colored up and starting to feed more aggressively.  I do still have a select few days left for a trip if you are interested, but the season end is fast approaching.  If you are a long term planner and want to get in the books for 2015 let me know as the "prime" dates are already starting to fill.  In the meantime, I will be guiding, fishing and enjoying the outdoors as much as possible in the next few months!  It really is a great time to live in New England!  Hope to see you around!  As always if you have any questions or comments please feel free to email me!

Patrick@fishstoryguideservice.com

End of Summer... Bring on the Fall!

I am almost wrapped up with the end of my summer guiding in Pittsburg.  I only have a couple of weekend days open for Pittsburg in the fall as well.  As much fun as it is to fish and guide in the summer, I am looking forward as always to what the fall season has in store.  Between guiding, fishing, hunting, running and teaching, I should be pretty busy.  If you are interested in my availability for the rest of the fall either up here in Pittsburg or down on the Three Rivers area, please let me know soon, as I am sure to be booked up quickly.  I wish there was more time in the fall to squeeze it all in!  We have been catching fish lately on dries: sulfurs, terrestrials, and all of my go to nymphs have been doing the trick.  I had a great evening recently where I found myself right smack dab in the middle of about a dozen, large, surface feeding fish.  The best part was putting the puzzle together and in turn having a successful last hour of light that evening.  Drifting dries to specific fish and watching their noses come out to sip in your fly, there is not much better than that.  Hope to see you all on the river! 

- Two things that popped into my head the other day: 

1.  If you see me on the river and we have met before, please do not take offense to me not remembering your name.  I am the first to admit that I have a horrible memory when it comes to adult names.  Give me a picture of one of my students from 8 years ago and I can name them, but with adults I just draw blanks!  The best thing to do is just come right up and say "Hey Patrick, so and so here, we met here, or we fished here together"... and so on.  I feel so bad when I am talking with someone and I know their face and even can tell you some of the fishing we did together, but can't remember their name!

2.  Feel free to comment on any of these blog posts!  I had someone tell me that they were not sure if they were supposed to comment on the posts.  I would love to hear your comments and or ideas about all things fishing!  If you have any other questions also feel free to shoot me an email anytime!

Patrick@fishstoryguideservice.com

The "Canoe" ...

Well, I finally went and did it.  I decided to buy a nice canoe to use for guiding and exploring.  I had a couple of days to try her out in the past week or so and it has been a blast.  The idea was to give myself another option for taking folks out if the rivers were too high.  This would allow us to check out many of the remote ponds for beautiful brook trout.  The canoe is a 14' 6", nice and wide, Old Town , Saranac 146.  It has three seats, but the front and the back seats have cushioned back rests.  It tracks well and is perfect for one angler to sit and fly cast out of the bow while I paddle and position you from the stern.  I was able to test this process out with my favorite "sport", (my father), and if he was able to be productive, I would say anyone has a great chance as well!  Here are some pictures of the fun we had this past week.

What is it?

Canoe Gem!

The king of the pool!

Great View!