Dead Diamond River: Fly Fishing New Hampshire's North Country
The Last Real Trout Stream — Extended Photo Collection
I've been fishing the Dead Diamond River for years. It's one of those places you don't talk about too loudly — not because it's a secret exactly, but because part of what makes it special is that you have to want it enough to actually get there. No paved road takes you in. You bike. You get rained on. You earn it.
When writer Jay Atkinson and I started talking about doing a piece together on the Second College Grant, I knew it would make a good story. What I didn't fully anticipate was how much fun it would be to watch Jay rediscover fly fishing for the first time in twenty-some years, or to have Chris Pierce's eight-year-old son Will along — a kid with more energy than a caffeinated Labrador and a serious appetite for Sour Patch Kids.
That's the thing about going into a place like this with good company. The river delivers on its own terms — native brook trout, cold water, not another soul for miles — but the real photographs are usually the ones happening on the bank, not in it. Will with his face covered in peanut butter and jam at Sam's Lookout. Jay scribbling notes in a soaking wet notebook. Piercey matter-of-factly dropping a boulder the size of a microwave into the river and expecting nobody to notice.
I spent most of two days moving between the water and the woods with a camera, trying to hold onto both — the wild, unspoiled beauty of that river and the very human, very funny trip we were all taking through it. The images here go beyond what ran in the magazine. They're the fuller picture of what it looks like when a handful of people go looking for something wild and find it. Read Jay Atkinson's full story at Last Real Trout Stream - New Hampshire Magazine