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Hopper time
I put on my waders, my felt-soled boots and a fleece vest because it felt a little bit cool when I got to the Oldman River. The sky was cloudy, threatening rain. A chilly breeze was sweeping down the valley from the west. But within 20 minutes I was sweating like I was in the tropics, the breeze had stopped and the sun had popped out from behind the clouds. I should have known. Summer might be winding down, but it ain't done yet. I'd come down to the Oldman River below the Three Rivers Dam to try a bit of late-afternoon grasshopper fishing. No, not fishing for grasshoppers. I mean using big flies imitating grasshoppers to fool some trout into playing with me for a bit. It's the time of year for grasshoppers along the river banks to start leaping and flying around looking for mates.
The Batten Kill stocking: A matter of class?
If you've been following the Batten Kill trout stocking controversy, you know that the state, in the name of keeping hungry anglers happy, wants to stock the main stem of the Batten Kill with 1,000 sterile rainbow trout (fish whose sole purpose is to be caught and eaten; sterile so, in theory, the fish won't affect wild populations of brown and brook trout). The conservation group Trout Unlimited claims it's naive to think that such a stocking program won't effect the native fish. On Tuesday night, TU hosted a presentation by ecologist Robert Bachman at Burr and Burton's Riley Theater designed to reinforce its stance on the issue. Bachman, a former fisheries supervisor for the state of Maryland, was an entertaining speaker. A roundish, older gentleman, he projected the distinguished, rumpley aura of a college professor.
Chubs making a comeback at Strawberry
During the C.A.S.T. (Catch a Special Thrill) event held on Strawberry this past Saturday, I had the opportunity to take a look at the chub population in the Soldier Creek portion -- and the picture wasn't a pretty one. "We've been catching fish right and left," said George Sommer, current president of the TBF Bass Federation, "but all we've caught are adult chubs." It was a fact that the area Sommer and his C.A.S.T. participants were fishing showed a water column littered with adult chubs, that swarmed each bait as it fell towards the bottom. "We thought the cuts (cutthroats) would be biting," continued Sommer, "but we can't seem to get through all the chubs." The same story was repeated several times Saturday. Each time I approached a boat, my fish finder came alive with schools of chubs, which were confirmed as I moved slowly through the shallows so that the chubs became visible to the naked eye.
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