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Fishing Report: FISHING IN NEW HAMPSHIRE: John Magee, Fish Habitat Biologist for New Hampshire Fish and Game filed this report with us: "September brings some great fishing opportunities in the Granite State. As the water starts to cool down, I tend to find smallmouth bass becoming very active near the mouths of rivers flowing into ponds and lakes. Although smallmouth bass can handle rather high water temperatures, they tend to prefer slightly cool water, say about 65 to 72 degrees F."
"Places I have been successful in September include the Warner River in the southwest corner of Webster (pay strict attention to the no trespassing signs), the North Branch Piscataquog River in the Hopkinton-Everett Army Corps land in Weare (where we stabilized and revegetated the streambank), and the Contoocook River in Henniker. In any of these places, you may also catch chain pickerel and fallfish, and in the Warner River, you may hook up with a rock bass. Don't discount the fallfish -- some are up to 16 inches and they fight well. They like the same habitat as trout, but they like warmer water."
"Rock bass are non-native and invasive (in fact, smallmouth are too) so DO NOT move them to another waterbody. Generally, what you are looking for is large rocks and fast-flowing water with pools nearby. I tend to fish with either topwater lures or streamer flies, and always catch something at this time of year." (This report edited for brevity.)
George Taylor at Taylor's Trading Post reported that fishing pressure was very light in his area as many anglers have headed for the woods and deer archery season. "There were a few diehards out there and they continued to have some very good luck on the bass in our local ponds. A few anglers have been looking for some trout action on the local streams and rivers but it's been slow. There's always some nice holdover fish here at Barbados Pond, mostly big rainbows. This pond is loaded with crayfish so the trout are mostly feeding on or near bottom. The saltwater fishing has been off this week as the hurricane had scared a lot off the ocean but there's still plenty of stripers and a lot of bluefish to be had, especially the blues in Great and Little Bay around Adams Point."
"The fishermen that got out on the Piscataqua River, especially around the mouth of the river were doing a number on both bluefish and stripers and catching some big ones," noted Jason MacKenzie at Suds-n-Soda in Greenland. "The schools of pogies were mostly encountered around the Coast Guard Station and the backside of the Navy Yard. The trick was to snag some pogies for your live tank and then go to the usual striper and bluefish drifts. The big bluefish were hanging out all the way downriver from the General Sullivan Bridge to the mouth, while most of the smaller bluefish, too small to eat a pogy, were upriver from there and especially in Little Bay. Topwater lures and flies were doing the trick for the smaller bluefish that were running about three pounds."
"Because of the storm we didn't hear much about offshore fishing--the small tuna or the cod and haddock, but we do know that those big pollock had arrived and a lot of them had been in the party boat catches recently."
"Lake Winnipesaukee fishermen were a bit scarce last week, but those that did get out experienced some pretty good luck, but not as fast as last week," reported Alan Nute at AJ's Bait and Tackle in Meredith. "The water temperatures had actually gone up about three degrees and that may have slowed things down a bit."
Alan said that the trout and salmon were still mostly in the 35 to 45 foot depths and six colors of leadcore line had been effective. Some nice salmon to four pounds had been taken at Welch Island and Meredith Bay. Alan has been producing some new streamer flies in some of the same color patterns as the more productive lures and they seem to be doing well. Also, he's been experimenting with fish shaped downrigger balls that are painted exactly like a landlocked salmon!
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