New Hampshire
New Hampshire winds its whole trout fishery down across October rather than changing one rule. Two seasons closed before the month began, two more close on the 15th, and after that a trout angler in this state has only the waters with no closed season.
Trout stocking
New Hampshire does stock in October, and its own schedule document will not show you where. Yearling rainbow trout go into several lakes in mid-October, and in November post-spawn brook and brown trout of two to three pounds go into waters that have no closed season. The agency states plainly that the numbers, the dates and the waters vary from year to year, so the right move is to read the map rather than last autumn's list. The stocking report PDF on the agency site stops in early July, which is why the map is linked here instead of it.
NH Fish and Game interactive stocking map, the agency's own recommendationWhat the rules say
- Rivers and streams, brook, rainbow and brown trout: 1 January to 15 October.
- Trout ponds: fourth Saturday in April to 15 October.
- Wild trout streams and wild trout ponds: closed at Labor Day, so already shut.
- Lake trout, all waters: 1 January to 30 September, so already shut.
- Landlocked salmon: 1 April to 30 September, so already shut.
- All other waters have no closed season.
Read from New Hampshire Fish and Game's own fishing seasons page.
What to expect from the fish
The quarter the column opens. A lake that gave a cold-water fish a ceiling over it since June loses that ceiling, and on the big water that makes a shallow trolling pass worth doing for the only time since spring.
- Brook Trout
Spawning in the White Mountain streams, which is what the river season dates are built around.
Where they are. In the small water rather than the holding pools that produced earlier in the year.
- Lake Trout
Coming back up out of the thermocline as the surface cools toward them.
Where they are. Within reach of a shallow pass on the big lakes for the first time since spring.
- Landlocked Salmon
Rising out of the thermocline on the same mechanism as the lake trout.
Where they are. The top of the column on the big lakes, where a summer pass would have been far below them.
- Striped Bass
The inshore fishing winds down while the Seacoast boats are still running offshore.
Where they are. Harbours and river mouths rather than the open beaches.
the White Mountains
Saco River · Ellis River · Upper Beebe River · Mount Washington Valley
Freestone rivers draining the highest ground in the Northeast, running cold and clear over granite. They rise fast after rain and drop fast afterwards, so the fishing here is as much about reading the last two days of weather as the season. Brook trout are the native fish and the reason people come.
The White Mountains are covered, and not in a way you can read. North Country Angler in North Conway has been there forty years and its owner, Steve Angers, writes the North Country Angling column in the Conway Daily Sun, but the shop posts its stream reports to Facebook and its own site carries none. We checked that directly rather than assuming it. So for the Saco and the Ellis this month, go by the gauges, the recent rain and the engine, and treat anything you find on social media as the local word it is.
Engine outlook
- Saco River near ConwayBrook TroutBest: Mon, Oct 12, A8 good hours54F measured nearbybest run 4h150 cfsat Saco River near Conway, NHon this waterOur read
The best stretch of that day runs 7am to 11am, in local time at the water.
The engine has brook trout here on the spawn.
Across the 14 days it could grade, the water is projected to fall 2 degrees. That is a forecast, not a pair of readings.
Depth to try, in typical conditions: plunge pools, undercuts and pocket water 1-4 ft.
The bait is at its active temperature. Small dries and a bead-head dropper. In headwater streams the fly matters less than the approach.
the Upper Connecticut and the Great North Woods
Upper Connecticut River · Pittsburg · Androscoggin River · Connecticut Lakes
The top of the state, where the Connecticut River starts as a chain of lakes and runs south through managed releases. The Trophy Stretch below First Connecticut Lake holds big fish in cold water all summer, and the Androscoggin to the east is the other serious trout river up here.
One lodge publishes everything that is written about this water, and it has said nothing since July. Its newest entries are three months old and describe a different season. We re-checked on publication day rather than trusting the earlier note. Nothing has replaced it, so there is no fishing report from up here at all. There is operator data, which is a different thing and took looking outside fishing reports to find: the flow below the First Connecticut Lake dam is published and forecast to midnight every day, and that is the water the Trophy Stretch runs on. We also tried to grade the Androscoggin below Errol Dam this month and will not: the nearest thermometer to it sits on the Connecticut River, over the divide at Pittsburg, and water temperature is too large a part of the score to publish a grade built on another river. The flow gauge is right there on the water and reads honestly, so that is the one number up here worth checking yourself.
the Seacoast and the Gulf of Maine
NH seacoast · Great Bay · Piscataqua · Rye Harbor · Seabrook · Jeffrey's Ledge
Eighteen miles of coast, which is the shortest of any coastal state, plus a large tidal estuary behind it and deep offshore ground within reach of a day boat. Great Bay drains and fills hard enough to concentrate bait, and the striper run tracks that water rather than the open beach.
Both of the live New Hampshire voices are here, and both are boat logs: they record what came over the rail rather than what the conditions were, and neither publishes a number of any kind. Inshore, the long-running newspaper column died with its author and nobody took it on. So the most productive autumn water in the state is also the least written about.
Who reports on this water
New Hampshire has no live narrative freshwater report at this point in the season, and the two live New Hampshire voices are both offshore day logs rather than conditions reports. The shop that functioned as the state's report of record closed its season on 28 September, which is the fishery ending rather than the shop failing. Three freshwater sub-regions have no reporter: the White Mountains, the Upper Connecticut around Pittsburg, and Great Bay. For this state the agency page, the gauges and the engine are carrying the section.
We read: Eastman's Docks, Seabrook (Eastman), Bunny Clark, Ogunquit ME