Wild Rice Looksee

I didn't sleep well, but the day is far too nice to not make use of.  It will be calm and somewhere near 80F with blue sky that should eventually become cloudy.

I put in at the bottom of Salmon Cove.  It is a long-time favorite, a freshwater tidal area with limited development and little motorboat traffic.  Swamp, marsh, forested hillsides, the cove and the rivers that enter the cove have it all.  One other reason to come here is to check on the wild rice crop.  

A few years back, the Connecticut River flooded during mid-summer.  An unusual timing for a flood, Salmon Cove and Salmon River backed up as a result.  The flood lasted well over a week with water levels 8 to 10 feet above normal.  This flooded the annual wild rice crop, which never went to seed.  Wild Rice is actually a grass, and needs to reseed itself every year.  The following year, most of the dense patches of wild rice were completely absent.

As I head into the cove, an immature Bald Eagle overflies me above my right shoulder.  It takes a perch in the tall snag up ahead where the cove turns in.  

It is about the most peaceful day in here that I can remember.  The water is near glassy and there is no one else in the entire cove. I follow the east shore up to the Moodus River.  

Moodus beaver dam

The tide is out and the water shallow, but not so much to be a problem.  I head up the Moodus, hearing the sound of rushing water ahead.  I know from past trips that the rushing water is a beaver dam.  This dam is submerged when the tide is up, but standing proud a foot or foot and a half right now.  The beaver built this dam to hold back tidal water so that there would be a steady pond depth.  It doesn't need to be any taller than it already is - the pond refills twice a day and never runs shallow.  There are a couple similar dams in the area, and those dams are not on flowing rivers like this one.  Anyway, I have no reason to cross the dam as there is a second more difficult dam/deadfall to cross and less than a third of a mile of paddleable river.  

Pond Brook wild rice - eventually, the rice will fill in right
up to where the canoe is.

I head out and cross the top of the cove and then make my way up the Salmon River. The next stop is Pond Brook.  The brook had a dense field of wild rice before the flood, and it was here where the effects of the flood were most noticeable.  The season following the flood, the only wild rice was in the upper edges.  Something more than an acre of wild rice disappeared.  Today, the rice is returning, but it is still not much more than half of what it had been.

I head up to the Leesville Dam, but the river runs shallow before the last bend.  With that, I turn back.

There is an Eagle perched again at the point near the bottom of the cove, but this time it is a mature Bald Eagle. It is a good ending to a good day.