New Hampshire / Maine brookie bummin trip 2025

6.5_sWv

6.5_sWv

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Mar 5, 2019
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Im super late in posting thesepictures, things got busy late in the summer and then next thing Iknew it was hunting season. Nevertheless, here it is. A littlebackground first though.

I've always wanted to catch a brooktrout in all the east coast states where they are native. I'vealways wanted to go visit Maine and New Hampshire just because I'venever been. This trip was hatched up with my wife, my cousins, and over a late night winter campfire. Late Winter into early Spring, Istarted doing a great deal of research and I even got some help fromsome of the board members here. I sleuthed the internet and foundlots of semi confirmed streams rumored to have populations. I evenbought a Delorme Gazeteer and highlighted the streams that we mighttarget. The trip took place from July 20 to the 26th. Anyways, itwas a fantastic trip, never to be forgotten, and the only negativewas the stupid amount of driving to get there.

We arrived late on a Sunday evening inthe White Mountain National Forest and set up camp at our prereserved spot in Dolly Copp Campground outside Gorham, NH. This wasthe base camp and from there we would venture out to our targetedstreams from there.


Day 1 was forecasted to be cool with ahigh of only 66*F so we figured we'd do some sightseeing and thenfish that evening. We wanted to see Mt Washington so we set out todrive the Auto Road. We WERE NOT PREPARED for the temps we found atthe summit. I dont know what we expected, but we were met with ahigh of 36*F at the summit, and a crazy amount of cloud cover at theextreme summit. It was still awesome and it was literally like beinginside and under the clouds.







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Later that evening, we headed back tocamp, and picked a stream close to camp and fought with the wind thatplagued us most of the day. It was nice to be back in lowerelevations and higher temperatures. We stopped beside the roadsidesign to add to our trip picture file. We usually try to take apicture beside every National Forest sign... its just a thing we do.



We found a few fish that evening, andeveryone was able to catch a few fish but not everyone caught abrookie on day 1. I was able to check off the New Hampshire BrookTrout box in about the 2nd pool I fished. I doubled in that samehole with a wild rainbow.




My wife Andrea caught a couple wildrainbows here, but no Brook Trout. We fished for a few hours andthen took the on stream selfie together and called it a day.


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Day 2 found us hiking into a wildernesssection on a trail that I had ear marked on the Delorme and it wasrumored to have a pretty good population of brookies. It didn'tdisappoint. From the first hole we fished until the last we wereinto brookies. I honestly dont know how many were caught between the4 of us. 1 of my cousins suffered a knee injury earlier this summerand he wasn't up to hiking on the days we were venturing out.






It was awesome to be fishing at thefoot of some really impressive mountain tops. The whole time I wasthere, I kept telling everyone else in our group that I felt like Iwas fishing out west. At times the trees would be farther away fromthe stream side and it really did give you that feel.




After we hiked back out of thewilderness and back to the main stem of the river I snapped thisterrible panoramic of the group all spread out fishing before packingit in for the day.
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Day 3 we headed for a differentdrainage, a different set of tributaries and streams. We foundsimilar action and results as the day before, but this time weweren't hiking into the back of beyond. We accessed some more easilyreached sections of a river that flowed beside and away from ahighway. Again, much of the same style of fishing, casting dry fliesto pools, pockets, and runs. Lots of eager fish were found, somewere decent in size compared to more southern standards. I still hadthe feeling several times through the day like I was fishing in awestern setting, though the pictures dont make it seem that way.






Later in the day, we hopped overseveral drainages and did some hiking out a trail to reach anotherstream that we wanted to check out. It didn't disappoint. I dontknow why I didnt take any pictures of it, but it was clear thisstream had been subject to some pretty serious flooding in the past. Lots of washed out banks, but it didnt seem to hurt the pool qualityor the fish population.


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Day 4, was the day we had set aside todrive into Maine. We woke up at camp that morning and our campneighbors had packed up and left. We went to see if they had leftany firewood, and while we didn't find any leftover wood, we did find"Fairy Land". I guess you never know what type of peopleyou'll run into out in the woods.


Everything I researched about BrookTrout in Maine steered me towards bigger rivers like the Magalloway,the Rapid River, or the Cold River. No one in my group had aninterest in fishing anything of that size or swiftness. Keep inmind, we were all fishing with 0wt, 1wt, and 2wts. We were lookingfor small streams. I had done some digging and found a couple likelystreams. So, we left camp in NH and drove to Gorham to pick up cellsignal so we could all buy a 1 day license for Maine. Off we went,East towards the boarder. When we reached the boarder, we had dowhat tourists do and take some pictures.



We stopped at a roadside set ofwaterfalls called "Screw Auger Falls" and snapped a fewmore pics before finally doing some fishing.





This stream was more in line with whatwe were used to when it comes to brook trout fishing here in thesouth so we were in a familiar setting even though we had never beenthere before. It didn't take long to find the fish and Andrea scored1st checking off the Maine Brook Trout from the list.




I fished the next hole, and I wasblessed with a "fish stick" for my first Maine Brook Trout. Hole after hole, we both caught fish, and I eventually caught fishof some better size.



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Day 5 was originally our departure dayand we had only reserved the campsite at Dolly Copp for 4 nights. Wewere having such a good time and the fishing was so good, we alldecided we needed to stay 1 more day. To accomplish this, we had tomove our camp to a vacant campsite. It was surprisingly not thatdifficult of a move, albeit a bit unconventional, but we did it. Wewere the stereotypical WV hillbillies of the campground for about 30minutes while we moved our tents. It made more sense to put thetents on the trailer and move them down the campground road, thenstake them down and go from there.



The same camping crap, just in adifferent location. The new campsite.



After we got everything set up again,we set out again for the wilderness area we had visited earlier inthe week. This time we hiked and fished different sections and againit was the best stream we fished all week. We caught wild rainbowsdown lower, and after crossing some in stream barriers we found thebrook trout. We got rained on a little bit that day, and Andrea and Iwere trying to find the shelter of a hemlock when we almost sat on ayellow jacket nest. Luckily we didn't get stung.






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Day 6 had us packing up our camp again,and trying to prepare ourselves for a 16 ish hour drive back to WV. Google Maps claimed it was only about 14hr and 30 some odd minutes,but by the time you stop for gas, food, and piss breaks, that drivetime figure from Google goes out the window. Anyways, We left theDolly Copp campground and got an early lunch in Gorham, NH. Istopped to take a picture of a wooden moose statue as this wasunfortunately the only moose any of us would see the entire week. Ohwell. Maybe next time we'll go back and venture even further upnorth and see a Moose and some new water.

Lastly I'll say this. If anyone outthere has never been and wondered, .... 10 out of 10, I WOULDrecommend it.

 
What a delightful journey! Reminds me of earlier years when I set out to fish the rivers of BC & AB. My fishing partners and I stopped in every stream we crossed to see what lurked in the crystalline waters that sparkled around the rocks. Such trips are the stuff of legends, or at least memories that will make the later years tolerable. Congratulations to each one of you for making memories. Thank you for taking us with you on this delightful journey.
 
Sounds like a fantastic trip and fishing experience. Congratulations on doing the research, making a plan, and following through on making "forever memories".
 
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