Fishing near Farmington in Strafford County, NH

3.92 Rating based on 31 Reviews
  • Most Caught Species: Tiger Trout, Largemouth Bass, Smallmouth Bass, Brook Trout, Yellow Perch, Bluegill
  • # of fishing spots within 25 miles: 102
  • # of reports within 25 miles: 88
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  • Discuss Farmington area fishing in our New Hampshire Fishing Forum

Farmington Fishing Photos

Farmington fishing photo 0

Here's the Ela River in New Durham, NH!
Added by: carpmaster
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Farmington fishing photo 2

2 Kayakers on Ayers Pond!
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Farmington fishing photo 3

Swimming in Ayers Pond!
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First Cast near Farmington

First Cast


While I was untying the boat, my dad was fishing. Typical. He landed this on his first cast.

Added by: kenwood
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Her First Smallmouth near Farmington

Her First Smallmouth


My niece slayed 'em from the dock. She caught a dozen or so fish, smallmouth and largemouth, all on a senko, steady retrieve. Ridiculous!

We tried to replicate this technique, but apparently only a kid with no fishing skills can make it work. Haha.

Added by: kenwood
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Top Fishing Spots near Farmington

Ela River(aka Ela Brook)
Ela River(aka Ela Brook)

Avg. Rating: 0
# Reviews:
Views: 1201

Spaulding Pond
Spaulding Pond

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# Reviews:
Views: 1773

Ayers Pond
Ayers Pond

Avg. Rating: 0
# Reviews:
Views: 5341

Halfmoon Lake
Halfmoon Lake

Avg. Rating: 0
# Reviews:
Views: 4259

Northeast Pond
Northeast Pond

Avg. Rating: 0
# Reviews:
Views: 1124

Northeast Pond
Northeast Pond

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# Reviews:
Views: 1506

Farmington Area Fish Species

Recent Farmington Fishing Reports

annual cocheco canoe trip Fishing Report Sep 06, 2012

annual cocheco canoe trip

rochester nh -

closing out the season once again on the Cocheco in Rochester. The milfoil is really bad this year but still worth going. 5 fish total for the afterno...

Avg. Rating: 5
# Reviews: 1 Views:
Review Report
Created by: jhaworth
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Summer Vacation Bass Fishing - Barnstead, NH Fishing Report Aug 08, 2015

Summer Vacation Bass Fishing - Barnstead, NH

Locke Lake, Barnstead, NH -

My bass club held a two-day tournament on Lake Winnipesaukee on July 24th and 25th, so my family and I planned our summer vacation around it. While I ...

Avg. Rating: 5
# Reviews: 5 Views:
Review Report
Created by: kenwood
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Smallies, Jigs and a Big Toe Fishing Report May 21, 2012

Smallies, Jigs and a Big Toe

Merrymeeting Lake -

Hit up Merrymeeting Lake in NH going after smallies on their beds. It took a while to find a section of shoreline they were on but once we found them...

Avg. Rating: 5
# Reviews: 6 Views:
Review Report
Created by: bcodkind
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union meadow  Fishing Report Aug 01, 2008

union meadow

union meadows nh -

fished near railroad tracks...

Avg. Rating: 3
# Reviews: 2 Views:
Review Report
Created by: salientwolf
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Windy Day on Winnipesaukee  Fishing Report Nov 17, 2015

Windy Day on Winnipesaukee

Lake Winnipesaukee -

Spent a few hours last weekend in Alton - not a bad day, but really couldn't get out of the bay because the wind was so strong. The wind sock help...

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Created by: rudedog
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Jenness Pond Fishing Report May 27, 2012

Jenness Pond

Northwood Jenness Pond -

Has some great Chain Pickerel...

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Created by: johnanger1225
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Baits and Tackle used near Farmington

Check Prices

  • nightcrawler with a bobber
  • Watermelon Dinger
  • Wacky rigged 4" senkos

    White
  • i don't remember which lure i was using at the time... i will try and remember
  • Caught the big one on a bass assasin rubber shad! Arkansas color.
  • i started out using nightcrawlers,i had some bites.i ran out of worms and tried using salmon eggs. i caught 3 trout with the eggs in the pool by the dam.
  • I used two kinds of Powerbait here. The first were small "Red Shad" worms. The other were blue salamanders. Both were rigged "Texas Style."
  • These are the fish from the second night on the damn. There may be a repeat photo in here somewhere. I apologize, they were taken with different cameras and are stored all over the place on my various devices.
  • This one was caught on one of those purple jelly worms that I used extensively throughout the year. Once again I was using a bullet weight and an offset hook with a Texas rig.
  • Truth be told I didn’t really bother measuring them out this time, conditions aboard the kayak are a little cramped for that. Maybe I should drill a measuring board to the side. I’m going to guess that this guy was around a pound and a half. I managed to pull in all three bass on my usual power worm/brass weight rig. If I didn’t have the feeling that I’m hardly to the only person to use this combo then I’d patent it!

Hard Baits Check Prices

  • 6 & 7 inch on Rooster Tail and Crankbait

Soft Baits Check Prices

  • senkos
  • 5 inch senkos

Live Bait (Other) Check Prices

  • Mackerel

Creature Check Prices

  • Berkley Havoc Pit Boss
  • orange pumpkin with red and black flake, watermelon with gold and black flake creatures

    strike king crankbait

    white spinnerbait

Minnow Check Prices

  • Here is the fish I caught, which was the first fish of the day, an okay pickerel. Everybody was using live shiners on their tip ups and jig rods.
  • Here is the first pickerel I caught. Came up early in the day. Nice to have some action early to keep you interested. As usual, it took a live shiner.
  • This is the first fish I have ever caught using a tip-up device. My other ice fishing catches were done using my normal bass road sitting by a single hole in the ice. I much prefer to do things this way! It was just a small Chain Pickerel however. For bait we were using some live shiners we bought at a local shop. This is also the first time I have ever used those!

Lure (Other) Check Prices

  • phoebe lure
  • 5" senko in bluegrass color, weightless
  • Rooster Tail

Topwater Bait Check Prices

  • Zara spook puppy
  • zara spook puppy
  • Black Jitterbug

Hard Swimbait Check Prices

  • i used the bigger crawfish Lure this time
  • crawfish lure
  • crawfish lure
  • crawfish plastic lure
  • crawfish Lure

Lizard Check Prices

  • Rubber worm, spinning bait on the edge of the pond, jig middle of pond
  • zoom Chartruese lizard
  • Thry just don't stop biting those plastic salamanders.
  • Although I got some nibbles on the plastic worms, all of the fish were landed on those plastic salamanders again!
  • I used those blue lizards again in this shallow area. They always seem to produce well in this lake one way or the other.
  • I caught this little guy on the same rig that I caught the Smallmouth on. A blue lizard texas rig.
  • I caught this on the same type of blue lizard that I have been hammering the Largemouth with. I was twitching it along the rocky bottom when this guy decided to play.
  • zoom 6" pumpkinseed
  • Same as train track 2

Jerk Bait Check Prices

  • Caffiene Shad

Crankbait Check Prices

  • deep runner crankbait....
  • minnow looking crankbait....
  • minnow type Lure
  • tried one of my new Lures. small bait fish looking Lure
  • Koppers Live Target Rainbow Smelt

Bass Jig Check Prices

  • black/blue boo jig, no trailer, skirt cut back

Spinnerbait / Buzzbait Check Prices

  • i was fishing a homemade tandem rig...weedless green minnow bait and a spinnerbait ...hooked the bas on the spinnerbait...i don't know if the other lure helped or not
  • tried a few different lures b4 this one none was working...small spinnerbait

Wet Fly Check Prices

  • Trolling with lead core line

Nightcrawler Check Prices

  • nightcrawler on a bobber above the dam. without a bobber below the dam where i had the most luck
  • on a bobber
  • #8 hook with some weight 8-10 inches up on the line
  • nightcrawler with weight drifted along the bottom
  • nightcrawler with a bobber
  • half a nightcrawler on a 2 way spinner trolling at#5 back towards boat launch
  • nightcrawler with a bobber
  • fished a nightcrawler with a bobber
  • nightcrawler with weight.fished the bottom of the water
  • i cut nightcrawler in half and fished with alittle weight 10-12" up the line

Frog Bait Check Prices

  • Zoom Horny Toad in Watermelonseed

In-Line Spinner Check Prices

  • Mepps #6 Bronze and Orange
  • While plying the northern end of the lake by the mouths of the inlet streams, I tossed around one of those Joe's "Fly Spinners." While I didn't get any trout, it turns out that Sunnies and yellow perch couldn't get enough of it!
  • Also included in mess of fish attacking the fly spinner was this large sunfish. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure which species it is. I'm guessing it's a Bluegill, due to it's size and lack of red on the gill cover, or blue "war paint." I forgot how much fun catching these fish on light tackle was! The picture is not so good, but it was dark and this was the best I could do.
  • a couple of types of different of single hook only lures
  • all between 7in and 4in
  • 1/8oz Rooster Tail

Blade Bait Check Prices

  • micro King
  • Micro King
    Caffiene Shad

Worm Check Prices

  • berkley gulp power bait nightcrawler on a #4 or 6 with a bobber.
  • Green/white Senko rigged weedless with a 1/0 red hook
  • green/white senko , rigged weedless with a 1/0 hook
  • Did a little fishing near the center rock pile. Managed to pull up two nice smallies! Looks like they were hanging closer to the surface this time. Tried throwing some surface baits around but the stiff breeze killed that pretty quick. So instead I kept some soft plastics up near the surface.
  • After some hours of frustration on Manning lake with all of my usual baits, I tried something new, a brown senko bait with a fire pink tail rigged on a 2/0 worm hook, no weight attached. Near the rocks themselves, this produced a few little smallmouth. Encouraged, I proceeded a bit southward, fishing between the end of the rocks and the southernmost marker buoy. The next 40 minutes were pure insanity. I caught 5 smallmouth here, and hooked into two more that got away. Some of these fish fought like nothing I've seen, making several power runs, diving, diving, thrashing, and jumping a few times!
  • There are plenty of nice Largemouth in this lake as well. The also seem to grow fat on the Trout and Smelt that inhabit this lake. Though I also caught a range of different sizes, many were chunky. The biggest measuring 19.5 inches and over three pounds! Unfortunately, my phone was dead, and Dad neglected to bring his. No pictures of this beast exist...yet. The Largemouth were also caught on the magic weightless senkos.
  • Towards the end of the day, I caught one last largemouth, a parting gift from manning lake. This guy was caught on the same bait as the smallmouth, and a bit farther north.
  • Overall, I caught six smallmouth. A few were small, but most were in the 2 1/2 pound class. It seems witht he warmer water of late the bite is a bit more active, and the fish seem to be fighting harder. I hooked into one fish at the end of a full 40 yard cast, and he fought every step of the way back. Some of these fish went airborne a few times, overall making a nice fight.
  • I made two trips to Manning Lake, but only managed to catch one smallmouth on the first night. Like all smallmouth, he was a spectacular fighter for his size! I love catching these fish.
  • The first day I caught two largemouth and two smallmouth. Both largemouth were decent fish, 2.5 to about 3 pounds. As usual with manning lake, everything was caught on Senkos.

Marabou / Bucktail Jig Check Prices

  • I was using the same jig/nightcrawler combintion as last time.

Plastic Swimbait Check Prices

  • Dark senko texas rigged

Live Baits Check Prices

  • Worm

Other Check Prices

  • berkley gulp nightcrawler powerbait
  • Curious about the trout-like fish I always see swimming by the boat ramp, I tossed in some powerbait on a light rod to see what they were. Turns out, they were some suckers! You know, they fight pretty hard for their size. I'll keep this spot in mind the next time I need some lake trout bait!
  • Worms & Orange Powerbait.

    Silver/Copper 2-Way spinner hooks, bobbers & bottom fishing.
  • Rainbow Powerbait (floating), off bottom.
  • Rainbow Powerbait.
  • power bait baby
  • worms and powerbait

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