The Saco around Conway is a classic White Mountain freestone — a clear, cobble-bottomed river draining the Presidentials down through the Mount Washington Valley, holding wild and stocked brook trout, rainbows and browns in fast pocket water and long gravel runs. It's a rain-and-snowmelt river, not a tailwater, so it runs high and cold in the spring melt and drops to summer lows that warm in the heat — which means timing matters and the brook trout especially want the cooler windows. Tubers and the summer crowd share the lower water, but the trout fishing is honest and pretty: caddis and mayflies through the season, attractor dries in the pockets, and easy wading access through Conway. A good freestone counterweight to the region's tailwaters and lake-outlet salmon reaches.

• Mixed

• Aquatic life: Not assessed
• Fish consumption: Impaired