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Home › Waters › New Hampshire › Souhegan River
River · Hillsborough County, running north-east from the Wilton and Milford valley through Amherst and Merrimack to the Merrimack River in southern New Hampshire · New Hampshire

Souhegan River Fishing Guides

A southern New Hampshire river running from the Wilton hills to the Merrimack, transformed by two dam removals into a connected trout and smallmouth fishery.

A red covered bridge crossing a river in full New England autumn
Gauge location. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Guides on the Souhegan River

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About the Souhegan River

The Souhegan runs about thirty miles from its headwaters near the Massachusetts line, north-east through Wilton, Milford, Amherst and Merrimack, to join the Merrimack River. It is a southern New Hampshire river in every sense: mill towns along its banks, suburban development on the terraces above it, and a channel that has been dammed, diverted and worked for two centuries. What makes it worth fishing now is that much of that has been undone. The removal of the Merrimack Village Dam and the Goldman Dam reopened the lower river and reconnected it to the Merrimack system.

The effect on the fishery has been real. With the barriers gone, migratory species can move into the lower river again, and resident fish are no longer split into isolated pools between impoundments. The upper and middle river carries brook trout in the colder tributaries and stocked and holdover brown and rainbow trout in the main stem, while the lower reaches below Milford hold a strong smallmouth bass population along with largemouth, pickerel and perch in the slower water. Fallfish and suckers are abundant throughout and are a decent indicator of the river’s general health.

Flow is freestone: rain and snowmelt driven, quick to rise and quick to fall, with summer low water concentrating fish in the deeper runs and the shaded bends. The gauge near Milford reports water temperature alongside discharge and stage, and the temperature series is genuinely useful here, because the river sits at the southern edge of viable trout water and the answer to whether the trout reaches are still cold changes through July and August. Access is good, with town parks and conservation land along much of the corridor.

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Read the full license

Version 1.0, dated 6 September 2026. Applies to every photograph submitted to GuidedFloats through the contact form, a species page, or the community board.

1. What you give us

By ticking the box on the form you grant Guided Floats, LLC (“GuidedFloats”, “we”) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, resize, crop and display your photograph on guidedfloats.com, in GuidedFloats’ own social media accounts and mobile apps, and in material that promotes the site itself, in connection with the fish, water or community feature you sent it in for. The license lasts until you withdraw it (section 4).

You keep the copyright. The license is not exclusive, so you can use the photo anywhere else and license it to anyone else. We will not sell your photo, license it on to anyone else on its own, or use it in paid advertising for a third party.

2. What you confirm

You confirm that you took the photograph yourself (or otherwise own the rights to it), that you have the right to grant this license, and that publishing the photo does not infringe anyone else’s copyright, privacy or other rights.

If any person is recognisable in the photo, you confirm that they have agreed to its being published here, and that a parent or guardian has agreed on behalf of anyone under 18. Please do not send photographs of other people’s catches, screenshots, or pictures copied from other websites or social media.

3. Credit

We print the credit name you give us beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, and record it as the photo’s creator in the page’s structured data. If you leave the credit blank we use the name you gave us on the form. Write “Anonymous” if you prefer no name at all. Your email address, phone number and the exact spot the photo was taken are never published.

4. Withdrawing the license

You can withdraw the license at any time by emailing hello@guidedfloats.com, or by using the contact form, and telling us which photo you mean. We will remove the photo from guidedfloats.com within 7 days of receiving your message and stop using it in anything new. Copies that are already outside our control — search-engine caches, social posts that have already gone out, printed material already produced — may take longer to disappear or may not be recallable, and we are not responsible for those.

5. What we may do

We choose which photos to publish and may decline any submission without giving a reason. We may crop, resize, sharpen or colour-correct a photo for display, and we may remove a photo at any time. We will not alter a photo in a way that misrepresents the fish, the water or you.

6. Your details

We keep your name, email address, the credit name, the water and date you gave us, and the network address the submission came from, with the submission record, as our evidence of this license. We hold that record for as long as the photo is published and for the retention period described in our privacy policy. Location data that your camera or phone embedded in the file is removed before the photo is published.

7. Versions

The version of this license you accepted is stored with your submission and printed with the photo. A later version does not apply to a photo you have already sent unless you agree to it.

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Posting to Souhegan River.

JPG, PNG or WebP, up to 12 MB. We resize it and strip the location data out of the file.

The name shown under the photo. Leave blank to stay anonymous.

Reader photo license v1.0 — the short version:

  • You grant Guided Floats, LLC a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to publish, resize and crop your photo on guidedfloats.com and in GuidedFloats’ own social posts and apps. You keep the copyright and can use the photo anywhere else.
  • You confirm that you took the photo yourself, that publishing it does not infringe anyone else’s rights, and that anyone recognisable in it (or a parent or guardian, if they are under 18) is happy for it to appear here.
  • Credit is printed beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, using the credit name you give us. Leave it blank and we use your name; write “Anonymous” for no name. Your email address is never published.
  • Withdrawing is one email to hello@guidedfloats.com naming the photo. It comes off the site within 7 days.
Read the full license

Version 1.0, dated 6 September 2026. Applies to every photograph submitted to GuidedFloats through the contact form, a species page, or the community board.

1. What you give us

By ticking the box on the form you grant Guided Floats, LLC (“GuidedFloats”, “we”) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, resize, crop and display your photograph on guidedfloats.com, in GuidedFloats’ own social media accounts and mobile apps, and in material that promotes the site itself, in connection with the fish, water or community feature you sent it in for. The license lasts until you withdraw it (section 4).

You keep the copyright. The license is not exclusive, so you can use the photo anywhere else and license it to anyone else. We will not sell your photo, license it on to anyone else on its own, or use it in paid advertising for a third party.

2. What you confirm

You confirm that you took the photograph yourself (or otherwise own the rights to it), that you have the right to grant this license, and that publishing the photo does not infringe anyone else’s copyright, privacy or other rights.

If any person is recognisable in the photo, you confirm that they have agreed to its being published here, and that a parent or guardian has agreed on behalf of anyone under 18. Please do not send photographs of other people’s catches, screenshots, or pictures copied from other websites or social media.

3. Credit

We print the credit name you give us beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, and record it as the photo’s creator in the page’s structured data. If you leave the credit blank we use the name you gave us on the form. Write “Anonymous” if you prefer no name at all. Your email address, phone number and the exact spot the photo was taken are never published.

4. Withdrawing the license

You can withdraw the license at any time by emailing hello@guidedfloats.com, or by using the contact form, and telling us which photo you mean. We will remove the photo from guidedfloats.com within 7 days of receiving your message and stop using it in anything new. Copies that are already outside our control — search-engine caches, social posts that have already gone out, printed material already produced — may take longer to disappear or may not be recallable, and we are not responsible for those.

5. What we may do

We choose which photos to publish and may decline any submission without giving a reason. We may crop, resize, sharpen or colour-correct a photo for display, and we may remove a photo at any time. We will not alter a photo in a way that misrepresents the fish, the water or you.

6. Your details

We keep your name, email address, the credit name, the water and date you gave us, and the network address the submission came from, with the submission record, as our evidence of this license. We hold that record for as long as the photo is published and for the retention period described in our privacy policy. Location data that your camera or phone embedded in the file is removed before the photo is published.

7. Versions

The version of this license you accepted is stored with your submission and printed with the photo. A later version does not apply to a photo you have already sent unless you agree to it.

Flow alert

Tell me when the Souhegan River cfs

Now: 36.1 cfs, read 7:45 am CST, Mon Nov 2, 2026 (USGS 01093852, SOUHEGAN RIVER (SITE WLR-1) NEAR MILFORD, NH).

We never use this address for anything else and never share it. See the privacy policy.

Access

Milford - the town at the gauge reach, with the Souhegan River Trail and town land providing the most convenient frontage.
Wilton - the upstream town, the head of the colder trout water and the better dry-fly reaches.
Merrimack - the downstream town near the Merrimack confluence, with the strongest smallmouth water.
Souhegan River Trail - the path following the river through Milford, useful for reaching water away from the road crossings.
Goldman Dam site - the former impoundment above Merrimack, now a free-flowing reach opened by the dam removal.
Amherst - the middle-river town, with conservation land along the corridor and quieter walk-in access.
Merrimack River confluence - the downstream junction, worth knowing because migratory fish now move up through it.

Seasons

Spring: high, cold and the best flows of the year, with stocked trout dense in the middle river and the whole corridor fishable.
Summer: warm in the lower reaches where smallmouth take over, with the trout fishing holding only in the cooler upper water and shaded runs.
Fall: the strongest all-round window, with cooling water, brown trout on the spawn and good smallmouth fishing in the lower river before it chills.
Winter: low and iced in the slow water, though the faster reaches below Milford stay open and fishable on mild days.

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Questions

What is the current flow on the Souhegan River?

As of Nov 2, 7:45 am, the USGS gauge SOUHEGAN RIVER (SITE WLR-1) NEAR MILFORD, NH reads 36 cfs, with water temperature 44.2 F. Conditions update every 15 minutes.

What species can you catch on the Souhegan River?

Anglers target American Eel, Brook Trout, Brown Trout, Chain Pickerel, Fallfish, Largemouth Bass, Rainbow Trout, Smallmouth Bass, White Sucker, Yellow Perch on the Souhegan River in New Hampshire.

Where can you access the Souhegan River?

Milford - the town at the gauge reach, with the Souhegan River Trail and town land providing the most convenient frontage. Wilton - the upstream town, the head of the colder trout water and the better dry-fly reaches. Merrimack - the downstream town near the Merrimack confluence, with the strongest smallmouth water. Souhegan River Trail - the path following the river through Milford, useful for reaching water away from the road crossings. Goldman Dam site - the former impoundment above Merrimack, now a free-flowing reach opened by the dam removal. Amherst - the middle-river town, with conserva...

When is the best time to fish the Souhegan River?

Spring: high, cold and the best flows of the year, with stocked trout dense in the middle river and the whole corridor fishable. Summer: warm in the lower reaches where smallmouth take over, with the trout fishing holding only in the cooler upper water and shaded runs. Fall: the strongest all-round window, with cooling water, brown trout on the spawn and good smallmouth fishing in the lower river before it chills. Winter: low and iced in the slow water, though the faster reaches below Milford stay open and fishable on mild days.

Where are the fishing regulations for the Souhegan River?

Regulations change by season and section. Read the current rules on the New Hampshire agency site: https://www.wildlife.nh.gov/fishing-new-hampshire/fishing-rules