Pennsylvania Deer Hunt 2015.

My son and I returned from our annual deer hunt in Pennsylvania with some wonderful stories and  a gift of a whitetail buck. The area we hunt has been the same for going on 30 years. There has been little change here and the woods are as beautiful as the first time we walked to the top of the mountain. These 69 year old legs screamed a bit but I'll never complain. This trip was a bit short, reasons numerous but I won't bore you with those details. The time was quality and pretty much that's all that matters.

It was 19 degrees when we started our 2 mile climb up the mountain. The clear sky and bright moon assured us the need for a flashlight was unnecessary, and at 4:30 in the morning it was almost well lit naturally. I was on stand long before legal shooting time. Sitting in quiet darkness your mind clears itself of all the things that are really unnecessary and you focus completely on the task at hand which is placing a tag on a deer. Over the course of seven hours I saw a total of 11 deer all of which were not legal to shoot. It was 1pm when my eye spotted 2 deer in a power line clearing. I watched for a few moments and there was a another deer in view, and that was a legal 9 point buck. They were moving through the clearing which was a 150 yards from where I stood. I made a quick decision to take a shot. I brought the scope right on the bucks shoulder and let the 243 round fly. I could see the buck stumble and knew I had him. A quick second shot brought him down. I waited a few minutes and started walking down to the deer. As I got closer to where he was hit I was startled to see he was not there. I started my search for the deer and it didn't take long to find him.

A beautiful Pennsylvania 9 point whitetail buck. Before I placed my tag on him thanks were given to those who made it possible to harvest this true gift.

It was 1:30 or so when I started to drag him out. I told my son to go back and continue hunting and he would catch up to me later. As I moved down the mountain I had hoped to hear a shot ring out and that shot would be my son taking a deer also. It turned out that didn't happen and he was with me to help drag the deer for the final leg of the. We talked and talked of the hunt and the result. These are special times between hunters, and made even more so when the hunters are father and son.

Today was the first of many dinners that we will enjoy with the gift of that deer. Jeanette made some delicious potato pancakes. They are seasoned and fried to a perfect crispness.

We had some homemade applesauce my daughter made for Thanksgiving. It went perfect with the potato pancakes. Thank you "Candy".

Everything was done to compliment venison tenderloin. The meal was simplicity with a touch of elegance.

Just a heads up..........

A "salter brook trout" Red Brook

Well I hope everyone's Thanksgiving was what they had wanted. I also hope the turkey is now digested and your NFL team performed admirably. Today is Black Friday and some are thrilled beyond words and I am one of them, for I will be alongside a stream in a special mall where there will be no lines and no angry words. This will likely be my last post for a few days. My son and I will be heading out early Sunday morning for Pennsylvania for our annual deer hunt. It's a tradition we have enjoyed for almost 30 years. With some luck we will be successful in the harvest of a whitetail, and if not success will be still enjoyed just by spending time in a natural setting for a few days together.

The first salter stream to benefit from the success of the Quashnet work was Red Brook, a historic sea-run brook trout stream flowing through the towns of Plymouth, Wareham and Bourne before emptying into the saltwater of Buttermilk Bay. The salter brook trout of Red Brook owe their survival to several generations of the Lyman family who acquired 638 acres along Red Brook and then—inspired by the success of the TU work on the Quashnet—deeded their stream over to a management partnership formed by TU, The Trustees of Reservations, and the Mass. Div. of Fisheries and Wildlife. After thousands of hours of TU grassroots volunteer labor to restore habit and raise funds, and the removal of four dams by a broad coalition of state and federal agencies and private donors, along with TU and other nonprofits, Red Brook’s salter brook trout are thriving once more. In fact, Red Brook’s salters are doing so well that they are now the subject of tagging studies being conducted by a collaboration of USGS, Mass Div. of Fisheries and Wildlife and the University of Massachusetts. So far, the studies indicate that part of Red Brook’s trout population makes use of Buttermilk Bay during the fall and winter months, and may even move out to the Cape Cod Canal and Buzzards Bay.

The above is an excerpt from "The Salter"..a newsletter of the Sea-Run Brook Trout Coalition. It's fall publication is now available. You can get the full publication by e-mail, you just need to visit the site for details. The newsletter is a great read with lots of information about sea-run brook trout. The link is below this post. Check it out folks.

Happy Thanksgiving

Reasons to be giving thanks for me are many and I will not list them for this is a blog post and not a book. This day before Thanksgiving was spent walking along a little brook. I was armed with a dry fly, a dry fly I fished the entire outing. The quarry was wild brook trout those precious jewels of New England. They were very much in a pleasing mood for they harassed the caddis to no end.

Ice was forming and sparkled like diamonds

I wish to take this opportunity to wish all of you a very Happy Thanksgiving.

A Little R and D On A Thin Blue Line

Yesterday morning I joined Kirk for some research and development on a new blue line. It was cold and a brisk wind was about but the sky was cloudless. We were soon geared up and headed for the stream, which was almost perfect. Its waters flowed over rocks and into deep pools. I fished the first pool while Kirk moved downstream. I was changing a fly when I saw Kirk walking back to me. His first words were how you doing, to which I replied nothing yet, how about you I replied and that's when he reached for his camera and said a couple. He then showed me a photo of a perfect brook trout. This fish was in fantastic shape and quite big. I was excited about this stream. Long story cut short. Those were the only two fish caught on this stream, as a matter of fact I never even had a strike...

An upstream view. There were beaver dams and a pretty big swamp.

The stream sort of split at one point and we may have taken the wrong side. This stream is to beautiful to be lacking trout. More time is necessary to really find out just where they are.

On my way home I decided to stop at a stream. I do not like the smell of skunk so I pulled out "Pinkie" and drifted it. It was a while but "Pinkie" came through. As I set the brook trout back into the stream a nice feeling came over me.