Is it just July or is it a troubling trend overall? I've been accused of having standards that are way too high when it comes to fishing and have had that "glass have full", "glass half empty" stuff thrown at me. I'm always quick to point out a 3rd option...."that glass will make a helluva weapon if broken just right".
I will say that when I throw in my challenge question of "name one type of fishing that is better that it was 5 years ago", the audience's answer has been NONE in all but 1 case so far.
Back to July. The rains that came in record amounts in southern Maine in NH didn't extend very far north. Most of the time, the small water from Central Maine and north was bony at best. Fishless.
Conditions gave new meaning to the term "frog water". Or maybe it's a toad on desiccated rocks that are normally covered by fishy flows.
There were a few spots where local downpours produced a bit more flow.
And on the bright side, I was able to entice a few black brookies from beneath woody debris.
On another trip, I did time a bump in flows right after 2 days of more significant rain. A spot that fit the bill is a small brook that starts in a small pond fed by springs, before tumbling down a rocky slope and joining a tidewater river just a mile away.
It was moist enough in that streambed for some impressive mushrooms or fungi of some type.
And foam in the eddies. This would be the start of pancake ice in the winter.
The native brookies went on the feed with the flow bump. 40 fish, including a pretty much non-stop blitz of 25 in the first hour.
And as is often the case, the trout in the pools just above tidewater had a pale hue.
That action and better flows was followed by more dry conditions. I left the diminished trout water to hit some bigger water.......where lower flows allow for better coverage in waders. Solid action on smallies (not huge, but up to 16") and an even more impressive showing of fallfish. Can't say enough about big fallfish on flyrod
This stretch of water can be "fast and furious" when the white fly hatch kicks in at dark in the coming weeks.
I tried a normally good brown trout water in the foothills to close out the month. This spot had caught enough rain for flows to be lively and plenty cool enough, but only produced 1 fish that had managed to hold over from the Spring stocking.
On to August.......hoping for fishing "the way it should be".