If life were fair the border between Vermont and New Hampshire would run right down the middle of the Connecticut River. That’s how these things usually work, and there’s a justice to it. When a river splits two states, each side should get half, because, well, fairness! Life’s not fair though. When George II set the Vermont/New Hampshire boundary back in 1762, New Hampshire got all of the river, right up to the ordinary low water mark on the Vermont bank. Vermont was left out in the cold. For us this was great news: we didn’t have to worry if we were fishing the left side or the right side. Every fish we caught on the Connecticut was a New Hampshire fish.

We stayed in Pittsburg, New Hampshire, at the Cabins at Lopstick. Lopstick Inn? Lopstick Lodge? I never could quite get the name straight, except that whenever you type Lopstick spell check will automatically change it to Lipstick. Every time. Every damn time. Just try it.

We had driven to the Lipstick the day before, east from Manchester across Vermont, and then almost due north up the Connecticut River. We turned east again and skimmed the Canadian border into New Hampshire, and at that point we were certainly as far north as we’d ever been. We were further north than a good bit of Maine. As the guy in the one-gas pump country store said, you’ve gone about as far north as you can go. And it was a mechanical pump, by the way, none of this digital modernism, not in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom. I figured that far north the silicon in a digital pump must freeze in the winter.

I expected something isolated, but the Lopstick Cabins are in the middle of a low-key New England north forest family playground. This was On Golden Pond territory, lake country, where people come year after year for a week or two in the summer, where the cabins evoke a weekly family Northwoods rental not because it’s something they aspire to but because that’s what they are. If Tiger Woods was at the Equinox in Vermont, we’d be more likely to see Smoky Joe Wood at the Lopstick.

We fished with Chuck DeGray who we’d booked through the Lopstick. DeGray is a dour, silent New Englander . . . Wait, no, that’s not right. DeGray is a gruff . . . Well, that’s not right either. Here’s the thing about our two days fishing with Chuck DeGray: the fishing was great, but I can’t remember ever having more fun on water. For some reason coming down the Connecticut it just worked out that way. Early the first day Kris asked what’s that bird chattering and I said that’s no bird it’s a wild Vermont monkey drunk on maple syrup and things went downhill from there. For two days Kris and I fished, Chuck guided, and the three of us laughed, and sometimes I think we laughed because, well, it had been 15 minutes since the last time we laughed. It was relaxed. It was great fishing. It was serious fishing. And everything, every bit of it, was funny.

The first day we fished the upper Connecticut, trout country, and Kris caught the best fish of the day, a big brookie that was the only brook trout caught. It should have been my brookie and I told her so, not that I was jealous. We both caught nice browns, we both caught rainbows, but Kris caught the only brookie. That gives her an Eastern grand slam. It should have been my brookie.

But Kris was on fire, both verbally and fishing. We passed a highway barrier barrel in the river and Chuck said teenagers must have thrown it in and without missing a beat Kris said wild Vermont monkeys and we laughed some more, for a long time. You had to be there. It was Vermont monkeys and New Hampshire chimpanzees and fish.

I asked Chuck if the presidential primary candidates would show up in Pittsburg and he said yes, a lot of them made it to the Buck Rub Tavern, and that they would come to Dixville Notch, whose residents are the first reported poll in the nation. They vote at midnight and then close the poll and count the votes. In the 2016 primary four Dixville Notchers voted for Bernie Sanders, three for John Kasich, and two for Donald Trump.

I asked Chuck what he did in the winter and he said he tied flies professionally, 500 dozen every winter, and manages snow mobile rentals. Plus he had his own shop, North Country Fly Shop and Guide Service. This April he’d gone south to Islamorada to fish tarpon. In the summer he guided almost every day.

Late in the day we were fishing dries and I was getting delicate presentations with long, perfect, drag-free drifts right down the river seam and was catching nothing, absolutely nothing. Meanwhile Kris was giving Chuck a master class on dry fly fishing. It’s all in her soon to be published how-to guide.

“First, you have to get the fish’s attention. Plop that fly down.” Plop. “Then immediately take it off the water. Give it a good pop when you take it off.” Pop. “Plop it and pop it a couple of more times.” Plop. Pop. Plop. “Then drag it under the surface.”

Chuck explained that he’d seen fish caught on a skated caddis, but never a skated mayfly and that’s about the time another fish would take Kris’s fly. My current perfect drift would just sit there. Perfect. Nothing. Kris hooked a rainbow and then another and then another. Kris hooked a chub and that was the best fish ever, because, well, chub.

These fish weren’t fooled. They’d been watching the new season of Stranger Things and thought they were fighting demons from the other dimension. And then we laughed some more because, well, chub.

Thanks Chuck.