WMass Tenkara outing and another WMass small stream

Last Saturday I attended the NE tenkara outing organized by LMarshall. It was my first chance this spring to spend more than a couple hours on a stream, so I was really excited to get out AND to get the chance to try out tenkara. Getting the hang of it was a bit trickier than I expected...I didn't catch any fish on the brook we fished to start the day, but on the other hand I didn't break the rod and I managed to retrieve my fly & line from every TREE I caught. Only a couple of small brookies were caught by the 4 other people fishing.

Sorry some of my photos are weird...still learning how to work the hand-me-down camera from my folks.

We started fishing above this bridge.
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_opVN9r6uQgA/S_...00/image11.jpg

Saw this cool stone wheel by the stream bank. No idea where it came from, there didn't appear to be any sort of structures around but most small streams in Mass have had a variety of dams and mills on them over the three or four hundred years.

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We headed back to the parking lot for lunch, a couple of people left, and LMarshall, myself, and one other gentleman whose name I forget headed down to the Deerfield River for a little more fishing. Not much going on down there either, but I did manage to pull this brown out from between a couple of boulders by twitching a wet fly between them. Not bad for the first fish on a tenkara rod! LMarshall had to help me land it, I didn't have a net and it didn't want to quit fighting. Photo courtesy of LMarshall.
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_opVN9r6uQgA/S_...Caseysfish.JPG


Got Monday off from work, so I got up relatively early and headed out to another small stream I fished several times last year and had good to great luck on. We haven't had much rain so the water was lower than it was last August. I caught a few smaller brookies and a small brown and missed lots of hooksets...don't know if my timing was off or if the hook wasn't sharp or the fish were just missing.

Usually there's multiple fish behind, in and around this boulder hole. The hole is deep and the log on the right goes behind the boulder and down into the depths. I took a few exploratory casts behind the log...nada. So I moved up a bit and started casting in front of the underwater portion of the log. It took me 4 or 5 casts but I finally got a good cast, getting the line and fly to the left of the stick in the middle, but far enough in front of the log to get a good drift...BLAM! A good-sized fish shoots out from under the log and takes my fly! I managed to get it up over and behind the log before it could get me tangled, but then it flipped off after a couple seconds.
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I decided this would be a good time to try out the new stove I got and have some coffee. Figured if I waited long enough I might get another chance at that fish.
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My fishing pack. I think it's originally supposed to be for telemark skiing or something, but it was $15 on craigslist and has great pockets. Also reminds me of my Dad's old external-frame REI backpack he used when we'd go backpacking when I was a kid.
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By the time I finished my coffee the sun had moved enough to light up this area quite a bit. Just as I was about to have a go at Round #2, two big dogs came down the hill on the far side, right into the water. One of them saw me and decided to come over and say hi, but not before stepping directly into the hole and splashing around. They were nice dogs, but there went my second chance at that fish.
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So I took some pics of streamside flowers and moved on.
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_opVN9r6uQgA/S_...00/image27.jpg

The boulder/log hole from upstream.
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_opVN9r6uQgA/S_...00/image34.jpg

Found a little brookie in this little run.
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Must've been hungry, look at the bulge in his belly.
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Always good to get out for a full day on the stream.

Great photo-story. Nice photos. And what a nice rod, huh? I'm fishing similar streams in central Mass. w/ an Ebisu, & it's genuine fun. Many thanks for sharing.

Thanks! LMarshall let me fish his Iwana a bit and I really liked that one. I'll probably end up getting one at some point once the funding allows for it. Seems like a great way to fish most of the places I fish.

Awesome pics and great story. Thanks for sharing!

Looks like a great outing Casey. That's a beautiful little guy.

Great to hear there are others here in Western Mass fishing the small streams. I'm over in Amherst fishing Cushman Brook. Love your pictures!