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Kingennie return provides some testing encounters
IT'S been some time since I last visited Forbes of Kingennie in Dundee and what a transformation - it has been turned into a complete fishing village. Apart from the specimen pond, my own personal favourite, there are several other ponds which include game and coarse angling. Although by no means big, the specimen pond can be quite a testing casting experience for the less able of anglers but cooler conditions and clear water have made the trout start to chase the odd lure once again. .
Native brook trout are in hot water
My first brook trout arrived on a frosty late-spring morning in mountain water so cold it made my fingers tingle before going completely numb. No bigger than my hand, the brookie was a work of art to rival New Hampshire's Chocorua Lake, its home just before I enticed it to swallow my fly and to which I would return it moments later. Its olive skin peppered with blue-ringed red dots and a rakish orange belly is a vivid image that has stayed with me for more than 25 years. If I had a lick of artistic ability, I could draw that fish from memory. Since arriving here 18 years ago, my encounters with brookies have been fewer and farther between. Some of that has to do with the other fish that occupy my time: white perch, croaker and, of course, striped bass. (Let's not even mention menhaden, OK?) But even when I've carved out the time, it's been hard to do a meet-and-greet with Maryland's only native trout.
GIANT SEQUOIAS, NO CROWDS
The groves of massive giant sequoias and nearby array of towering granite pinnacles make Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park one of the world's greatest showpieces. Yet, because of the long, circuitous route to get there for almost everybody, it gets a fraction of the visitors who go to Yosemite. Once school starts, and in turn, the fall season in September and October, the numbers drop yet further. I've seen fall mornings there where I even had the Grant Grove all to myself for the half-mile loop walk, and later, the Kings River was like my personal fly-fishing stream. Here are the best of lodging, camping, driving tours, easy hikes, cave tours and fly fishing: Grant Grove: Of the several groves of giant sequoias, the Grant Grove may be the most sensational and easy to reach, with an easy half-mile loop hiking trail that meanders amid the giants.
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