Category Archives: Fishing

Fishing topics and related conservation issues

Kaaterskill Falls – Early May (Page 2)

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The walk back down from Kaaterskill Falls to the road was one of those occasions when verse by my favourite Welsh poet sprang readily to mind:

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs

And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,

Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,

And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can

Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

W.H. Davies

As for the “streams full of stars,” I looked and wondered whether this particular one also held any Brook Trout. I have a delightful little 3-weight, 7’6″ fly rod that I could be easily be tempted to go back with, to that gorge.

And then, of course, there are all the larger creeks and rivers in the Catskill Mountains. They might need longer 4- or even 5-weight rods. I wonder how many Americans know that the Catskills were actually the first place fly fishing was ever done in the U.S.A. These mountains are certainly classed as the home of such in America.

The Red Trilliums (see above) were, of course, a wonderful bonus. So many spring wildflowers are white or pale-coloured but not these ones!

We also saw a few small birds flitting about on the far bank of the creek and some long-lens photographs showed these to be Louisiana Waterthrush – a little gem in a lovely setting.

So yes, the path up to the Kaaterskill Falls is steep and a bit rough in parts but it is not much more than quarter of a mile so, as long as you take your time, a lot of people could manage it. And as I hope my words and photos have shown, it is very worthwhile!

Eddie

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Dastardly Deeds on the Delaware River?

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THE MYSTERY OF THE DEPOSIT DEPOSIT!

A few days ago, I met up with my Swedish fly fishing buddy Peter Bjorkman, at Deposit, New York, for a day’s fly fishing on the West Branch of the Delaware River. On this occasion, though, I had left my own rods at home and took my cameras, instead.

After a morning fruitlessly ‘swinging a streamer’, Peter switched to one of my own favourite techniques, that of ‘Czech nymphing’, and started to have success.

The ‘scene of the crime’ – The West Branch of the Delaware River, at Deposit, NY. All of the bodies were in the bottom-right corner of the photo!

In the meanwhile, I was moving along the bank and occasionally in the shallow edges of the river, and while doing so I spotted the waterlogged body of what appeared to be a cormorant, floating among grasses.

The neck and skull ow what I believe to be a cormorant were bare bone but, as shown here, the body and feathers were just below the surface

Having gone closer, to take a look, I then found an equally sodden duck’s wing nearby. And then some relatively dry, breast feathers from a lighter coloured bird — possibly also a duck.

The green ‘speculum’ on the dead duck’s wing

All of this was in an area no more than 12 feet in length, and it seemed too much to be coincidence.

Feathers, apparently from a third ‘victim’

I changed my search and started looking for signs of a perpetrator, and almost immediately I got what I presumed was a result. On a rock a few feet out into the water was some scat (about 1½ inches in length).

“That’s not otter,” I thought (though I’m only aware of what Eurasian otter scat looks like, not their American cousins, and I merely presumed it would be similar).

Scat on a prominent rock – typical behaviour for riverside hunters

“Maybe it’s mink,” seemed like a reasonable conclusion, so I took photographs of all the bits of the various birds and of the scat, so that I could check my animal tracking books when back home.

My sleuthing didn’t pay off though, because according to my books the scat looked absolutely nothing like that of otters or mink, or of any other riverside predator I could think of. If anything, it looked most like that of the humble musk rat — to my knowledge not a creature that’s likely to be inclined or able to kill and eat large birds.

If any reader happens to belong to that elite group of people who can recognise creatures by their after-dinner deposits, could you kindly let me know what the scat might have belonged to and thereby hopefully solve the question as to whether this was likely to have been murder most ‘fowl’ (sorry!) or simply a coincidental gathering of body parts.

Peter with a beautiful, very light coloured Brown Trout (which was immediately returned to the water, unharmed – ‘catch-and-release’ fishing)

And as for my friend Peter, he just kept on fishing, not at all interested in whether or not I had discovered the crime of the century. (And I can’t say that I blame him really!) {;-)

Spring’s Top 10 Wildlife Spectacles in the USA (The Nature Conservancy)

When Catching a World-Record Fish Ends in Heartbreak

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On 8th February this year, retired navy captain Rob Scott, from Minnesota caught a 4-pound Lake Trout (actually a species of char, not a trout — Salvelinus namaycush) while hand-lining through ice on Lac la Croix, on the Minnesota/Ontario border. Shortly afterwards, he was checked by an Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources officer who recorded the fact that Rob had kept his one permitted lake trout — the Ontario provincial limit. Ironically, if the retired captain had been just a short distance away, on the same lake, he would have still been in Minnesota and would have been allowed to keep two lake trout, and — as you will see below — on this occasion this matters.

Retired navy captain Rob Scott and his 52-pound, world-record Lake Trout. February 2014

The problem came later that day when Rob hooked a second fish, which — at 52 pounds 3 ounces — was not only a new world record for lake trout but was a mind-boggling 77 percent larger than the previous, 18-year-old record of 29 pounds 6 ounces!

According to the book ‘Freshwater Gamefish of North America’, by Peter Thompson, the average weight of a lake trout is just 4-10 pounds, so at 52 pounds he probably thought he’d hooked a stray submarine! In lake trout terms, it was a behemoth.

All went well until the same Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources officer who had checked the 4-pound fish saw a subsequent newspaper report about the enormous laker, and regrettably this started an official ball rolling. As a result, a Minnesota Department of Natural Resources officer confiscated the record-breaking fish from a Duluth taxidermist, and it was then destined to be handed over to Ontario officials.

As a retired police officer myself, I am very aware that rules are rules, and all that sort of stuff, but I really would like to ask Ontario officials just what they think they have actually achieved on this occasion, other than perhaps leaving a bad taste in the mouths of a lot of people. Of course conservation is crucial, and the majority of fishehrmen I know and fish with would be the first to agree with that belief but in my own opinion, this time around, the Ontario people have scored a PR ‘own goal’ and have little, if anything, to actually be proud of.

Eddie Wren