Fishing near Rochester in Strafford County, NH

3.7 Rating based on 31 Reviews
  • Most Caught Species: Tiger Trout, Largemouth Bass, Smallmouth Bass, Brook Trout, Atlantic Mackerel, Yellow Perch
  • # of fishing spots within 25 miles: 105
  • # of reports within 25 miles: 72
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  • Discuss Rochester area fishing in our New Hampshire Fishing Forum

Rochester Fishing Photos

Rochester fishing photo 1

2 Kayakers on Ayers Pond!
Added by: carpmaster
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Rochester fishing photo 2

Swimming in Ayers Pond!
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Rochester fishing photo 3

Check out this view of the Cocheco River in Rochester, NH.
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Rochester fishing photo 4

Here's a covered bridge that spans the Cocheco River!
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Rochester fishing photo 5

Here's the Cocheco River in Rochester, NH.
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Top Fishing Spots near Rochester

Ayers Pond
Ayers Pond

Avg. Rating: 0
# Reviews:
Views: 5341

Cocheco River
Cocheco River

Avg. Rating: 0
# Reviews:
Views: 8494

Murdock Lake
Murdock Lake

Avg. Rating: 0
# Reviews:
Views: 718

Spaulding Pond
Spaulding Pond

Avg. Rating: 0
# Reviews:
Views: 1773

Isinglass River
Isinglass River

Avg. Rating: 0
# Reviews:
Views: 3835

Bellamy River
Bellamy River

Avg. Rating: 3
# Reviews: 3
Views: 6711

Rochester Area Fish Species

Recent Rochester 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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Bellamy Res. Fishing Report Nov 12, 2015

Bellamy Res.

Willand Pond -

Large body of water with plenty of shallows in the warmer months, to shallow in many places, but fantastic as the water deepens for Bass, Crappies, an...

No Reviews Views:
Review Report
Created by: bearcane
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Big bass at the Madbury Res. Fishing Report Jul 29, 2009

Big bass at the Madbury Res.

Madbury Res. on 9 west. -

Nice location just on the outskirts of town. Real clean, no trash just good fishing.

Bass weight? I don't own a scale. Measured 23 inche...

Avg. Rating: 4
# Reviews: 2 Views:
Review Report
Created by: sandfish
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Swains Lake Fishing Report Aug 03, 2011

Swains Lake

Swains Lake NH -

My Son and I spent 4 hours on Swains Lake in NH. 30 Fish total. We each got 15. Biggest was 3.1, also had 2 come in at 3. Almost 50-50 mix of large an...

Avg. Rating: 4
# Reviews: 4 Views:
Review Report
Created by: jeffgm1031
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Swain's Lake Fishing Report Sep 13, 2011

Swain's Lake

Swains Lake -

Bass Fishing on Swain's Lake, Went out on Swains lake while camping at Barrington Shore's Campground. Went out on a couple of small trips whi...

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Created by: tim123
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Swains Pond Fishing Report Jun 14, 2009

Swains Pond

Swains Pond Barrington N.H. -

Rapping up our week vacation Bro Joe and I stopped and fished this 500 acre lake on the way home. The fishing was extremely slow and only 7 bass were ...

Avg. Rating: 3
# Reviews: 5 Views:
Review Report
Created by: johnnywad
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Baits and Tackle used near Rochester

Check Prices

  • Caught the big one on a bass assasin rubber shad! Arkansas color.
  • Watermelon Dinger
  • Wacky rigged 4" senkos

    White
  • nightcrawler with a bobber
  • i don't remember which lure i was using at the time... i will try and remember
  • 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.
  • Live linning a mackerel
    I did not weigh it or measure it! I just wanted to get it back in the water as soon as possible before it ate my fingers! It was the biggest blue I ever caught though.
  • 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.

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

Topwater Bait Check Prices

  • zara spook puppy
  • Zara spook puppy

Hard Swimbait Check Prices

  • crawfish lure
  • crawfish plastic lure
  • i used the bigger crawfish Lure this time
  • crawfish 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 caught this little guy on the same rig that I caught the Smallmouth on. A blue lizard texas rig.
  • 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 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.

Jerk Bait Check Prices

  • Caffiene Shad

Crankbait Check Prices

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

Bass Jig Check Prices

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

Spinnerbait / Buzzbait Check Prices

  • tried a few different lures b4 this one none was working...small spinnerbait
  • 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

Wet Fly Check Prices

  • Trolling with lead core line

Nightcrawler Check Prices

  • #8 hook with some weight 8-10 inches up on the line
  • half a nightcrawler on a 2 way spinner trolling at#5 back towards boat launch
  • nightcrawler with weight drifted along the bottom
  • nightcrawler with a bobber
  • nightcrawler on a bobber above the dam. without a bobber below the dam where i had the most luck
  • nightcrawler with a bobber
  • fished a nightcrawler with a bobber
  • on a bobber
  • fished a nightcrawler on a #4 or 6 snelled hook with a snap swivel
  • nightcrawler with splitshot weight

Frog Bait Check Prices

  • Zoom Horny Toad in Watermelonseed

Saltwater Baits Check Prices

  • Calms

In-Line Spinner Check Prices

  • Mepps #6 Bronze and Orange
  • a couple of types of different of single hook only lures
  • 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.

Saltwater Jig Check Prices

  • cast masters and diamond jig

Blade Bait Check Prices

  • micro King
  • Micro King
    Caffiene Shad

Worm Check Prices

  • Green/white Senko rigged weedless with a 1/0 red hook
  • green/white senko , rigged weedless with a 1/0 hook
  • berkley gulp power bait nightcrawler on a #4 or 6 with a bobber.
  • Texas + wacky senkos Black yellow or blue flake and Sidewinder worm blk/red flake
  • wacky-rigged yum dinger
  • Wacky-rigged yum dinger
  • 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.
  • 5" Yum Dinger black/blue flake
  • 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.

Marabou / Bucktail Jig Check Prices

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

Plastic Swimbait Check Prices

  • Dark senko texas rigged

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!
  • just some good old rainbow paste
  • power bait baby
  • worms and powerbait

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