I tried very hard not to waste my days off from work. More often than not I did a daytrip or camping trip two days a week. That stalled a bit when we seemed to get nice weather five days a week in late fall, but on my days off waves at the ocean were coming in at ten feet and dirty.
Normally I break down my year in three parts
1. Fishing Report card, I'm adding my New Hampshire summary to this
2. How I did on my goals
3. Everything else combined
Fishing
Usually I separate the fish by species. I usually give a quick write up about carp, trout, and stripers followed by a letter grade. I can not do that this year. I spent so much time chasing stripers, I neglected carp and trout. I only fished for a carp a couple of times.I know of some terrific catches this year. Some huge carp were caught. However, it seems they are smartening up to fishermen because they seem to be getting harder to catch. As for me, I did not fish enough for them to know.
As for trout, the same is true. I only went trout fishing three or four times. I did fairly well catching four golden trout the first weekend in May. I fished the fly pond a few times from my kayak. My best day was eleven while fishing in Plymouth early in the year. Normally I have at least one or two twenty fish days, but you can't catch them if you don't try.
Saltwater Fishing
The reason I barely fished for carp and trout was because of the incredible saltwater fishing all year.
After I got back from vacation at the end of June, I was striper fishing just about every evening. For a time, we never knew what would show up each night. One night it could be keepers stripers. Another it could be harbor blues in the 1-3 pound range. Some nights all we could get would be sea robins and a fluke. Usually, we did have consistent success with schoolies.
Fall
That went on all summer. It was by far the best summer I have had in terms of numbers. I also caught way more blues than in the last five years combined. When the albies showed up, I left the bay for 'gansett. I only caught albies during a one week period. My best day was eleven. That same afternoon a big noreaster came in that lasted a few days. It shut down the fishing for a week and I never got another albie.
Later in the fall, every chance I got, I went to the ocean. I know it is becoming a broken record, but there were so many fish. Every day I went I found them. I may have to check out a couple spots, but there was a school somewhere.In the late fall, Charleston was hot. We caught so many fish my thumb bled, and we had to start wearing gloves.Lastly- this fall saw the biggest blues I have ever seen in my life. For a couple weeks true monsters were cruising the Narragansett shoreline. I had one day that I caught twenty blues over 10 pounds. Most of those were over fifteen and a couple approached twenty pounds!! To put that into perspective, I had only caught four bluefish over ten pounds in my life until this year.
So all in all, fishing in the salt (surf, tidal rivers, bays, salt ponds ) was terrific. I am going to rate it an A. I can not give it an A+ because I only caught a few keepers. They were in short abundance from shore for me. I guess that is a trade off when the fishing was so great. Still, a few more big ones would have been good
Grade A
New Hampshire
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| Laurie on the open ledges of Garfield |
I went to New Hampshire a lot this year. There were many reasons for this. I wasn't driving my Santa Fe with 300,000 miles on it anymore and felt this car is more reliable. I really want to finish the 4000 foot mountains next year. Lastly, I just got addicted to going. I wanted to go back before I got home from each trip.
I climbed nine mountains over 4000 feet. Eight of them were new since I had climbed Garfield before. The eight new ones are Owls Head, Carters (2), Carter Dome, Kinsmans (2), Isolation, Waumbeck. By far my least favorite was Owls Head. The trip to Owls Head is eighteen miles. It was a long day. My favorite was Isolation. Although a 14 mile round trip, I liked the backside view of the southern Presidentials.
I climbed eight smaller peaks many of them were old favorites because I enjoy them so much (Welch Dickey, Sugarlaof and Crawford. New memories were Avalon, Pemigewasett, Hedgehog, Star King, and Cardigan. By far my favorite of the first timers was Cardigan. That mountain is awesome. The trail is short. The view is incredible, and the summit is bare granite. I love this little mountain.
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| Amber on Mt. Crawford |
I got to enjoy the beauty of eleven mountain lakes. Kinsman, Lonesome Lake, the Carter Lakes (2), Greely Ponds (2), Ammonoosuc Lake, Cherry Ponds (2), Peaked Hill, and one other. The Carter Lakes were beautiful. They had cliffs as a backdrop. I would like to have spent more time but I was at the end of an exhausting day and had four miles to go.
All told I did 119 miles hiking. My biggest two day total was 31 miles (Carters and Carter Dome on day 1, and Owls Head on day 2). When I went alone I did big mountains. When I went with Laurie we did smaller mountains and mountain lakes. Average mileage with her was about ten miles in two days. Average weekends alone were twenty four. I pushed hard alone. With Laurie I enjoyed the smaller mountain peaks sometimes spending hours loafing on top.
I only saw one moose in seven weekends. I had grey jays eat out of my hand on three straight trips. I also saw a north woods specialty the Black Backed Woodpecker.
Just writing all this makes me want to go back. I can't wait to get back on top of a mountain!
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