Charlestown Breachway

Jelly fish in the salt pond

After DJ's cross country practice yesterday we went to Charlestown Breachway. For those of you that don't know what that is, a definition may be in order. First off, the Breachway is in Charlestown,RI. There is a salt pond connected to the ocean. There is " river,or outflow" that connects the pond to the ocean. Along this outflow are large boulders, a breakwater that extends into the ocean on both sides ( although it is much longer on one side than the other). 

The cool thing about this area is there is so much to keep you busy. The breakwater is one of the most famous places to fish in Rhode Island. The end always has people fishing it during a dropping tide. The river itself can be a great spot to fish. Often, there will be fish feeding in the current. You never know if it will be blues, schoolies, or after dark some keepers mixed in. The salt pond itself, has a worm spawn in late May that can have some outstanding light tackle fishing.

Even for the non fisherperson, there is enough to keep you busy for a few days. Charlestown Beach is a nice beach. Since the parking area is not to large there is plenty of space. Many people kayak or canoe in the salt pond. THere are channels as well as open areas to paddle through. Also the water is very warm and a swim in one of those channels can be nice. Many people go for quahogs in the salt pond. It is quite popular so I assume it must be worth the while. The mudflats in the salt pond are an exellent place to go bird watching. Sometimes thousands of birds will stop during the migration to feed.

There is a " campground" for RV'ers. Its nothing more than a parking area. However being right in that parking lot puts you within a 3 minute walk of everything I just mentioned. Its just for campers. I as a tenter can't stay there.

The only negative is because it is considered a  Rhode Island Sate Beach the parking fee is $20 for out of state.. Even more ridiculous, $28 on weekends and holidays!

We got to the Breachway at almost dead low tide. The best time to fish this spot is last 2 hours of a dropping tide. We peeked into the flow. There was plenty of bait but no gamefish. We didn't really go to fish anyway, it would have been an added bonus. Our main goals were to go bird the mudflats and get wet.  We packed our dry bag and backpack and walked to the mudflats. It was an extremely slow day for shore birds. We saw some, but not the hundreds /thousands we are used to seeing. We saw a few cool birds. A couple of great egrets, snowy egret, willet, black pellied plover, and common tern and some of the more common birds.  We only stayed out for a couple hours. I made sure to jump into the water and cool off on the way back. There were plenty of jellyfish in the water. Either they were not the stinging kind or they missed. Many people were swimming in the area, yet no noe was hurt, so I assumed it was safe.

We went back to the car. We had some lunch and checked on the fish again. Still a lot of bait but no fish. We decided to go for a swim in the ocean. If you read this today, you may notice the big news is Hurricane Irene. Although she is still down in North Carolina, she sent some big waves our way already. Only a small area of the beach was open to swimming so the lifeguards could keep track of everyone. Some of the waves coming in were easily 6-8 feet. Standing in ankle deep water, could have waves crach over you. IT WAS WESOME!!!  You couldn't call it swimming more like standing in 4 feet of water and jumping when a wave came to you. Usually it would just lift you up and you'd struggle  stay on your feet. We had a couple waves break on top of us, even though we were a short distance from shore. WE got out of the water after one monster broke on top of us. It slammed us into the sand. I got a small cut on my side. My 120 pound son however got thrown like a rag roll. The wave slammed him into the sand and dragged his back over the shells and sand. He got cut in a couple places.  Although it was a lot of fun and no more real danger than a couple of cuts and a sand rash, we felt it was time to go home

Boys will be boys

The Opposite of Big Carp

Went fishing last night with Jeff Henderson. We tried a spot on the Blackstone in Massachusetts. My friend Dave Pickering already told me there were a lot of carp at this spot. He also told me they were small. I was in the mood to catch a lot of fish. I was willing to trade quality for quanity. Carp fishing is unlike most types of fishing. A good day is really anything over three fish. Can you imagine fishing for three or four hours and consistantly catching only one or two bass? Probably not, but carp guys do it all the time. So I was more than willing to catch a bunch of small ones if it meant catching a lot.

Dave was absolutely right. Between Jeff and myself we caught 9 carp ( I also caught a bullhead and Jeff caught a sucker). He was even more correct about the size. They were S-M-A-L-L. In my life I probably caught maybe 3 carp under 3 pounds. That all changed last night. We were catching some that were white perch size. All nine were under three pounds, most about 12-14 inches. It was fun to have all those hits. I guess sometimes you do get what you ask for.

Big Trout This Year

I've had people ask me to see the pictures of big trout I've caught this year. I've wrote about them in posts before, but to make life easy I'll condense them. You could call this brag pictures. I definitely don't think so. It might take some skill landing a three pound trout on a two pound tippet. However, I have no delusions that these fish were hooked because of incredible skill. A six inch trout could have hit my flies instead of these giants. I've said before, if you put in your time fishing you WILL get the opportunities for lunkers.

The top trout was caught in Profile Lake Memorial Day weekend. The middle picture was Echo Lake the following week. It was to windy to put the kayak on Profile so I fished Echo from shore

The bottom trout was caught Friday from the Saco River. I caught it on a parachute adams that was under water.

I think my favorite type of fishing is fly fishing for trout. I can't explain the joy of being in my kayak casting my fly rod. I know I'm not the best fly caster. I still " break my wrist" and have to concentrate to cast with good ( or close to good) form. Catching these fish has just been a bonus.

I try to keep my fly selection simple. Over the winter I bought so many flies. I took seminars on what hatches are in New England rivers. I bought flies of all life stages of insects. What a waste of money. For the most part I use hares ear nymph, flashback pheasant tail.  If I need a dry fly, I use some version of an adams. I can honestly say these three flies are on my line 95% of the time. Of that,  the two nymphs are almost always on my line, rarely using the dry even during a hatch.

The best advice I can give as someone that kind of knows what they doing but still has a lot to learn: Keep it simple stupid

New Hampshire Part 4 / Once in a Lifetime trout Part 3

I did not expect to see a rainbow jumping out of the water after a hookset

This big guy hit a parachute adams that was under the surface

I caught this trout in Profile Lake

The last few weeks I have had Fridays and Saturdays off from work. I have been hoping to get back up to New Hampshire for the last couple of weeks.  Although I've been to New Hampshire three times this year, they were all in May and ewarly June ( hence the title, this is number 4)This week I knew I would be out of work fairly early on Thursday so we decided to go up Thursday night. Only DJ and I went up. Since DJ has cross country practice starting Monday. This was our only chance all summer for some quality father-son time.

Thursday

A shiner from the construction pond

We headed up Thursday after work. We figured even if we got caught in traffic ( we did) and got to the mountains after dark, sleeping in the tent was better than sleeping in our beds. We will take any night under the stars we can get! The thought of getting an early start on Friday morning instead of a 3 hour drive also weighed into our plans. Right from the beginning, things did not go as planned. On the drive to New Hampshire, DJ started feeling a little sick. By the time we went to bed he had a pretty bad fever. After we got out of traffic, it was about 6:15 we were just getting to Manchester. We were hoping to get to Profile Lake  by 7:30 to give us a 1/2 hour to fish before dark.

By the time we were out of traffic, it was pretty obvious we would not be fishing if our goal was Profile Lake.  We decided to fish Sky Pond, a small pond in the Lakes Region 40 minutes closer than Franconia Notch. We got the kayaks off the car about 7:10. This gave us about 40 minutes to fish before darkness set in. Maybe you don't consider it worth the effort to untie and load kayaks for 45 minutes worth of fishing, for me it was pure joy. Unfortunately the trout did not co-operate. I caught one while DJ was skunked. After dark we packed up, got some Burger King and headed up to our camping area.

After fishing, DJ's health worsened, he had a nasty fever, He took fever reducer every four hours until Saturday night. As long as he took the medicine, he was fine. Although he had a tough night sleeping Thursday, Friday he slept well. Although he felt okay most of our 48 hours, his fever did change our plans. For Friday we planned to hike out to Shoal Pond ( 9 miles round trip) to fish for wild trout. However, we thought it best if we did not go to far from the road and didn't do any crazy hiking.

Friday

So on  Friday morning we headed south instead of towards Crawford Notch. We drove back to Profile Lake.  I got up ridiculously early. DJ slept while I fished for a couple of hours. This worked out better for him than me. He felt a lot better after his nap and I only caught ONE  brook trout.  Now that DJ was feeling better but hiking still not a possibility, we had to plan the day. I suggested we hit some trout streams and lakes near the road along with get pictures of the scenery (the sky was bright blue in the morning)

After Profile Lake, he headed to the Kancamangus. We stopped in Lincoln to get worms, just to make life a little easier. Our plan was to do a big loop from Profile Lake, over the Kanc, up to Jackson where I got a fishing tip from my friend Clay. From there, go up through Crawford Notch back to Profile to fish the evening until dark. Before I begin our travel, let me let you know we kind of blitzkrieged our way across our route. If we didn't catch a fish within a few minutes, or if the water was lower than expected in a pool or to crowded, we simply moved on.

Our first stop after Lincoln was Rocky Gorge. We walked behind the gorge to Falls Pond. We didn't get any hits within a couple minutes so we headed to Lower Falls. Lower Falls had a resemblance to Horseneck Beach on a Saturday so we did not fish. I saw more swimmers and towels than I had all summer. We did eat lunch at the picnic area so all was not lost. Because we barely fished at Rocky Gorge and bypassed it entirely at Lower Falls we were hours ahead of schedule. In fact we were in danger of being back at Profile by 1 pm. The town at the end of the Kanc is Conway. Since we had so much time, we looked for the construction pond I fished with Clay that had small wild brookies and shiners. I don't know how anyone can live in Conway and N. Conway with all that gosh darn tourist traffic.

Believe it or not we actually found the little pond. It didn't take long either. I've said many times I'd rather be lucky than good. We both got out our fly rods. The last time we fished this pond, fishing was furious. We easily caught 30 fish between us. By the time I got to this little gem, I realized August fishing was a hell of a lot harder than June fishing.  The same held true here. I caught 4 trout and 2 shiners ( all but 2 shiners were on worms). DJ caught 4 shiners all on the fly rod. We fished about 45  minutes. After fishing the little construction pond we went up to Jackson to fish the Ellis River. I don't know this area well. We didn't really find any pools deep enough to hold fish and headed back down to Route 302 rather quickly.

We drove up to Crawford Notch. We were going to feed the fish in the kids only pond when I noticed a bunch of trout below the dam in the Saco River. You may recall that I have yet to catch a trout in a river. All spring I fished ponds and making only the occasional cast into a stream or river. I walked back to the car all secretively hoping no one else saw the trout in the stream. We got out our rods and non shalantly walked down to the river. I must have looked like a dufus casually walking down to the river. I was just hoping no one else was going to fish the spot before I could walk back to it. The area was really crowded with tourists and picnicers. I put on a hares ear and caught a 10 inch trout. After a few minutes without another hit, but seeing fish rise I switched to a parachute adams ( a dry fly, meaning it floats).  The fly didn't get any hits the first few casts. It got wet and startedt o sink. As soon as it went under water the trout went nuts for it. Immediately I caught another trout about 10-12 inches. On the next cast I hooked into a big one. After a 5 minute battle I landed a huge trout. It easily went 3 pounds thanks to all the pellets thrown down by tourists. It was FAT!!! After I let that one go I hooked another little one. Three casts- three fish. I tried to give DJ my spot but he chose to fish the next pool down. After I caught my forth it was to late, the trout either stopped feeding or spooked.

We left  and drove up to pick some blueberries near the AMC Hostel. We picked enough to make a pie. Eating blueberries is more fun than picking them, so we picked them until our back hurt. After blueberry picking we went to the town of Carrol ( near Twin Mountain) and bought pizza for supper. I wanted to fish, but I think DJ earned the right to eat pizza. We got a ham and pineapple. It was delicious. It was thundering out while we ate so I told myself I couldn't fish anyway. after supper we went back to Profile. I caught one more trout. DJ caught one small yellow perch. Back at camp we could see thousands of stars.

Saturday

One of the four DJ caught Saturday morning

By Saturday morning DJ was really frustrated he hadn't caught a trout. I tried to give him some advice. I explained what I thought he might be doing wrong. Lastly I told him to take the best casting spot if I offer it to him. I can't make the trout hit his fly. On the other hand if most of the trout are surfacing at the far end of Profile Lake, it doesn't make sense to fish the middle of the lake to occasional surfacing trout. You have to fish smart, not fish stubborn.Your chances greatly improve if you cast at 30 trout instead of two. If he wants to be a successful trout fisherman, he is going to have to put in the effort. He's not automaticly going to catch trout the first time he uses his fly rod in August.

After we picked up the tent, we headed back toward the Eisenhower Wayside to pick some more blueberries. We picked for another 30 minutes. Now we should have enough for a pie and plenty for our cereal the next few days. After picking I stopped at the river near the brown gas station in Bretton Woods. I walked down to the bank and fished it for 10 minutes. I landed a rainbow. I was suprised to catch a rainbow there. More importantly I was happy to catch fish in a river. This was my second river I caught fish in as many days.

I asked DJ if he wanted to give the Saco River another chance. He begrudgingly agreed. Luckily his luck changed. In a little less than an hour he caught four brookies. The biggest was a fat fourteen incher. I couldn't have been happier for him.

I love the colors of wild trout no matter how small

From there we headed toward home. We stopped in Center Harbor in search of rock bass. Alas, all we caught were some pumpkniseeds and yellow perch. We were home about 4:40. I had a great time because I basically got to fish non stop for a couple days. I felt bad for DJ because he would rather hike but he just couldn't. However, he maed the best of it. It was his idea to get blueberries. I normally would not have gotten the Burger King or the pizza but he wanted them and it was his getaway too.

Totals:

Nick- 12 trout ( 11 brookies, 1 rainbow) 3 shiners, a couple pumpkinseeds and yellow perch

DJ- 4 brook trout, 4 shiners, pumpkinseed

Animals we saw- 2 fox, about 8 turkeys, beaver

Firsts- I finally caught trout in a river. DJ is the first Pacelli to catch a shiner on a fly

Scup Update

I went to Conimicut Point on Sunday with Jeff Henderson. We got there about 6:30 and fished until dark. There were so many people fishing the beach, they were without exageration shoulder to shoulder. Everyone was trying to catch scup.

Jeff and I had waders on and walked onto the bar a little bit.to get away from everyone else. Using sea worms we managed 24 scup between us. Unfortunately almost all of them were tiny. Between us we only caught three or so of legal size. Most were between 4-7 inches. It was like fishing for sunfish. I can't say that catching such small fish was a whole lot of fun, but it shore ( yes I know its  spelled the other way) beat the guys on land who we didn't see catch anything

Congradulations DJ and North High Cross Country for doing the Providence Rock and Roll Half Marathon

Although not what you expect me to write about, I think the kids from the North Attleboro High School deserve a big congratulations for competing in Sunday's 13.1 mile race. My son DJ along with 20 other members of the cross country team ran the 1/2 marathon. They had to be at the high school at 5:30 am so they could be at check in at the State Capitol Building for a race start time of 7:00. It was absolutely miserable out. It was raining almost constantly. Sometimes down pouring with only occasional periods of light precipitation.
  The kids  ran for charity. They could have just paid the regular entrance fee, but they wanted to do something special.  The team raised over $ 4800 for the Ronald McDonald House. The recieved private donations and did fund raising. I could not be prouder of my son and the upstanding student athletes on the team.

DJ ran the race in 1:46 ( 1 hour 46 minutes). I do not know the times for the other North kids. I do know DJ came in 539 out of almost 7000 paticipants. Many of the North kids stayed together so most of their times are probably around that. Considering these kids all finished in the top 10% of the field really shows how hard working and dedicated they are.

I am so proud of DJ for doing this. I also know that his friends on the Cross Country team are really good kids. With all the scandals North has had over the last 5 years, it is nice to be proud of something great in this town again.

Thank you North Attleboro Cross Country, I am sure Ronald McDonald House thanks you also

August Fishing can be S-L-O-W

I fish from early spring until late fall. I'm not much of an ice fishermen, but during the winter I will fish for over wintering stripers. From the months from April-late October, it might shock some of you but the slowest month is August. You guys know I will fish for anything. This isn't a complaint about fishing being terrible or anything like that. However, fishing does slow during this month for many species. The unfortunate timing of this is kids ( and fishing teachers) go back to school right after the month ends, screwing up vacations and fishing outings when the water cools a little bit

 I thought I'd spend most of this post writing about fish species that remain more active during the hot water and some tips on how you can improve your chances of catching them. First you have to understand what kind of fishing I do. I fish from shore when saltwater fishing. I can tell you that striper fishing isn't good from shore in Rhode Island, but if you have a boat and fish the North Rip at Block Island, fishing can be world class. As many of you know, when I fish freshwater lakes its in a kayak or canoe. I don't have a bass boat, depth finder nor do I have a down rigger to fish deep for lake trout ( I don't have any lakers near my house anyway except Wachusetts and you can only fish from shore). Lastly, remember  this is about where I fish, I live 5 miles from the Rhode Island border. If I lived in northern New Hampshire where the Connecticut River is a tailwater fishery with water temps very consistent throughout the year, I'd obviously have different opinions about what to fish for in August.

So I'll make a quick list of species I target that are tough to catch in August

Stripers like cooler waters and unless their is a ton of bait, go a little off shore to find cooler water
Smallmouth go deeper to find their comfort zone
Carp- even carp loose their appetite when water temps are uncomfortable.
Fluke can be caught near shore when the water warms but most  bigger ones will be caught via boat.
Largemouth bass and pickerel can be caught just as well in August, but a lot of the better ponds have weeded up making navigation impossible.
Trout fishing in my area has been over for 8 weeks. There are a couple tailwater fisheries in western MA and Connecticut, but if I'm spending $30 for gas, I probably won't chase trout.

So...what did I leave out. Lets start with freshwater. Largemouth bass can be caught. Early and late in the day are the best times. Also overcast days can be awesome. You need to fish a lake that doesn't look like weed soup. Try river channels in weedy lakes. Deep weed lines can be terrific.

As for my friend the carp, the same is true. They become nocturnal. Early and late in the day are the best times. Fishing at night is good.

I think August is a great month to catfish. First most of the mosquitoes are gone making fishing more bearable than May. Also you may have noticed its getting dark a little earlier. You can start your catfishing around 8pm. In June it wasn't dark until after 9. So you can either get in an hour or more extra fishing or do the same amount of catfishing as June but get home at a more reasonable hour. I prefer white catfish over bullheads. They are much bigger. Unfortunately the closest consistant place is 45 minutes from home. I can't make that drive home every night and still expect to get up for work.

I also spend time panfishing in August. Warm water doesn't seem to bother white perch, yellow perch crappie and sunfish. I'd rather spend time fishing for these guys on a hot day than sit at home bored.

As you can see, other than panfish your best time to fish is either overcast days or dawn, dusk, dark. Other than weekends this isn't a big deal if you work 9 to 5 anyway.

Saltwater-
Even when striper fishing was at its peak, I noticed a huge drop off in the number of stripers I caught around mid July until the end of August. It was at the point where I would take August off from striper fishing and fish for other things. Also I always seemed to take my vacations in August, so I was really only around my area for a couple weeks of the month.

So what to fish for... Remember as you read this that the Rhode Island south shore ( Narragansett and Charlestown) and Cape Cod Canal are over an hour drive for me. So I pick my days and spots carefully. If I lived in 'Gansett, I'd spend a lot of time at the water.

Bluefish don't mind warm water. If you can find bait you should find them. Don't overlook snapper blues. Fishing for them on light tackle can be fun. Also I don't specificly look for hickory shad, but I keep a freshwater rod in my truck just in case I come across them. I've spent entire tides fishing for them in Gallilee Channel and by the Great Island Bridge. They are a blast and if I come across them, I fish for them until they move on.

Scup can be caught in rocky areas.  They are easy to catch using bait. I'm not a fan of using heavy surf gear to catch them, but sometimes you need it to cast a big sinker in the waves. I didn't know how delicious they are until this year. I might have to make a drive to catch some, but heavy tackle for small fish is not my thing. The ones we caught before were in shallow water and we were using 7 foot schoolie rods and small jigs. It was so much fun.

The last fish in saltwater I am going to fish for are two I have never caught. False Albacore and Bonito are small tuna that sometimes come close to shore. They are very fast and from what I'm told, put up an amazing fish. I would like to add them to my list of new species. Fishing for them is a crap shoot?
You can sit and wait for them all day and they might not show up. If they do you may only get one cast. Its a little tough to go back for a second attempt after a day like that. Hopefully I will get lucky and get a chance. I've went for them a few times before without even seeing one.

Yes I know the under sides of blue crabs are blue like this big one.
Notice the mud spots on my t-shirt. You should have seen my legs
and feet

After writing all this, I should tell you that for this month I am trying a diversion that is kind of new to me. Blue Crabbing.  I have gone 3 times so far. Although I will no doubt fish for pretty much all of the above fish during the month, I am going to put in a lot of effort catching crabs. I can do it during the day and night. Also I can eat them. I let go most all the fish I catch ( I caught about 20 scup in those 2 days in early July and kept 3) but eating legal sized blue crabs are a nice reward for catching them. I feel crabbing is more productive in August than bass fishing and getting filthy in the mud and wet in the water is FUN!!!

Blue Crabs are olive

This last week I went blue crabbing a couple of times. for anyone reading this post from the midwest, I will explain a little about blue crabs. This species lives in estuaries ( places where freshwater runs into salt water like Chesapeake Bay or in my case Narragansett Bay). They are fairly easy to catch by a variety of methods. They are kind of small compared to Alaskan King Crabs. To be a legal size in Massachusetts a blue has to be five inches from the point on one side of the shell to the other. They are very good to eat although you definitely have to work for the meat inside. They make cracking a lobster look easy. They are definately olive and not blue, but I guess blue crab sounds better.
There are many ways to catch blue crabs. Some easier than others. The way we do it is to buy some chicken drumsticks tie them to some kite string and throw it into the water. You wait for a while for a crab to tug at your chicken . When you see a tug ( or feel you waited long enough) you pull the string in slowly. If a crab is on it will hold on for dear life. It doesn't want to give up its meal. You get it close to shore and scoop it up with a net. If you try to lift the crab out of the water on the chicken it will let go. Also I noticed , if you try to get it in real shallow water they will also swim off. That's all there is to it. We set out between 4-8 lines. We tie the string to sticks and stick them in the mud.

Other ways to blue crab are: You can walk in the water at night with a strong flashlight. When you see a crab it will freeze like a deer in headlights. You carefully scoop it up with a net. It is easier with two people, because you can put a net on each side if it swims. Also you can use various crab traps.

On Saturday DJ and I had a couple hours to kill. Like most of my plans, I had been thinking about crabbing for a few days. We went to Rehoboth and set out some lines. We crabbed at the Route 6 bridge on the Palmer River. We only had just under 2 hours and I had to be home at 4 pm. We ended up catching 3 but only one was on chicken. The other two were just walking by in the water and we caught them with the net. All three were legal and therefore all 3 came home with us

* One important thing to know about blue crabs. They are very aggressive. Not only will they try to pince you with there remarkably strong claws but they will attack each other. If you put blue crabs in a bucket together, they will most likely fight until only one is left alive.  I tried throwing chicken in the bucket before putting in crab #2 . It did not help, they started fighting. We decided to tie the claws shut with kite string. This worked pretty good but would have been quite time consuming if we caught  a lot of crabs. I've been told filling a bucket with seaweed helps. They burrow themselves in it.

Yesterday ( Sunday) Laurie and I went to Wareham. We spent the afternoon down there. We crabbed for a while. Then we took in the Wareham Gatemen baseball game. After the game we walked Onset Beach for 20 minutes. Finally right before dark we went to the Maritime Academy and watched fishermen catch a bunch of scup before we headed home. Notice all the fun we had and the only money we spent was on gas and a premade sub from Cumberland Farms.

The crabbing was much better than the day before. We were behind the firestation on the Agawam River. An area known as " the Narrows" We set out 5 lines and had almost constant action. Unfortunately they were almost all little. I didn't bring home any keepers. The only large one that we had on, came off just out of net reach. Laurie had never been crabbing. It was a fun new experience for her. Its fun just to be on the shore and get your feet wet. We had a lot of fun. I enjoy just trying to catch them, so I wasn't that disappointed I didn't get to eat any. I just told myself I was " catch and release crabbing."

Lastly, the reason I started thinking about crabbing was an article in On the Water about it. It was very informative you might want to check it out.. Like I said though I just tie a drumstick to a piece of kite string and give it a heave. It doesn't get any simpler than that.

Picture of string tied to a stick. I can't believe I forgot to actually take a picture of a crab. What a dumbass!