R&R

Today was a day to take it easy. I made up some carp fishing bait and chum and went down to the nearest carp pond. There I sat and watched bubble makers for the better part of the afternoon. In my observation post I watched a snapping turtle pop up occasionally, probably curious as too what I was doing. I looked down at what I thought was a school of tadpoles, but they turned out to be baby bullheads.

I had two takes, but carp are very good at exhaling the hook and inhaling the bait. 

I still wanted to catch something, so after returning home I tied on a rapala and went to a different pond. Three nice bass were ready and willing to eat it. 

The Streams Not Fished- The White Mountains

Look at a map of any remote area in the North East. Consider all of the rivers. Often these will have trout. Now narrow your focus to small ones. These are the most probable to hold wild fish. Now look for sections of these waterways that are hard to get to: Thick brush, no trails, no roads. This is what one of the streams my father and I fished in the White Mountains was like. It was a tributary to a bigger river, although it flows into a part of the river that not stocked an very hard to fish. It also happened to be on the far side of the river, in a basin with a few trails and only some dirt logging roads. This Basin sits at around 1200 feet. The brush is impenetrable. The river we had to cross (without waders) to fish this little brook was, this weekend, cold. It couldn't have exceeded 45 degrees. The little brook was slower and warmer, but not by more than five degrees.

It is streams like this that even locals don't bother with. They can get land locked salmon, big Brook Trout, and big Browns in other easier to get to and fish rivers. Even the small stream buffs have plenty of other options that aren't so taxing and obscure as that little brook. If you are going to come from a-far, why would yous bother. That stream may probably have been fished at some point, but not recently. The Brook Trout in there now have never seen anything with a hook in it. 

The stream was vary slow, with granite gravel bottom and vegetation. There was mud, some big rounded stones, and all sorts of nooks and crannies concealing fish. The Banks were steep, but that hardy mattered considering the safest mode of travel was wading. There were plenty of beaver dams forming great holes. Often the water was still, but it had brook trout in it anyway. In CT this water would be too arm for char. Insects were absolutely everywhere.  Bug spray did little to stall the black flies, deer flies, and mosquitoes. Caddis, a ridiculous amount of midges, and Green Drakes were emerging.

The trout we caught ranged in size from 2 to 5 inches. We probably could have caught bigger on small buckctails but had plenty of fun on dries. They weren't skittish, and they took flies readily with gusto. I used a Parachute Adams, my father used the same as well as a Griffiths Gnat and a Stimulator. Some fish ate from bellow, others jumped down on the flies. Brookies do this sometimes to prevent food from taking off. Almost every cast resulted in a take.

Although we fished a bigger river and a small free stone, that spot stuck out. I will be back when I have time. 

A view found while bushwhacking around on the hunt for minerals.

Wish I had the fly gear when I stumbled across this stream. I was on the trail of a fabled find of giant crystals.

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Native from the stream in the above picture.

White Mountains

Tomorrow I will be heading up to New Hampshire, along the Kancamagus Highway in the White Mountains. Although the main purpose of the trip is for mineral collecting, a bit of fly fishing for wild trout is certain. I wil post on Monday.

Cheating

Today I did something that, for a bit, had me disappointed in myself. I used spoons and spinners. The hot producer was a Phoebe, Metallic Perch color. A C-P Swing also got some action. The stream was one I had consistently been out-fished by a friend using spinners.

I lost one on the first cast. It took a lot of pools before I hooked and lost another. I eventually got my first of the day. I realized it to actually be my first trout on spinning gear EVER.  For my first year targeting trout I used a spinning rod, but shortly later was given a fly setup. All I had caught on spinners were Salmon Par and Chubs. Therefore that Brooky was my first fish of the trout persuasion on a fly, although it is technically a char. My next fish was a big boy who was hanging out by a beaver dam. I managed a few of his comrades too. The last fish was pulled from a long glide and took several times before being hooked.

Great Hill Pond

Dalton and I have once again been hitting the warm water in kayaks. This morning we went to Great Hill Pond, a smaller clear water body holding Large and Smallmouth, Crappy, Bluegill, Yellow Perch and Pickerel. During the calm of the morning I cast a popper fly  and caught some nice Bass and Bluegill on that popper. Then the wind picked up. I lost one pickerel on a streamer then decided to give up flies. White caps were forming and I picked up the spinning rod and tied on a rapala.

Trolling that rapala I started to catch plenty of fish. Dalton was using a spinner bait and boated a 2 pound Largemouth and a 20 in Pickerel, along with some smaller fish. I ended up with 26 fish, Dalton with nine. Considering how much the conditions had deteriorated we did fairly well.