Tuesday, January 28, 2014

A little scouting

Since the weather on Monday was reasonable for a nice walk in the woods, I headed to some state land to scout a stream that Alan and I have talked about investigating.  As is obvious in the pictures, the majority of the stream was covered with ice and I was therefore not able to get any sense of the nature of its pools and riffles.  What I do know is that there is a lot more to explore than what I've shown below.  I'm excited to return when the ice is gone (with a rod of course) and get a better sense of the quality of this stream as a trout habitat.










Saturday, January 25, 2014

Thursday, January 23, 2014

No fish, just eagles

After the striped bass kill that occurred last week in the Black Hall River in Old Lyme, a good number of eagles were spotted soaring over the estuary.  My son was able to get a few good pictures of this spectacular bird with my camera (300 mm lens).  Although we're not positive, it appears that a nest is also in the area so we may be treated to many more sightings in the future.




Thursday, January 2, 2014

1 Jan 2014

I met Alan, Mark, John and Pete mid-morning for the annual first of the year fishing trip.  This year we were deprived of snow, but the cold temperature more than made up for it.  After a bit of a calamitous start to the outing, most of us were able to hit the water for some pre-lunch fishing.  Mark and Pete headed upstream, while John and I headed downstream at the first stream we decided to fish.  While the action was very slow (to non-existent), I was able to catch one brown on the pink worm fly.  After a delicious lunch of venison chili and chicken noodle soup, we headed to a second nearby stream for some afternoon fishing.  While Alan worked a deep pool near where we started, I took his advice and went to a great corner pool that usually offers up a decent brookie.  Once again, the pink worm worked its magic and a beautiful brookie came to hand, was photographed and released.  I roamed downstream a bit, but was viciously attacked by the pricker-bushes that line the stream (preventing easy access to many stretches of water).  Rather than fight the offending flora, I got away from the stream and walked around looking for Alan.  I figured that he had moved downstream to a major pool, but seeing that he wasn't there I returned upstream and found that he had already called it a day.  It was a reasonable decision, a good time to get out of the cold.  This was a great way to start 2014.  I look forward to fishing with everyone many more times this year.

Thank you Alan and Mark for providing the hot food.