Organization

Just some of my boxes. Not shown are my 
Surf bag and trout box which live in my car.
My freshwater bass tackle box also not shown
is stocked and ready to go.

    In real life I'm the kind of person that is fairly neat. I'm pretty laid back. If we were roommates I wouldn't be that annoying neat freak that expects everything to be spotless, nor am I slob. Chances are 50/50 that I'd have dirty dishes in the sink or not. But if I did have dirty dishes they wouldn't sit there for days.

   On the other hand when it comes to my fishing gear and camping gear I am meticulous. Most winters I give myself projects to keep me busy. Some of these projects are changing out rusty hooks, making poppers, making saltwater leaders, hair rigs for carp, and albie deceivers. 

   Since I spent so much time birding the last few years and not that much time fishing, needless to say I didn't have too many projects. I can't lose poppers to gator Bluefish if I am chasing birds. Also, I didn't do anything, birding, fishing, or hiking last year due to my health. I have plenty of poppers to get me through the next five years sitting in my spare room. The only "projects" I really had to do was make some leaders and change out some rusty hooks.

   The last few days I spent a lot of time organizing my gear. Keep in mind most it had been untouched for the last year, some of it longer. For the most part it was pretty neat and organized to start. However, I went through every piece of gear I own. I went through all of my boxes and bags and made sure they had the lures that I will need to be successful. For example, my surf bag needed the new leaders. I also had to put inline circle hooks in the bag since it is the law to use inline circle hooks when using live bait for stripers. 

I wrote down all the different boxes 
and when I was satisfied that it was 
ready for fishing I checked it off.
I also counted spares of some of 
my lures. Holy crap! I will never 
use all the fishing gear I have 
even if I live to be 100!!

   I went so far as to make boxes for species specific applications. When I go to Wachusett Reservoir (lakers and Landlocked Salmon) I carry my lures in a box that goes into a backpack along with food and water. My tautog box has bank sinkers and thick tautog hooks. My albie box has Deadly Dicks, Pickering Albie Deceivers, Zoom Flukes, bass hooks, and a popper and Jumpin' Minnow in case I come across blitzing Stripers.

   The three most important boxes are my Surf bag, fly boxes and my trout box. My trout box is so tiny it fits in my pocket. Still it is loaded with Rooster tails, Kastmasters, casting bubbles/flies, and small Rapala swimmers.

   My fully stocked fly boxes will fit in my waders and pockets along with a spare leader and tippet. Despite having three fly boxes, if I can get away with it, by far my favorite fly is the ant. I'd use it exclusively if I could, but works best in late summer and early fall.

   My Surf Bag is now ready for fishing this spring. It has lures with new hooks. There's enough leaders to get me through the spring. There are also other necessities such as a snag hook, pliers, and wooden eggs. My surf bag needs more maintenance throughout the year than my other stuff. Obviously my surf bag gets used more than say my tautog box which may or may not actually see the light of day. Also, the bag gets filled up with torn shad bodies, Zoom flukes, and chopped up leaders. After a few sessions, the bag looks like a dumpster fire. So every couple weeks I have to go through the bag and clean it up.

  I went through all of my spare gear too. I counted up my poppers, albie flies, and a few other things. I put back jigs and soft plastics that had been haphazardly thrown on a shelf. I went through my box of new plugs and Kastmaster XLs.

   As I said at the beginning, my gear is usually pretty clean and organized. Over the last week I went over the top. I am not one with OCD. I aimed for perfection not because I am obsessed but because it was fun. It was fun to aim for perfection. Right now I know where every piece of gear is from stuff in my boxes or in my storage room. This will only last until my next fishing trip where I'm bound to leave used stuff in my car and not put it back where it belongs.

Just one shelf full of gear I'll never use

   It is that time of year, if you haven't gone through your fishing gear since you put it away in the fall. Now is the time. You don't want to find out all of your hooks went rusty on a perfect seventy degree day. I still have my least favorite project left. I have to change my line on the reels I use. I went through all of rods and reels too. I decided to narrow down my rods that I will actually use and put the rest off to the side. Still, I have to change the line on thirteen reels. It's one of those projects that I hate doing and procrastinate until the last minute. But once I start doing it, its not really as awful as I make it out to be

Through the eyes of a Child

My letter to PA F&G. Still white
after
 thirty years

    When I was a kid I couldn't get enough of outdoor magazines. I had subscriptions to Outdoor Life, Field and Stream, Sport Afield, and The In-Fisherman. I couldn't wait for the spring issues that would have mostly fishing content. My favorite parts of OL and F&S were the middle sections printed on plain paper as opposed to the glossy paper in the rest of the magazine. The middle section would have articles from the region of the country you are from. I would eat up those articles. I would take notes and store them in a notebook.

   In 1988, as I was reading the national articles I came across a story on American Shad. For some reason I fell in love. I had never heard of American Shad until then but after I read the article they were all I thought about. I wanted to know more. Since the article was about shad in the Delaware River, I wrote a letter to the PA Fish and Game. I sent them a bunch of questions by snail mail (pre-internet). I also sent a Self Addressed Stamped Envelope to return my letter.

   When my SASE arrived I devoured the info. Not only did the biologist answer my questions but sent a fact sheet. Needless to say, I was in heaven. Not knowing that there were great shad runs in the Connecticut and Merrimack Rivers I made plans to go fish the Delaware. I tried to figure out the milage and gas costs and added that to the cost of a motel. This was only a pipe dream of course. I was too young to drive and my parents were not going to take me to Pennsylvania just to fish.

The article that I first
 learned about
American Shad

   Yesterday while cleaning out a storage drawer I came across my envelope with the original article, my answered questions and fact sheet. I reread my questions written in cursive along with the answers. It brought back a fond memory of a budding outdoorsman just starting to learn there was more than largemouth bass in this great big world.

   I never made it to the Delaware to fish for shad. I didn't need to. It turns out there are American Shad in the North/ Indianhead River in Scituate about an hour from my house. I used to go there a couple times each spring to catch them. More recently, when I make my birding foray to Plum Island I make a few hours to fish for shad. 

   After that initial letter to PA Fish and Game, I craved knowledge on fishing. I wrote dozens of letters to wildlife depts across the country with return stamped envelopes. Most of the letters were to biologists in the Northeast because they were close and the drive did not seem like a pipe dream. I learned about trout and salmon in northern New England along with Walleye and Kokanee in Connecticut.

My original envelope

    My letters eventually ended, not because I got older or smarter, but because of email. Now it is easy to send an email to the states' fish departments. However, ironically, I rarely do so. Simply because if I want to know the answer to a question I can usually find it online. A simple search of You Tube and I can find out what the best flies to fish the West Branch of the Penobscot in May or August. This is great, but it does not beat the excitement when I came home from school and saw an envelope addressed to me in my handwriting. My heart would be racing with excitement as I carefully opened each envelope.

 Another story below the photo below

   

Fast forward thirty one years past 1989. DJ and I were on our big western vacation. For seven weeks in 2010 we were on the road. After spending a week in South Dakota and the Forth of July at Mount Rushmore we were at Devil's Tower. Devils Tower was the first National Monument in the United States. Teddy Roosevelt declared it a National Monument after he was given the power of the Antiquities Act by Congress. The tower is a 867 foot butte in eastern Wyoming. It is sacred to the plain's Indian tribes. It was featured in the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

   We spent most of the day at the National Monument. We took hundreds of photos from every angle as we circled it on the trail though most of the photos look about the same. We walked every trail in the park, but not before going to the bathroom when we pulled into the parking lot.

   
   We got to Devil's Tower very early despite a two hour ride from out campground. We may have been the first car in the parking lot. After a two hour drive we went into the bathroom before starting our day. (I promise this is not a gross bathroom story) In the bathroom near the sinks was a white board. It didn't have anything written on it. My guess is that a ranger writes the weather for the day on it. I needed to use a stall while DJ did not so he finished before me. When I got out of the stall and went to wash my hands DJ wrote the following with a dry erase marker

    " Good Morning America, How are ya? Don't you know me, I'm your native son?"

   If you haven't  had your head buried in the sand for the past fifty years, you know this is a song lyric from the song City of New Orleans" written by Steve Goodman and made famous by Arlo Guthrie. When I read what DJ wrote, I damn near cried. It was just past dawn and we were at the very first national monument. We were just a few days past Mt Rushmore on the Forth of July. No other ten words could have described the moment better than those. When I read what he wrote, I knew I was doing something right as a parent. Though we had dozens of cds with us in the car, we hadn't listened to that song while on vacation yet. It was all him and how he was feeling at the time. Since our plan was to use the bathroom then get our backpacks, drinks, and camera, I didn't have my camera to take a photo of the whiteboard.

   The feeling I had when DJ wrote that was the cliché moment of Zen for me. Knowing how DJ felt  seeing the beautiful landscapes and wildlife in America and seeing it through his eyes made me proud. During our trip, we went to iconic places such as Little Bighorn, The Grand Canyon, and Yellowstone and that feeling never went away. Of course, after we came home and over the next thirteen years, both that teenage boy and his father would see things like school shootings, the Marathon bomber, and a pandemic. We watched politicians lie and shit on the Constitution. We watched the Bears Ears National Monument that we drove through in Utah lose its status as a monument only to see it become one again.  Now that DJ is twenty seven and I forty eight we are both a lot more cynical. However, on that vacation and specifically that moment in the bathroom, we both saw the world through the eyes of an innocent fourteen year old and for the moment, all was right in the world! 

   

   

On the Water TV, Fishing TV, and You Tube

    As you can imagine, having back pain and managing my newfound diabetes I have done very little the last few moths. As you all know, I am very active. Days off from work usually meant leaving home to go birding or fishing before the sun came up. Evenings after work usually resulted in me finally eating supper after dark. That all changed late June 2022.

   For much of the past few months, I would only be vertical for a few hours before I'd have to lay down. Trying to read was impossible and so was being comfortable enough to watch tv. Many nights involved me going to bed between 6-7 pm. The highlight of my week would be my physical therapy sessions with my PT Ryan.

   Fortunately, my back is feeling somewhat better. I'm nowhere near healed and hiking will be in the far distant future. During the long winter hours I have found some interesting tv that has not only gotten me through but I learned something also.

    On the Water TV

   If you are a fisherman in New England, chances are have a subscription to On the Water Magazine. It is a great magazine. The writers are fisherman. If you have a good idea for an article, you can write a query to the editor. If he likes the idea he will give you the go ahead. The editor will read your submitted article and if it is well written, you will be published. You don't need to be a nationally famous writer to be in the magazine. I've written multiple articles for OTW before I fell in love with birding.

   On the Water has also been doing a tv show for almost twenty years. It is broadcast on Comcast New England. I had watched a few shows when I'd be home. I discovered this winter that their shows are available to watch on their website. Obviously they have been for a while, maybe years, but still, it was a nice discovery.

   I've watched all of the episodes that interest me. Some of the shows I've skipped over but from many I learned s lot. I'm probably not going to watch an episode about striper fishing with mackerel in Boston Harbor for two reasons. One, I don't own a boat so I won't be in Boston Harbor any time soon. Secondly, I've caught thousands of stripers so a show about them really doesn't interest me.

  That said, I have wanted to catch King Salmon from the Salmon River in New York for years. There are multiple episodes about the Salmon River and other Lake Ontario tributaries. You can bet I soaked them up. 

  There were many other episodes I enjoyed from party boat fishing in the canyons for Bluefin Tuna to Landlocked Salmon fishing in Maine. All in all, I have enjoyed watching and learning about fish that I've dreamed about for years.

   Fishing TV

   For months I've been getting adds on Facebook for Fishing TV. I finally checked it out. There is a seven day free trial followed by $6/ month streaming fee. The amount of content is very extensive and I've barely scratched the surface. Basically, you can watch shows or movies about fishing. There are many series. One that I just watched was called "Fishing Trip USA". It is hosted by an older Scottish gent. He started in the Keys and worked his way up the East Coast to Maine. He fished for everything from Snook in Florida, Stripers in NJ and Maine, and trout in Georgia. There are about twelve episodes.

  There is a search bar on Fishing TV. So if I type in Massachusetts, I can see anything that involves Mass fishing such as the famous Deerfield River. There are also categories such as Fly Fishing, Predator Fishing, and even Carp. I typed in Peacock Bass and watched multiple shows on them in the canals in Florida. I took notes on where they were caught and strategies to catch them. Not every show was up my ally, I want to catch them on lures so I skipped the episode catching them with shiners.

    Fishing TV is going to keep me busy learning and watching programs for the next couple of months. If my back is better in March, I'll cancel my subscription for the warm weather as I usually do with all streaming services because I'd rather be fishing for trout than watching a show about them.  You may want to check it out though. For six dollars/month it is a hell of a deal.

You Tube

   Okay, I did not just discover You Tube. I've been watching things on it for years. You Tube is great because you can watch anything on it. If I need to know how to set up new a tv I can find a video of someone demonstrating how.  Also, I've watched plenty of fishing on You Tube. The latest was watching a guy catch Flathead Catfish on the Susquehanna. Caching a huge catfish is on my bucket list.

   However, the main thing I've watched on You Tube the last few months has been music. You Tube is a godsend for the content it has of my radio heroes. At least one or two nights a week Laurie and I will just surf the tube watching videos and live performances mostly be singers that are now dead.

   I love classic country music. You Tube allows me to "see" the songs from musicians that may have died twenty years before I was born. Just last night we watched Hank Williams Sr sing  "I saw the light" and Conway Twitty sing "Lay You Down". We watched videos for hours so I won't bore you with every song. But we covered everyone from Waylon to Steve Earl. What an honor it is to see a young George Jones sing "He Stopped Loving her Today"

   Along with the classic country there is a ton of content from oldies and classic rock. Some of it brought back memories. When I was in 7th grade our fundraiser was music in the for of record albums. My mom bought a record to support the school by Elvis called GI Blues. This was the soundtrack for a movie he did after he got out of the service. Now, I have no idea where that old 33 is, but I can watch the King sing GI Blues and Frankfort Special.

    A few days ago, I watched almost the whole concert by Simon and Garfunkel's concert in Central Park from 1981. The Momma's and Pappa's did California Dreamin on the Ed Sullivan show and were told they had to lip sync it. While the others played along, Michelle Phillips ate a banana while performing. There's just thousands of  performances that I will never get to however, the nights we watch these videos are some of my fondest memories of this winter.

   Right now as I finish this up, I'm listening to Clapton at Live Aid in 1985. I'll never waste my time watching a cat do tricks or some twelve year old with his own channel, but  I feel we are lucky to watch our radio heroes sing songs that beats the hell out of the crap produced today.

   Streaming TV Shows

   I won't bore you with why I liked certain shows but here is a short list of shows I've watched this winter that I really enjoyed

    Wednesday (Netflix) aa good as advertised!

    Jack Ryan (Amazon Prime)

   Emily in Paris (Netflix) girly but fun

   National Treasure (Disney +)

   Andor (Disney +)

    All oft he Marvel stuff on Disney + is awesome

    Obi One (Disney+)

    George and Tammy (Hulu)

    OF COURSE Yellowstone!!! 

The Best Fishing Show in New England, The Fly Fishing Show in Marlboro

  Friday thru Sunday the Fly Fishing Show in Marlboro will be going on ( Jan 20-22). In my opinion, it is by far the best and most run well outdoors show in New England.  The show has everything for a fly fisherman. There are booths to buy everything from premier rods to dry flies. 

   All day long there are casting demonstrations in a casting pool. There is a large triple booth selling a library of fly fishing books. There are charter captain's and river guides advertising their expertise. You can talk to them at their table and pick up a flier, pamphlet or card. The nice thing about walking up and down these aisles is everything is fishing related. More and more, many outdoor shows are selling crap like garage doors, curtains, and tractors. I understand the marketing teams want to rent out all of the space so they'd rather rent space to a garage door company than leave it empty, but it does diminish the quality of the show. At the Fly Fishing Show, there is no such worry.

   The main reason I go to the Fly Fishing Show are the seminars. Each hour there are SIX seminars. Two of the seminars are in the Catch and Release rooms. These seminars are usually "how to". How to fish a nymph more effectively and fishing dry flies on still waters would be two examples. The other four seminars each hour are in Destination Theater. The seminar rooms are in a different building either a five minute walk up the parking lot or you can take a quick free shuttle.

   These seminars at Destination Theater are run by guides, charters, lodge owners, and authors. I live for these seminars and I can tell you I take a ton of notes. You would think that these guides would give you a general overview of an area, but they can give a lot of specific information. For example, the former owners of Lobstick Lodge in Pittsburg, NH talks about fishing the headwaters of the Connecticut River. The owner explains what fly patterns work best throughout the year. He goes right down the river with slides explaining the depth of each pool, what hatches you might encounter and the best riffle to cast for a salmon. Yes they really do get that specific. 

    Pretty much every presenter I have seen in a seminar has been top notch. You can find destinations as far away as Patagonia and Belize but also closer world class bucket list places such as the Upper Delaware (NY), Salmon River (NY) and Grand Lake Stream in Maine.  Just like Lopstick Outfitters, most guides will explain the water, the flies and seasons. Of course, if a lodge operator is doing the seminar they will go over accommodations. Some of these places like the Alaskan bush require a float plane ride and the only lodging for a hundred miles might be those cabins.

   On top of the How to seminars and Destination Theater there other ways to keep your interest up all day. Each hour there are fly tiers giving a talk on how to make specific flies. They make their fly in front of you with a magnifying glass attached to a tv screen so you can see how the flies are made without squinting.

   Also each hour, there will be either one or two authors in the Authors Booth. As I mentioned there is a bookstore selling a lot of different books. You can get many of them signed by the author during the show. I'm a sucker for where to books (such as Best Tailwaters in the Eastern United States). I got my copy signed while I was there.

   Lastly, besides all of the free seminars you can take half day classes with experts. These will cost you a few bucks, but the classes are small and you will learn from a true expert. Examples of these classes would be learning to cast further, Euro Nyphing, and Shoreline Night Fishing. I can not speak to how well done they are because I have never paid for one of these Featured Classes. However, I'd have to assume you'd learn a lot being taught by true celebrities in the fly fishing world. 

    If you go to the show on Friday and you don't want to leave when it is over, after the show is the International Fly Fishing Film Festival or IF4 for short. For an additional $15 (ten if you buy in advance) you can watch a film festival. The shows/movies are fairly short. I went to the IF4 a few years ago. They movies are made by fly fishermen. Some are just showing off the beauty of an area and the great fishing. Others are actually really funny and could rightly be called comedies.  The downside is it starts at 6:30 and continues a very long day. Still, if you have Saturday off, it might be worth staying for the IF4. 

    So there you have it, between all the gear and charters at the tables, how to seminars, destination theater, authors and fly tiers I can easily spend a day at the Fly Fishing Show. My plan this year if my back holds up is to go Friday and Sunday. There are so many seminars I want to see I need to go both days to see them all. Having Six Seminars and hour, there are multiple hours where there are more than one I want to see. If I go back on Sunday I can see everything. Again, here's to hoping my back makes it through two days of a lot of sitting. Below is the link to the show

https://flyfishingshow.com/marlborough-ma/

End of the Year Review

 

Cottonmouth, 
Alligator River NWR, 
June 2022

    Obviously I haven't blogged as much as I usually do. I'm still nursing a bad back and learning what I can and can not eat with diabetes. I do an End of the Year review each year. Normally each year has a "theme". These themes usually happen organically. One year I decided to trout fish all summer in New Hampshire. Another year All I did was surf cast for stripers and blues. Usually these themes just work themselves out and I usually don't plan them in January.

   This year was no different. I went on two vacations the first half of the year. One to DC to see cherry blossoms and Civil War battlefields. The second was to North Carolina where I saw a whole bunch of wildlife. Besides my vacations, my theme was going to be "herping". I spent much of the spring and early summer looking for snakes, frogs, turtles, and toads. I got very lucky and saw cottonmouths in North Carolina and three Black Racers in MA/RI. I had multiple lifers.

   Then reality hit me like an eighteen wheeler. Late June I hurt my back and have been basically laid up since. The second half of 2022 I did very little. As each month of pain went by, I was hopeful I'd be better the next month. Then by Christmas. None of this happened. As of now, I'm scheduled for two more MRIs and an Ultra Sound on my kidneys. I've been going to physical therapy for over three months. While my core and back have grown strong, the pain persists. So without question, the theme for 2022 was pain and trying to take care of my health.

Sometime in August I decided to write down my favorite memories from the first half of the year. They were only quick notes. Usually when I do an end of the year review I write about the birding, fishing, and wildlife I've seen. This year I just kept track of my favorite memories. So below, this probably isn't great reading material for you, but at least I will have a written copy of the things that made me happy.

  I do believe I got seven lifers this year ( Common Gull, Northern Fulmar, King Rail, Brown Booby, Red Cockaded Woodpecker, Yellow Bellied Flycatcher, Monk Parakeet). I left a lot of birds on the table because I was not willing to do the three hour round trip to Westerly, RI because my back kills while in a car. 

  If you read down the list, any fun that I had after North Carolina probably involved a pain killer or two so I could enjoy myself and also allow Laurie to enjoy herself without having to watch me in pain. 

Painted Bunting

Spring Peepers (actually seeing them)

RISD Museum

Blue Winged Teal /Muskrat/ Wilson's Snipe

Common Gull

Washington DC

    Cherry Blossoms

    Blackwater NWR (Sika Deer, Delmarva Fox Squirrel, King Rail, Carolina Chickadee, BH Nuthatch)

    VA Battlefields- Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, The Wilderness

Great Horned Owl and Pileated at Wollomonopaug

Plum Island May 12/13 Camping 

    May 20 Fallout Great photos of Wilson's Warbler, Blackburnian

 Yellow Throated Vireo, and Canada Warbler at Mia

Sue's King Rail

RI Pelagic - Northern Fulmar

Baltimore Checkerspot

North Carolina

   Monk Parakeets, Jamestown, Yorktown, Dolphin Cruise, NC Aquarium Camping at Hattaras Light (Chuck Wills, Common Nighthawk, Fireflies) Alligator River (Gators, Bears, Cottonmouth, Two Rat Snakes, Bobwhite, Barred Owls, Blue Grosbeak upgrade, Ash Throated Flycatcher, Spotted Turtle, Mud Turtle, Box Turtle)

   Red Cockaded Woodpecker, Brown Booby, Monk Parakeet  lifers

   Assateague Island Horses, Bombay Hook Black Necked Stilts

Northern Red Bellied Cooters at Myles Standish

Pickerel Frogs and baby Fowler's Toads at West Hill Dam and Northern Water Snake at River Bend Farm

 Black Racer at West Hill Dam jumping out of the net at me

Red Pharalope at Second Beach

Cape Ann Whale Watch

Buddy Holly Story North Shore Music Circus

Brown Booby from Cape Cronin

Dirty Deeds and One Night of Queen at Bold Point

Quashnet Wild Brook Trout

Jesse Liam concerts

Boothbay Harbor overnight

Yellow Bellied Flycatcher

Central MA camping trip Eastern Newt/ Bald Eagles

The Nutcracker

Was told on Christmas "I love you' by the person I have loved for over twenty years

An actual adventure

Razorbill

 On Wednesday my friend Sue found out from a friend of a friend ( Jan and Mike ) that there were a lot of Dovkies and Razorbills in the Cape Cod Canal. Though a few Razorbills can be expected in the canal during the winter Dovkies are much rarer. 

   Sue and I decided to meet up and see if we could get lucky with some photos. Neither bird would be a lifer for us. We were actually standing three feet from breeding Razorbills last year on our trip to Machias Seal Island. However, at least for me, a photo of a Dovkie would be a life photo no matter how bad. 

   We pulled in at almost the exact same time near the marina on the island side. We saw quite a few birds including close Razorbills. There were some Dovkies but they were usually flying right past us. We aimed and shot, hoping our pictures would be in focus. 

 

Dovkie, a miniature flying football

   A bonus was that Sue found a  Black Legged Kittiwake swimming with two Bonaparte Gulls. Despite being too far for a good photo, that was worth the trip.

   Towards the end of our adventure a Dovkie did decide to swim a bit in front of us. It was on the other side of the canal. Although we wished it were a hundred yards closer, it was cooperative and we watched it for five minutes. There were plenty of sea ducks, loons, and gulls to keep us entertained in the brisk wind also.

  We left about 3:15. I only had a short ride back to Laurie's house in Norton while Sue had to drive back to Westerly, RI. All in all, I was thrilled to get out and see some good birds. Despite doing my normal Physical Therapy exercises that night, I still had to ice my back in the middle of the night to get back to sleep. A price I was hoping not to pay, but the adventure was still worth it.  

Heavily cropped photo of a Dovkie on the 
other side of the Cape Cod Canal. They aren't much
bigger than a tennis ball.

Wild Brook Trout on Cape Cod

    One of the things on my East Bucket List was to catch wild brook trout on Cape Cod. Both the Quashnet and Mashpee Rivers have wild sea-run brookies. These fish have access to the ocean since both rivers empty into Waquoit Bay. I have wanted to fish for these wild trout since I first learned about them. I went to a seminar at one of the fishing shows many years ago about these trout. The speaker was a guy named Ronald Lasko. He wrote a book called "A Tale of Two Rivers". I bought the book devoured it.

   This summer I got a chance to go down to Mashpee/ Falmouth and fish for them. I had never seen either of these rivers so I considered it a scouting mission. I really wanted to catch one but if I didn't I figured I'd still learn a lot for a future adventure. I accepted I would probably get skunked, but really was playing for one. One would mean I could check off this experience off of my bucket list. Catching one would mean I wouldn't have to take the ninety minute drive again if I didn't want to. But it also meant I would be really excited which meant more to me than the check mark.

   I started my adventure on the Mashpee. I stopped at the Mashpee Conserve first. It is where my GPS took me. I walked down a path that parallels the river but even though parallels it, the river wasn't even in view of the path. So I went further north and tried another spot. There was a path straight to the river but the access was muddy. I decided to try the Quashnet. If I didn't find access I still had many hours to explore the Mashpee. 

   I found a parking area along the lower Quashnet and decided to really explore the river. I put on my waders and walked down the path until I found a fisherman's path toward the water. I was hoping to bring my little six foot/ two weight fly rod, however I didn't have the right size fly line for it. So I had to use my nine foot/ five weight. The problem with the long rod was it was jungle fishing. Most of the river is covered with trees and limbs right over the water. Multiple times I had to duck under branches to move up river. There were multiple runs where I couldn't even cast because there wasn't room. Even if I had my six foot rod, there wouldn't have been room to lift it.

   So

I made due with my nine footer. I think it worked out okay. Using my fly rod I'd hold it straight up and cast my leader in front of me. At no point in six hours of fishing did I have more than two feet of fly line out. There just wasn't room. The good thing about the long rod was I'd flip the  leader upstream with a fly attached. So each "cast" was about eighteen feet. If I had my six foot rod, and flipped the fly in front of me, my "cast" would have only been twelve feet. 

   The Quashnet is only about fifteen feet wide in the widest places and under eight feet in others. As I was walking upstream I started to build confidence that I might actually catch a trout. I worked my way up river casting at any place I had daylight above me and tree limbs. 

  After only fifteen minutes I had a hit on my ant fly. Very happily, I hooked the trout and actually landed it. It was a beautiful wild brook trout in spawning colors. I took a few photos and let it go. A quick note- these two rivers are catch and release and artificial lures only. Meaning, you can't keep any trout and you can't use bait of any kind. I didn't even bring a spinning rod. It was catch them on a fly or bust. 

  I was ecstatic that I caught one of these little wild treasures. Obviously I didn't stop fishing. I hooked a little tiny brookie a minute or two later. Still, it was beautiful. Long story short, I hooked and caught a few more. I hooked about a dozen more fish and landed about six. Most of the fish were in the eight inch range. They are not big fish. I foot long trout would be a trophy. You don't fish for them for size. They are beautiful and wild non-hatchery raised trout are a rare treat in Massachusetts.