Fly Fishing the Clyde River. Chris Lynch

      19 . Clyde river

       Location: Northern Vermont, about a 2-hour ride from Burlington; a 1½-hour ride from Montpelier; a 2½-hour ride from Manchester, New Hampshire; and a 3½-hour ride from Boston, Massachusetts. Full-service airports are available in all four cities.

      Originating at the outflow of Island Pond in northeast Vermont, the Clyde River flows more than 30 miles before emptying into Lake Memphremagog, in the city of

      Newport. The slow, meandering upper and middle reaches of the Clyde offer angling opportunities for brook, brown, and rainbow trout. However, it is the famed salmon run on the lower ½ mile or so of river that draws fly fishers each spring and fall.

      The Clyde was home to some of the last known Atlantic salmon in New England that made their way to the Atlantic Ocean following the Ice Age. The receding ice left most of these formerly anadromous fish stranded in deep, coldwater lakes. However, by way of the St. Lawrence River, Clyde River salmon made their way to the sea, until dams blocked their passage.

      In the early 1900s, anglers traveled by train from all over the Northeast for a chance at the Clyde’s tackle-busting salmon. Fish up to 10 pounds were caught. For close to 50 years, the Clyde River salmon fishery was a large part of the economy of Newport. This

      ended when a diversion dam dewatered the lower ½ mile of river, virtually wiping out the Clyde’s salmon fishery. With landlocked salmon, lake trout, brown trout, walleye, and steelhead unable to spawn in the river, a once-booming fishery was lost, and the local economy began to crumble.

      In August 1996, after a long legal battle between the Citizens Utility power company and Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom Chapter of Trout Unlimited, removal of Citizens Utility #11 dam began. Thanks to the efforts of local citizens and Trout Unlimited, landlocked salmon