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Deerfield River (Northwest Massachusetts)

Location: Northwest Massachusetts, about a 2-hour ride from Boston; about 3 hours from Hartford, Connecticut and Manchester, New Hampshire. Full-service airports are available in all three cities.

I’m a fly shop owner from Maine, but I’m writing about a river in Massachusetts. Why? Because the Deerfield River is one of the finest trout fisheries in the Northeast. Because I caught my first trout on a hatch-matched dry fly there. I also caught my first fish on a nymph rig there. I even rowed my first drift boat there.

The Deerfield River below Fife Brook Dam is a true success story. It is the all-too-rare river that fishes better today than it did 20 or even 10 years ago. This success is due to progressive fisheries management and the decommissioning of the Yankee Atomic Plant, which previously warmed the river by up to 15 degrees.

To call the Deerfield a “working river” is an understatement. Few rivers have been dammed up, rerouted, dewatered, and otherwise manipulated more than the Deerfield. Complete with every type of dam imaginable, a mountaintop reservoir and pumping system, a 150-foot-wide overflow pipe that acts as a circular top-flow dam in high water, and miles of manmade sluices, the Deerfield is veritable museum of hydro-engineering.

The Deerfield is in a rugged valley surrounded by steep, wooded hills. The sun comes late to the river and leaves early. Annual rainfall is above average for the region. The valley is lightly developed with only a small

number of modest homes. Bankside development is almost nonexistent.