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