Chasing Salmon on the Merrymeeting River, NH
- Ryan Freeley
- Nov 28, 2017
- 2 min read
Fishing the Merrymeeting River is a trip we look forward to all year. The Merrymeeting is one of New England's best landlocked salmon fisheries. On top of the magnificent leapers are behemoth rainbows gorging on eggs. One of the biggest challenges of getting these monsters on our lines is the fact there is are copies amounts of anglers during the spawning run.
Our success was clustered. Our first success came when I hooked into two very large rainbows and landed one. Eamonn also hooked into a 24+ in salmon but didn't get a picture. I caught the rainbows dead drifting the egg fly (no weight) while Eamonn caught the salmon on a grey and red pheasant tail nymph with a tungsten bead head. Ben also had one on but it popped off while he was fighting it.
After this success, I headed upstream to the old mill and fished the banks. Using a size 10 wooly bugger I hooked into a 23 in salmon.
While I was fishing upstream, Brad headed the opposite direction down to the flatware that runs parallel to the road. This spot has one of the largest amount of fisherman on it because of the open space and fishing landings that hang over the river. Brad cast out a smelt imitation and hooked into it while _______________________.
One of the most important parts of a fishing trip is the gear you bring. Eamonn and I were using 4 wt rods and reels. I was using the 7' 6'' LL Bean Quest ii outfit and Eamonn was using the 10' Silver Ghost. Brad was using a 5 wt White River outfit. We were all using 4x or 5x tippet on a 10- 12 ft leader. None of our fish were caught while sight fishing, the fish blended in very well and the river was dark.
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