On Saturday morning, Nick and I met up with our friends Aaron and Ethan to head north to White Mountains of New Hampshire. On the way up, it was obvious that the rivers were swollen from all of the rain we had through July. I have never seen them this high, this late in the summer. We stopped at our favorite pancake house for breakfast before hitting the trail.

It was a short drive to the Lincoln Woods parking area and trailhead from there. We had a lot of camping and fishing equipment to pack. Nick and I were both bringing conventional fly fishing gear and our tenkara rods. Several of the small tributary streams are perfect places for the tenkara style of fishing and I was looking froward to that. After assembling our gear and doing last minute checks, we hiked the 3 miles up to our campsite.

The trip up went really fast! We scouted the camping area and found a site with a picnic table! A luxury in the woods.

We set up camp and then suited up for a hike up-river to find some wily trout. This section of the Pemigewasset is mostly Brook Trout. The river was flowing fast with extremely high water. I caught 1 smallish 9″ brookie on a rod with one of those reel things attached (a little tenkara joke). It took a cast across the raging current to get to where the fish was in the calmer water on the other side. It was a tough day of fishing, with that being the only trout caught. My son caught something about 2″ long that we did not get a close look at. I suspect it was a fingerling Brookie.

I was looking forward to Sunday when were planning to fish one of the tributaries that I knew was ideal for tenkara. Unfortunately, my son had tucked his Iwana into his wading belt and lost it. We looked everywhere so he must have lost it in the stream when we aborted a crossing – the water was too deep and swift.

(sorry, the lens was a bit steamed up!)

Here’s Aaron in his natural habitat:

After a few hours of fishing and exploring the river and a tributary, it was time to head back to camp and make dinner. (note to self; ALWAYS bring water where ever I go!)

Aaron and Ethan made some fantastic pasta and tomato sauce. I made a peach/berry cobbler in a boiling bag! It was pretty good.

We lounged around camp, talked and prepared for the next day’s fishing. The weather held out and it was a nice, cool and dry evening – perfect sleeping weather. After hanging our food in a bear bag, we hit the sack.

The plan was to walk back to the van (3 miles) and leave the packs there. Then, hike up the other side of the Pemi since we could not cross. At 3 miles, the Franconia Brook runs in to the Pemi via a series of plunge pools carved into the granite. This is perfect tenkara water.

The next day, we packed quickly and headed down. The hike went quickly. We packed lightly – no waders or boots – for the 3 miles up to Franconia Brook. I only brought my tenkara rod.

At about 1 mile in, I stopped at a small stream to try my fly at a brookie I saw luring. No luck, so we headed up-stream. Somewhere along the way, I broke the tip on my Yamame – about 1/2″ below the metal tip. I had only brought my Yamame so I needed to figure out a fix while we continued the hike up.

When we got to the trailhead to the tributary, we stopped for lunch and I pondered my rod tip. Being a rod builder, I analyzed the damage and had an idea. I grabbed the stub of graphite sticking out of the metal tip with my hemostats and pulled it out. I then reinserted the rod tip in to the metal tip. The fit was a bit loose but workable. Now I just needed some way to keep it on. Some hikers walked by so I asked if they had a bandaid for my fly rod. They did! Here is the result, you can see the short broken tip stub to the right of the repair. The bandaid seemed to do the trick. 

We continued the short hike up to the plunge pools to do some fishing.

Aaron and I had success catching the small brookies living in a deep pool. There were some larger fish deep down – I’m guessing 20′ or so – but we couldn’t get anything down that deep. The brookies were fun and really beautiful. Ethan caught a nicely colored brookie too. Nick was not having good luck. He had a fish strike his fly at least 20 times – different flies and 3 different rods too – take the fly below the surface, and then not hook up. It wasn’t the fly or hook, it wasn’t the technique, it was the fish. It was one of those days.

Ethan had a little boo-boo on the rocks and used the little piece of left-over bandaid to stop the bleeding.

At the end of the day, I caught 6 brookies in the big yellow-green pool. Aaron got a good photo of me, the fish and my Yamame. I’ll add it once he sends it to me. EDIT: and here it is:

It was a great weekend of backpacking, fly fishing and friendship!

On Memorial Day we climbed Mt Monadnock with our friends, the Brinings.

See the photos.