Day 100

It's new canoe pants day. Summer canoe pants are good for two seasons, maybe. They're specialty wear - they have to be reasonably sturdy, dry reasonably fast (no denim), and be reasonably cheap, because no matter what I pay, they'll die after two seasons of wading, and paddling from a kneeling position. So, for the next few trips, I am a fashion plate.

The day is windy enough to seek out forested rivers. I put the Mattabesett aside in the summer for just such an occasion.

I put in on the Coginchaug. I've never before started from here, but my usual put-in about a hour upriver is in some sort of construction project. The tide is out, way out. I would've gone up the Coginchaug for a starter, but the water is lower than I've ever seen it, and I know I will run out of river not too far up. So, I head down to the Mattabesett right away. I spot several Great Blue Herons - good fishing for them with the low water. It's clear that it'll be a dozen Great Blue Heron kind of day. 

At the confluence of the two rivers, I spot an Osprey and a couple more Herons. A flock of Sandpipers speeds in and circles back - they're not Sandpipers, rather they are Green Winged Teal... the migration is on. 

Bearded Beggartick

The tide is coming in and I have a little bit of current with me. There is a decent crop of wild rice. I wasn't sure what I would find given that the Pine Brook patch of wild rice, up in Salmon River, was totally zero'd by last summer's floods. At least, that is what I assumed. This area had the same level of flooding, the water being about 15 ft higher than it is today. So, there is something more complicated than flooding. Perhaps it is that the Pine Brook patch was a mono-crop, and here the rice grows up through a wide variety of marsh plants. There are a ton of yellow flowers in the marsh today. It's much too late for marsh marigold (I look them up later, they seem to be Bearded Beggartick).

I head up a bit past the usual put-in. Somewhere in the last few minutes, I paddled out of the tide and I now have normal river current coming at me. For some reason, I started thinking about the time I counted 600 Wood Ducks over in the Great Swamp, and I flush two dozen Wood Ducks.  The migration is on - they're usually in pairs, or maybe four or five. I run out of water about that point, so I turn around.