Photo Upgrade #1 for 2023. Hopefully one of many

 

Cackling Goose

 I had a fairly good day planned for this afternoon. I had to run an errand and go to Boost Mobile in Woonsocket because my phone was acting up. After that I was going to the Foxboro YMCA for a swim. Once done with my swim, I was going to Bass Pro Shops to get the one lure I actually need, Yellow Coachdog Roostertails. 

   As I was getting back in my car with a phone that now works in Woonsocket I got a rare bird alert. A Cackling Goose was at a ballfield in Ryan Park in North Kingstown. I've seen Cackling Geese before and I've gotten photos of them. None of the photos are very good. My best was at a pond in Middletown where these geese were pretty far away. I figured geese in a Little League field should be much closer.

  Woonsocket to North Kingstown seems like a long distance, but once I got on Rt 99, GPS told me that it was only a 24 minute drive. I may have gone over the speed limit, but so was everyone else on Route 295 and Rt  4.

   

   Once I got to the ballfields, there weren't many geese to sort through to find it. Cackling geese look like Canada Geese. The only difference is they are much smaller and their bill is much shorter and pointy. Sometimes the back is silvery, but the color pattern is the same as Canada Geese. They can be a tough ID. The wind was brutal despite the temperature being in the high forties. 

   I found what I thought was the Cackling so I called over to the other guy with binoculars that "I think I have it". The other guy was a birder I'm friends with named Chris Veale. He thought he had it too, and we had the same bird. The Cackling made the ID and photos very easy. Most of the time it was the goose closest to us in the flock. A few other birders showed up including another friend Allison O'Conner. We watched the goose for about 15 minutes. The majority of the flock left to swim in the pond across the street. We decided we weren't going to get any better photos. All we would have done was make the geese swim away from us ruining it for birders that showed up after we left. 

   

You can see how much smaller than the 
Canada Geese

While I was heading home, I got another alert that a Snow Goose was at a field in Lincoln. That bird was right on my ride home, so I figured why the hell not. When I pulled over, the Snow Goose was right next to the road. However, there was so much brush between the road and field, I couldn't get a photo from my car. As expected, the geese walked away from the road when I got out. It got a few photos from an opening in the brush. The geese moved fifty or sixty feet from me and started feeding again.  I left them alone despite Snow Goose probably being my favorite waterfowl.

 

Snow Goose

 I was three miles from DJ's mom's house so I called her up to see if I could go over and play with her three dogs. When I got there, I was surprised with a Christmas present. It was a nice sweatshirt. I was touched, and really appreciated the gesture and love the sweatshirt!

  So needless to say, swimming will have to wait until tomorrow and the Roostertails are still at Bass Pro.  It was well worth the delay. I had a great afternoon

Swimming!

   

   Completely bored out of my mind after months of back pain one day in December I went birding at Snake Den Farm. Snake Den is a short drive from my house and the birding is along a dirt road. I took my time and watched every step so not to inflame my already injured back. 

   While I was there I ran into a birder I had never seen before. At this point, I'm surprised when I meet a new birder in Rhode Island. After all these years of birding, and birders being a small group, I seem to have met most everyone. He was much older than me with a long beard. We (he) started talking and the conversation dragged on far longer than I would have liked. My back hurts far worse standing in one spot than it does walking slowly and looking around. Finally I told him about my bad back after making obvious positions to stretch it or make it more comfortable. My hope here was for him to let me go on my way and he on his.

    Instead, he started talking about his own medical issues. He told me he was 88 years old. I never would have guess, he didn't look much over 65. He didn't walk with a hunched back or any limp. His gait at full walk was much bigger than mine. To put it plainly, for 88 years old, he was in great shape. He told me that he had back issues the year before. He said it affected his legs and the pain was so bad he was confined to a wheelchair. He thought there wasn't any hope to recover. He then told me that he started swimming at the Y. He said, believe it or not, that he went from wheelchair bound to pain free in a month. He said it multiple times how great swimming was for him.

   I put this in the back of my mind. I was happy for him and I believed him. I also thought that everyone is different and whatever was wrong with his back probably wasn't what was wrong with mine. I still hadn't been diagnosed at that point so still didn't know what the hell was wrong with me.

   Obviously I know swimming is one of the best exercises you can do because it is good cardio and doesn't put any pressure on your joints. However, I was pretty sure I had a bulging disk ( actually I have since been diagnosed with three). I was not sure if  swimming would put pressure on the disk(s) and pinch the nerves even more. I suspected that the motion could and would inflame the already inflamed muscles and joints even worse. So I thought about swimming but wasn't going to until I had a real diagnosis and I got permission from an orthopedic AND my physical therapist Ryan. Ryan has been great and I believe he knows more about backs, spines, and nerves than most doctors. But I also wanted a specialized ortho who saw the multiple MRI's and X-Rays to give me the okay too.

   I got the okay from both in late December. Ryan told me multiple times not to overdue it. He also said if I go a lot I should have at least a second stroke, again so I didn't overdue it. Laurie and I both got memberships to the Foxboro YMCA which is the closest indoor pool to her house at the end of 2022. 

   We went swimming the first day we got our membership. The pool is a standard twenty five yard (or meter) pool with six wide lanes. Sometimes the pool is used for swimming lessons, water aerobics or family time. The times are posted a week in advance on what the pool is used for. When all six lanes are open for lap swim that is when I go. Each lane is wide enough for two people. 

   The first day I went I did five laps. It took a lot out of me and I wasn't sure how my body would react. I took a couple of muscle relaxers when I went to bed because I could feel some throbbing back there. The next morning when I woke up my back felt better than it had in months. No joke, it certainly wasn't healed but most of the pain was gone.

   I was pretty happy with five laps and my goal was to inch my way up to ten. I did not want any setbacks so I wasn't going to go immediately from five to ten. Also, I planned on stopping at ten laps once I finally reached it because that seemed like enough for a workout. 

   So I kept going back to the pool as often as I could. Life gets in the way so I've been averaging two to three times a week. It works out really well that I have physical  therapy in the morning. I go from there to the pool because there are usually lap hours between 12-2:30 pm. 

   My back is feeling so much better. The pattern seems to be I'm a little sore on pool day but the next two to three days my back feels great. Sometimes it doesn't even get sore on pool day. I really enjoy the swimming and look forward to going. I also started using my snorkel in the pool. My form sucks and keeping my head head above water and breathing is something I will eventually need to work on. But for now, using the snorkel I can keep going without stopping to catch my breathe. My logic is for now it is better to work on my cardio than my swimming technique. 

   Getting up to ten laps was much easier than I expected. I went from five laps to 7 to 10 in a couple of sessions. I did fifteen laps today and when I was done I was tired. Which is a good thing. I missed exercise

   So I have to say, I'm with the old guy that told me that swimming got out of that wheelchair within a month. After a little over a month of swimming my back is feeling so much better. I've had full days sometimes consecutively where it doesn't hurt at all. I feel a lot stronger. I can feel the muscles in my abs and core which had already been getting stronger due to PT. I strongly suggest if you have a bad back to ask your doctor if swimming might help. It has done wonders for me.

    I'd been dealing with back pain for so long that when I had my first days that were pain free felt different and wrong. I could not believe the feeling of not being in pain. Really and truly, it was an odd sensation one I am grateful to have. I have been miserable for eight months now, and finally over the last month I've gotten my spark back. I am out of my funk and no longer depressed. I don't feel like I'm bringing Laurie down when I'm around her. I even made some dumb jokes this week that made her laugh. I think swimming for a month has gotten me to the point that I probably won't have any real setbacks and am on the road to healing.

   Note- For the last few months my health related problems have been dominating my life. As I said above, I've been miserable. Because my back, diabetes, and neuropathy have been all I've thought about it gets mentioned in my blog posts quite often. From my point of view anything I've done since June has had to be planned out either because of my diet or my back. My one camping trip this summer required planning on when to take my muscle relaxers. lying in the back seat of Laurie's car to ease the length of the ride, among other precautions. And I'm sure you are sick of me starting every post with a mention of my back. Trust me, it is as tiresome for me to write as it is for you to read. I know I have a long way to go until I'm fully healed even though I am mostly pain free. Ryan told me today that one of the muscles in my back is going to take a long time to "heal" and "relax" because it was literally spasming  for months without rest.   All that being said, as long as I'm going in the right direction, I want to put that part of my life behind me. I'm stuck with the diabetes, but honestly it wasn't hard to change my diet. So.. from this point forward, I'm hoping to start making memories again, and there will by very little mention of my back or my health. I seem to be in very little pain when I drive so I'm going to start doing the things that I thought of over the winter... Let the games begin!!!!!!!!!!!

   

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