Pequabuck

I'm back in the same area that I paddled two days ago, just a short mile above the dam that I paddled up to that day, but on a different river, the Pequabuck.  It has been at least a couple years since I've been in here.

I put in at the bottom of the steep bank just below the Meadow Road bridge.  The river looks a bit low, but not too bad.  I head upstream.

The Pequabuck is a skinny and twisty river.  It seems rare to paddle more than five or six canoe lengths without having to turn a sharp meander.  The current is a 2:1 with occasional pooling and a few fast spots, but the bottom is usually sandy and suitable for wading.  About a half mile up, I have an awkward step-over to negotiate.  I thought about it for a few minutes, and finally got to work cutting out a bit of tangle so that I could stand on the deadfall and drag the canoe over. 

The sand bars on the inside of the bends show lots of animal tracks.  I would have cast some except I left my casting kit in the car.  There are enough tracks that I bet I could find a spot where I could cast 2 or 3 different species in one casting.  It is mostly raccoon, opossum, deer and other small rodent types.  But, at one bend where there is slack water and a bottom of firm silt, bear tracks.  This was a bit of a surprise, but they weren't cat tracks, they weren't canine tracks, and 4 inches wide, there's only one animal in New England that it could be.  I wouldn't have noticed these submerged prints if there had only been one or two. But, it seems that the bear walked around  and left dozens of prints. 

It takes about an hour to get up to the next bridge.  I've been here before and it is as I remember it 75 yards of narrow fast water with lots of overhanging brush and branches, and one deadfall that can be ducked.  This section gets waded, both upstream and down. It is an easy walk on the inside of the bend.

Above that, it is more meanders until I get to a deadfall that is just too much effort. It is a catalpa tree and catalpa trees make the best strainers.  Catalpas are 30 foot tall trees that look like giant bushes - twisting bent branches in all directions.  When they fall in the what they strain every loose piece of wood that comes their way. Anyway, I don't feel like engineering my way through the mess, so I turn back.  Just below this spot is some old beaver sign - remains of a lodge and a drag.  Below, I thought I had smelled castoreum, but with no beaver sign anywhere on the trip, I figured it to be a smell-alike of some sort.

Old beaver sign

I see a few Spotted Sandpipers, some Wood Ducks, and one Green Heron that escorts me for a quarter mile or so.

I continue past my start point down to the Farmington River.  It is a short distance down to the dam, then I paddle back.