Fish Stories
Phenology – “a branch of science concerned with the relationship between climate and periodic biological phenomena (as the migration of birds or the flowering and fruiting of plants).”
Joys of Fishing
Several of my neighbors are avid fisherman. Doug and Dan have been fishing since they were kids, and they have the gear – vests, flies, multiple rods, and huge hip boots that allow them to seek the best spots in the Ammonoosuc. When we first moved in, Harry would offer to tell us some good (but probably note his best) spots to fish, and he knew well how to tell a fish story. Becky, growing up in an urban world, had yet to learn the art of fly fishing, but she was soon seen out by the pond practicing her new fly rod. Dan was an avid member of Trout Unlimited, and he had trouble looking out at the pond every morning, knowing that it had no fish. Eventually, they convinced us to let Fish & Game drop some trout in the pond, and soon the fish were jumping.
September 11, 2003 70 degrees. The fish were jumping in both ends of the pond, much more than they had been during the summer.
May 15, 2004, 80 degrees at 9am. The trout lilies are gone by; meadowsweet, apple and cherry trees, dandelion, and wild strawberry are blooming. Fish are jumping, green darners patrolling, bullfrogs rumbling, and turtles sunning.
I bought a cheap fishing rod, and Nancy and I did catch some fish. Our best year was way back in 2006. My journal entry summing up that year’s catch came after the best day either of us had ever had fishing:
September 30, 2006. I caught four fish in July; Tony caught five during his visit; and Nancy and I caught a remarkable 9 fish in a half hour on September 16th, for a total of l9 for the year.
Poachers
Of course, when a new fishing hole is found, word gets around the neighborhood. And, as is the case with apples and vegetable gardens, we find that we are not alone in our desires.
August 10, 2006. An osprey flew down and carried off a trout from the pond.
Nancy still talks about our remarkable success that September day back in 2006, but I can just as well recall the osprey speeding in low over our end of the pond, claws extended, hitting the water, and flying off holding a trout lengthwise below its body. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen another osprey fishing in our pond since then.
But other critters have been around:
May 27, 2005. Dan Kennerson said he saw a mink in the pond after the ice melted. He said there was a lot of fish kill over the winter.
A mink is a small weasel, and though I’d also seen one in the pond, I thought it would be a greater threat to the frogs that to the trout. Otters, however, are much larger, and they certainly were attracted by the trout stocked in our pond. They are big enough that they could, if they wanted to, eat a lot of fish. And, that is one thing they do want to do. In 2016, a pair of otter were in our pond for more than two weeks, and I suspect they made a serious dent in the fish population.
September 27, 2016, 11am. A pair of otters were in the pond, diving, tumbling, and swimming underwater. At one point, they each barked, but didn’t leave the pond. I didn’t see that they caught any fish … When I went back to the pond at 3pm, the otters were still there.
Ok, I caught them in photos that first day, but not in the act of actually eating fish. So I couldn’t charge them with anything but taking a swim, which is not a crime. However, soon further evidence appeared:
September 29, 2016. Fresh scat filled with fish scales by the southeast corner; presumably the otters that I had not previously found guilty of poaching.
And they returned again and again to the scene of the crime:
September 30, 2016, noon. A pair of otters circled the pond, up and down, one to ten feet off shore or out from the reeds. They would swim three to 15 yards under water, pop up for a breath of air, then go right back down. One even got out on Rock Island (damn – I forgot my camera!). Then they went around again, once in a while spending a few seconds on the surface, maybe sniffing.
And I guess seeing otters became rather commonplace that fall, as my final entry was brief:
October 14, 2016. Otter in the pond.
Native Fish in Sugar Hill
Dan, Becky, and Doug, possibly because of unfair competition from the otters, prefer to spend their time bashing through the underbrush to get to their secret spots along various near-by rivers. To me it seems like a lot of work, but I certainly share their love of being in the wild, listening to the rushing water, enjoying the sunshine and being away from all responsibilities. I get much the same feeling, with much less effort and no preparation at all, by sitting in my Adirondack chair at the Point.
July 14, 2018. Doug and I went down to the Ammonoosuc River where the iron rail bridge brings the Rail Trail across. Doug waded through the river with his fly rod, while I checked along the edge of the river for insects
On the other hand, I do have to acknowledge that I will occasionally plow through the goldenrod, cattails, and young willows to get to a stream, not trying to find a nice fishing spot, but hoping to get a nice photo of dragonflies, frogs, or turtles. A couple of times I’ve come out of the brush in the Lower 40 or Creamery Pond to find small schools of dace or native trout in Salmon Hole Brook. Dace, a species of minnow easily identified by the black strip along their sides, live in cool, sluggish streams that afford cover under trees or logs. The largest one in the photo below is about four inches long.
June 17, 2019, 75 degrees, beautiful. In the afternoon, I went down to the Lower 40. More big trees have fallen across and by the wall trail, making it a little harder to get to the brook, where I took photos and videos of a couple dozen dace congregating near the shore.
The trout that live in the upper end of Salmon Hole Brook are about the same size, which makes them of much more interest to the naturalist than to the fisherman. In brooks that are a little deeper and wider, larger trout can be found. After all, the Salmon Hole Brook is named for Salmon Hole, a famous fishing spot right before the brook meets the Ammonoosuc River.
August 14, 2017. After taking a walk through the Sugar Hill Town Forest, I stopped to take a look down the power line right-of-way, which crosses Crane Hill Road at the bottom of a little valley. When I glanced down at the little brook that flows under the road, I was happily surprised to see a couple of good-sized trout not ten feet from the pavement. So I caught them – on film.
Flyers Fishing
Spend enough time by the shore of a large body of water, and you most likely will see some fish caught without the help of a fly rod or a hook. I’m thinking of flyers fishing, which you should not confuse with either fly fishing or flying fish.
A highlight of every visit to the wildlife sanctuary on Great Bay near Portsmouth has been the sight of ospreys or their huge nests. Once we saw an adult standing on its nest, looking down at a youngster that was just able to lift itself high enough to see over the edge of the nest to the wide world. Even better was the time that an osprey landed on the bare branch of a distant tree. We could see that it was holding something, that with binoculars, we confirmed was a good-sized flat fish. It was far away, so the best I could do was to get a few fuzzy photos and videos of the osprey enjoying its meal.
May 28, 2023, Great Bay. An osprey landed on a distant branch with a flatfish in its talons. It eventually settled down and proceeded with lunch.
Ospreys and eagles catch fish with their feet. Loons and cormorants use different tactics, operating more like the navy than the air force. In Wickford, RI, we once watched a bunch of cormorants feasting upon a school of fish that was heading from the bay, going under a bridge, and ending up in a little pond. I don’t know whether the fish were seeking something to eat in the pond or intending to swim further upstream to breed. The cormorants probably didn’t know either, nor did they care. What they did know is that there were so many fish, they could certainly catch a meal. We were amazed at the size of the fish compared to the size of the cormorant’s beak and throat.
September 15, 2016. A cormorant struggles to figure out how to devour the fish that it has caught at the edge of Narragansett bay in Wickford, RI
Loons have the same problem. They can catch the fish, but then they have to figure out how to eat it. The picture below is a from a video taken at Fort Foster, across the channel from Portsmouth Naval Base. The loon had dived repeatedly before coming up with this fish, which it promptly dropped. The loon kept at it, quickly caught the stunned fish, and worded at securing the fish in a position suitable for taking a bite. Eventually the loon was satisfied, and it proudly swam away looking for a spot to enjoy its meal.
April 27, 2023. A loon grappled with a fish it had caught just off the rocky shore by Fort Foster, Kittery Point, Maine
Fish Stories
As near as I can tell, much of the joy of fishing comes from telling the tales. “The one that got away.” “I caught twenty fish – all catch and release, forgot my camera.” “Here’s a picture of the giant tuna that I caught all by myself.”
Even though I have seldom had any success fishing, I do know how to tell a tale. And here is a tale that I wrote down back in 2009 in preparation for a visit from our son and his family along with his sister-in-law and their three kids. The idea was to collect stories and accounts of activities in notebooks entitled “Sugar Hill Days” that Nancy had prepared for each of us. As with many well-laid plans, the only entry in my book was the following tale, written with a red sharpie, which I think qualifies as a proper New England fish story.
My Fish Story
by Carl
June 2009
One misty evening, after wasting most of the afternoon fishing, catching only three trout, none larger than 20 inches or 3 pounds, I decided not to fret about catching anything large enough to keep and began to practice my casting. Standing on the rock at the Point, I practiced bouncing the lure off the drain, hitting the tin the usual 3 times in 4 casts. But, success being boring, my mind wandered and on the next cast the line went right down the drain pipe. I tried to reel it is, but the line seemed to be stuck, so I let out line and walked around to the other side of the pond so I could see what the problem was.
It took a while, because a week of rain had left most of the trail a swamp. I finally got to the other side, leaned over the drain and looked down inside. I couldn’t see a thing. The line, though, was very tight and I couldn’t pull it in at all. After struggling a few minutes, the line gave way, I reeled in 3 feet, when it got stuck again. And then I heard a horrible thrashing on the other side of the dam, by the exit of the drain pipe.
I went over and was amazed to see the head of the largest trout I had ever seen – and it was thrashing trying to escape for the pipe. I could see my line emerging from the corner of its enormous mouth. There was no way I could get it out alone, so I called John Peckett. He came by and hitched up a winch to his truck and we tied a half-inch line around the middle of the fish. A half hour later, we had the fish out of the pipe, into a vat usually used for maple sap, ready to be taken to the Sugar Hill Museum for display. While all this was going on, we picked up two 22-inch trout from the pipe, which we had for supper.
Photos and text by Carl D. Martland, founding member of ACT, long-time resident of Sugar Hill, and author of Sugar Hill Days: What’s Happening in the Fields, Wetlands, and Forests of a Small New Hampshire Town on the Western Edge of the White Mountain. Quotations from his book and his journals indicate the dates of and the situations depicted in the photos.
