A New Hampshire Tale (1)

For the last couple weeks I had a three day vaca planned in the great state of New Hampshire. I was to take off Thursday from work ( I had Fri/Sat off this week). My plan was to leave Wednesday night, fish Profile Lake before camping. Then spend the next two days fishing before coming home Saturday afternoon.  Life has a way of messing things up...DJ was in a car accident ( passenger) Tuesday night. Luckily he is alright other than a broken finger. We spent most of Wednesday at the hospital  so loosing a day in New Hampshire was the least of my worries this week.

Wild Brookie from Profile Lake

Even though he was in the accident and his eye is all bruised he still went camping with his friend and family  to Vermont( same friend he was in accident with).  So there was no reason for me to be home after Thursday since he wasn't going to be there anyway. So I left Thursday for New Hampshire. I got to my campsite about 3 pm. Unfortunately, the wind was howling. I tried Saco Lake, Echo Lake and Profile Lake. For about 4 hours fishing I was rewarded with only 2 yellow perch, and two small brookies ( one wild). Not exactly what I was looking for. I went back to camp at dark. At camp a male woodcock was displaying. That was cool to see. It kept it up for 30 minutes. I also saw a  bull moose at Franconia Notch.

The next morning I woke about 7:30.  Much to my surprise the stars that I went to bed watching were replaced by ominous low clouds. My plan was to hike out to Ethan or Shoal Pond and fish for wild trout. With strong winds and a good chance of rain, I decided to get a weather forecast before I made a decision. I'm okay with rain, but 30 mph winds are tough to cast a fly rod in and Ethan is a 6 mile round trip. Shoal easier but much longer is over 11 miles round trip.  Bad news, Rain and strong winds. So I fished rivers and the same lakes as the day before. I also tried Ammonoosuc Lake. There I saw a big male turkey displaying. He was all puffed out and his head bright blue, but not a hen in sight. Again my only reward for the day were a couple small brookies.  The " highlight" of my day was; I was standing in knee deep water at Saco Lake casting with the wind at my back. While I was fishing, a snapping turtle only three feet in front of me came off the bottom. It caused a big cloud in the water, it looked like an eruption. He came off the bottom and swam away. He was only a step in front of my front foot for ten minutes yet never made an aggressive move. He was so still I never saw it until it swam away. Back at camp, I read about John Wesley Powell while listening to the woodcock again. Sometimes he'd fly down only feet in front of me.

One of the " bigger" trout from Saturday

Saturday- Things get much better.

I packed camp early, I was in the car by 6:50 I hoped the early start and improving weather would lead me to some calm water where I may actually get to take my kayak off the roof ( I had been fishing in waders this whole time). I drove towards home. Echo was a little breezy. Profile looked good but a couple guys were already there at 7 am, so I figured it might get busy. So I kept going south. I got off at the Waterville Valley exit and fished a pond I'd fished before. It was glass calm on one side and the windy side was only ripply, so FINALLY I took the kayak off. At first I was getting short strikes with a beadhead pheasant tail, but a lot of fish were surfacing. So I switched to a small hares ear and fished it just under the surface. That did the trick! In the next couple hours I caught 28 trout. That is a new record for me. However, the fish were still biting. Anyone that can throw a fly 30 feet could have caught 25 fish. I am sure if I had all day I could have ended up with over 50, I had a long ride home so I passed on the challenge.  One negative was most of the fish were small I only caught about 5 over 9 inches.

One of the many shiners that found my beadhead irrestitable

I tried one more pond on my way home before I got on the highway. It is stocked with trout and it is a beautiful mountain lake as far into the woods on the worst dirt road you can find. A father son team were coming in with float tubes,  they caught a nice stringer of trout including a 2 1/2 pounder. I did not have time to put in the kayak so I fished from shore. I saw a lot of rises right in front of me so I casted my fly rod. It turns out the rises were common shiners. If you don't believe that I will fish for anything, this is proof. For the next 30 minutes I caught a mess of small shiners and had a blast doing it.

I drove home after that resisting temptation to hit any more lakes

Animals I saw- moose, turkey, deer, frogs, snapping turtle, toads, woodcock


Fish 33 trout, 2 yellow perch, shiners

Jamestown Fishing

Went fishing last night in Jamestown. My buddy Jeff Henderson is leaving in a couple days to start a new job in Florida. We were hoping to get him into one last striper before he left. Also I needed to get some pictures for a magazine article I wrote that comes out this summer. So last night was like a business trip for both of us.

Unfortunately, the bass did not feel they should cooperate. I caught one schoolie on my second cast. I got a couple pictures of it. That was it. He tried a couple spots but no luck anywhere else.  Next week, I go to New Hampshire for the first time this year. Lets hope I have something to write about between now and then.

Amazing Day in Concord with Amber

Statue at Lexington Green

Today was my first day off in ten days. During those ten days I couldn't go very far because I was on call.( I know your sick of me whining about it in every post, but yay its over!). For the first time in almost two weeks I was free to do whatever I wanted... almost. My little buddy Amber has the month of May off from cheerleading. I haven't seen her in a while so I offered to take her overnight Friday and hang out with her all day Saturday. We fished a little on Friday night at Falls Pond for about 15 minutes. Amber caught a couple small sunfish and I caught a small goose egg ( zero).

Paul Revere Capture site

Knowing a nine year old would be bored out of her mind on an all day fishing adventure today, that idea was out. So I had to come up with a day trip. After some thought I decided Amber needed a little history in her life and we went to Concord, MA. For those of you that don't remember your history books, the Revolutionary War started  April 19, 1775 at Lexington and Concord.  So we ate breakfast and off we went.




There is a lot to do in Concord. There is the battlefield, museums, historical houses owned by authors, hiking trails, ponds, Concord River and more.  I wanted Amber to understand the battle without over whelming her and it was gorgeous out so we stayed outside ( besides at the visitor center) and went to the battlefields followed by some bird watching.

Old North Bridge

First we stopped at the Visitor Center and watched the 25 minute movie about Paul Revere's ride and the battles at Lexington Green, the Old North Bridge and Battle Road. Then we went to the Paul Revere capture site. From there we went to Lexington Green, one of the places I had never been to. After that we went to the North Bridge. I tried to get Amber to remember a few of the key facts. We went over them a few times.  

Blanding Turtle

Northern Water Snakes

After a snack in the parking lot we headed to Great Meadows. There were some nice birds like the marsh wren and Amber found a Yellowthroat. However the highlights were definitely the reptiles. We saw 7 snakes many sun turtles, a small snapper and an endangered Blanding turtle. The Blanding turtle was a first for me. Three of the snakes were garters. We also saw four northern water snakes all tangled up together. It was awesome.

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Sleepy Muskrat

Amber seemed to enjoy the history of Concord. It was perfect timing because she is learning about Colonial America at school right now. There were so many animal especially snakes at Great Meadows it felt like a zoo. What a great day.

What is legal is not always what is ethical

                                                 Striper

A couple of nights ago I was fishing for stripers. I was using 4 inch zoom flukes on a small jighead. The fish were fussy but they were all around us. We would pick one up every five minutes or so. It was a fun night fishing. One of my last fish I caught was a schoolie. It was about 23 inches. Not a huge schoolie, but certainly fun to catch. Before I even had this fish out of the water I could see it was gushing blood. When I picked it out of the water I could see the hook from the lure was buried in the gills. The fish inhaled the fluke so far the fish had absolutely no chance of recovering. Sometimes when a fish is "gut" hooked you can cut the line and the hook will eventually rot out. This fish was hooked right in the gills, when I lifted it out of the water it looked like it was in a gory horror movie.

This is where my dilemma began. The law states I can not keep a striper under 28 inches. Therefore if I kept the striper I would be breaking the law. On the other hand this fish was basically a " dead fish swimming" the second it inhaled the hook. I did the legal thing and let it go, hoping it would magically begin to swim. It did not it rolled on the surface and then swam to the bottom. A few minutes later it surfaced ten yards away. Dead. Of course the best I could hope for is that it would be food for other fish and crab... the circle of life. However, the striper would be alive if I didn't hook it. I thought very hard about keeping it. At least the two fillets would not go to waste. When it surfaced I made a few casts with my popper and toward it, to snag it. I missed. Would I have broken the law and kept it? I'm not positive I would have. However if I would have hid it my bag and brought it home for supper, I would have felt less guilty than I do now.

I would like to point out that the law is correct. If the law was changed to " 28 inches or gut hooked" unethical fishermen would catch schoolies and purposely rip there guts out. The law is right but letting the fish go felt unethical to me.
                                                                
                                                              Trout

Yesterday I went trout fishing with Laurie. Rhode Island had there annual free fishing weekend. No license is required during this weekend. So I dragged Laurie to a pond that is stocked with golden trout for this weekend. It is also stocked with other types of trout also. Its kind of Rhode Island's way of showing off great fishing ( other states also have free fishing weekends), and it gives fishermen a chance to catch a really cool and rare fish.

I got to the pond late afternoon because of work. A ton of people were fishing for the trout. I noticed right away there were some trout on stringers that were HUGE. I am sure DEM put a lot of breeder trout in this pond for the free weekend. Some guys had limits of five fish that were monsters.

 In general terms any hatchery raised trout over 14 inches is a good fish. Some of hese fish looked to be over 20 inches. Here is my issue, but it is complicated so follow along.

1. These fish were giants. In any other pond on any other weekend these would be once a year trout. Your biggest you could ever hope for in the year. Yet guys were slaughtering them five at a time. It is legal to keep five trout, yet it would be nice if they could have been put back to be caught again. How about a five fish limit, but only one over 16inches. Or simply a three fish limit, that way 40% of potential dead trout would swim to fight another day.

2. In most waters trout are what you call " put and take" they do not survive the summer in most RI waters because of warm water and low oxygen. So it is true that these giants will die by mid June. However, I think it would be best if some could have been put back to be caught again by someone else. After all, mid June is five weeks away.

For the record, yes I was jealous that I did not catch any of these huge fish. I caught two rainbows. One about 16 inches the other 17. Those are large fish. I let them go. I'm not jealous bigger fish were caught, I am jealous that since they were kept, I don't have a shot at catching them.

                                                           Carp
Last week someone caught the new state record carp in Massachusetts.It weighed 46 pounds.  Unfortunaetely it was caught using a cross bow. Yes carp can legally be caght and killed with a bow. It is legal to do so in many states. The guy that shot it did so legally. However the carp was well known in the lake it was taken from. It had been caught at least six times ( three by the same person). That means at least four people had the chance to kill this fish for a record yet it was released. Those four people had the thrill of catching a fish in freshwater that weighed over 40 pounds.

Now the fish has been taken out of the lake. No one else will have the chance to catch this magnificant fish. Also a fish that size has the DNA to produce more fish that could potentially grow that size, the same way tall people usually produce tall children.  It was legal yet quite a shame that this fish is no longer swimming around.  You can read about the carp record, but take a second to read all the negative comments about the catch. http://www.onthewater.com/fishing/46-pound-monster-carp-landed-with-a-cross-bow/

So there it is. I wanted to keep a fish that would have been illegal to keep but was dead anyway. On the other hand I wish some of these monster fish that were alive ( all caught by legal means) would have been let go to be caught again. It seems to me that there is a big grey area within the confins of the law about what is right and what is wrong.

Loose, Win, Win

From May 3 until May 12 I am on call both morning and night because Megan from work is on vacation in the Dominican Republic. This is tough for me because May is unquestionably my favorite month. Being on call is like being on a leash, I can't go very far and I can be pulled back into a store at any time. That happened to me on Thursday night. I was at the trout pond  fly fishing and I got a call from the Seekonk store, a girl made a mess that she needed help with. My first reaction was " your mess/ your problem" but it was something that would take hours to clean alone, so I went in and gave her a hand.

Because I am on call, I can't go very far to fish. This in my " loose" . There will be no day trips or fishing adventures for me until at least next weekend or more likely the Thursday/ Friday of May 17/18.

However I am trying to be positive. One "win" is that I have some good fishing near home. Last night only 20 minutes from the Seekonk Honey Dew I went striper fishing with Jeff. I caught 6 schoolies and Jeff got three fish but one was a chunky keeper. It was a fun night. Fish were busting all over but they were fussy.

Besides a couple striper spots in Providence, I also have the trout pond and about 5 carp ponds all about 20 minutes away. So I will get to fish when I'm not working, my trips just won't be adventures.

My other " win" is my savings on gas. Not being able to drive to Wachusetts and the Cape means I should save about $30 dollars this week on gas. Which I will put towards New Hampshire adventures starting the end of May.

Some trout and a carp

After today Megan from work goes on vacation. Meaning I am on call from May 3 through Friday May 11. I'll be able to fish but I won't be able to stray to far from my work area.  My days off this week were Tuesday and Wednesday. I tried to get in as much fishing as I could. Here is what I have done so far.

Monday night: I went to the fly fishing only pond where I had my run in with the old bully that tried to scare me off. I caught five trout. I had four others on and multiple other hits. Three of the four that popped the hook seemed good sized. I caught a couple that went 15-16 inches. Four other guys were fly fishing but no one bothered me.

Tuesday: I went for an all day fishing trip with Dave to a big lake that is known for large mirror carp ( 30 plus pounds). We left at 9 and I got home about 5 o'clock. It rained on us the entire time. We didn't get any giants. The fish were sluggish because of the cold air/ cold rain, but I did manage a 14 pounder that was absolutely beautiful. No pictures though because it was only average size and the rain was coming down pretty hard at that time.

Tuesday night: Saw Disney's Chimpanzee. Kind of a new tradition for DJ and I to see Disney's Earth Day movie.

Here's to hoping I find some fish today and have more to write about