The Usual Route

I put in at the old stage ford, just a few feet above the old one lane bridge, and about four and ahalf miles from the sea. I paddled under the bridge and pulled up to shore, walked the 50 yards to my car and retrieved my saw. The deadfall arch just below the bridge has a new deadfall spanning the gap at the perfect height, about 3/4 of a canoe height above the water. It takes about 30 seconds to cut and drop it into the water so that I can glide over.

It is a sunny and calm day with the temperature almost to 60F. The tide has been coming in for about Two hours, but it is still quite shallow. More than anything, it is very quiet.


Reaching the Gravel Flats, I spot three white tail deer exiting on the right bank. I'm guessing that they probably waded the river. One of them gives me one last look from the top of the bank before casually leaping out of view.

By the time I get to Clapboard Hill Bridge, I have flushed about 30 Black Ducks. Just below that bridge I catch a glimpse of a large flying bird. My guess is an immature Bald Eagle, but it could be a Great Blue Heron - I just didn't get to see enough of its flight.

There is enough to get through the Sneak, so I can paddle my usual route down Bailey Creek and returning on the East River. I spot a Harrier working over the salt marsh between the two waterways.

A small shoreboard at the lowest Big Bend catches my eye. It's a Killdeer bathing with its mate about 10 feet away.

The low angled light at my back is making the trip back somewhat spectacular. At the top of the Gravel Flats I meet a guy in a canoe (as opposed to a canoeist). He's paddling solo from the rear seat, so the bow is pointed at the sky. This makes a canoe slow and tippy, but it all goes with the lack of a life jacket and general cluelessness about cold water paddling. I've never gotten anything but the stink-eye when talking to strangers about basic canoe safety, so I let it go. 

A Rare Naugatuck Trip

 

After a week of showing and driving artwork around, I finally have time to put the canoe in the water. I put in from O' Sullivan's Island, which lies at the confluence of the Naugatuck and Housatonic Rivers. The tide is unusually high, and while it is an hour past down where I paddle more often, this far up the river, with the lag of some 10 miles, the river height is probably peaking. In fact, O' Sullivan's is just barely awash in many places that would normally be a foot and a half above the water at high tide.

Witness the new glow in the dark drysuit.

It is 40F and the water is in the upper 50's. Today marks the first day of winter paddling - it is the first day for me to put on my drysuit, which is brand new after trading in my old suit after 11years and some 400-500 days of use.  In Connecticut, I can paddle most of the winter and I am in a drysuit from November until sometime in April.

The brush pile hides a beaver bank burrow

I head up the Naugatuck. I've only gone up the Naugatuck a coupe times before. The right side of the river is a 30 ft tall boulder levy that was built after a huge 1955 flood. It isn't much to look at. About a mile up, the river has a short section of shallow fast water that stopped me in the past, and with the ugly levy, working around it wasn't worth the effort. Today, the tide has flooded the fast water out, and the upstream paddle is easy. Just short of 2 miles up, the river goes shallow. I spot some beaver gnawings, but no place that would work for a lodge or bank burrow. Then, I cross over to the far side looking for a deep channel, but there isn't one. At any normal high tide, this would be a gravel bar with the river trickling through. There is about 300 yards of this before reaching a bank to bank ledge, some 2 feet high. But, there is a bank burrow on a small island just below the ledge. There is at least another mile of river above the ledge until reaching a dam, but without doing some reconnaissance, I can't justify the portage. Also, in a half hour, I would have to portage the 300 yards of gravel. Time to retreat. 

I get back to my put-in and continue up the Housatonic. I spot a few Great Blue Herons and my first Bufflehead of the season. I go up as far as the island below the Shelton Dam, and return via the other side of the river.

 

Observations

I start out from the put-in off of Route 3, the paving job that was being done in the lot having been completed, finally. The water is the lowest that I have ever seen, even considering that the tide is out. It has been a long time since we've had a good rainy spell, and all of the rivers show it, but especially the smaller ones like the Mattabesset.  

I suppose that most people might avoid this spot with the low water. But, I know that I will get to observe riverbanks that are seldom exposed as well as getting a good look at the bottom of the river in places that are usually too deep for a view.

I wanted to make another check on the beaver colonies in this river. Last years three floods encouraged some of the colonies to move out. The first lodge, coming downriver, is before the bend above the goat farm. At first look, it doesn't look used, but then I spot a fresh stripped branch in the pile that covers the entry tunnel. Below the bend, I spot a couple scent mounds and a couple of recently gnawed trees. 

As I continue, I note several old entrance tunnels in the bank, the lodges long gone. 

The Point Lodge is occupied. While the lodge doesn't show a lot of recent work, there is a fresh brush pile over the entrance tunnel and a couple of recently gnawed trees nearby.

Across from the Tepee Lodge site, the exposed bottom is covered with quite a few bricks. I've never seen the water low enough to expose the bricks. Bricks often have dates or a manufacturer's name, so I pick one up. It is not a clay brick, but a shaped stone cobble. While there is an old quarry a couple miles away, I have no idea as to why these were be deposited here, or how they got here.

The bank burrow below the former Tepee Lodge is more obvious. With the low water, the beaver have built brush piles that cover the exposed entry tunnel. In this case, the pile extends 8 or 10 feet out from the normal bank. There is a good deal of fresh green branches on the pile, which shows that the lodge is in use. 

I head up into the Cognichaug. The Big Lodge looks abandoned and as if it is slowly collapsing. The last flood topped this lodge by at least 5 feet, and the lodge itself was about 6 feet tall. There is no sign of activity, no peels, no gnaws or new cuts anywhere nearby.

I have some wind to work against on the way back, but that is one of the reasons I came here today. This river is well sheltered from the wind in most places.

Nells Island Maze

M was long overdue for a trip, and by the time she arrived, the unexpected early morning wind had died down. We went to put in at the Refuge launch, but there was an sketchy idiot with a stalled truck...wait for it...parked at the water's edge of the rather steep and rutted dirt launch. He needed a battery jump, which I could not help with, and given the whole picture, I decided to put in upriver rather than run the risk of returning to find my car without a battery.  

The day was most excellent with clear skies, a very little wind, and temperature in the mid 50's. We headed downstream from beneath the high bridge on the last hour or so of flooding tide.

With the high water, it was time to show M the interior maze of Nell's Island. This time, we headed in on the most upstream entrance, which I had not before used. In about 200 yards, we came to a log jam that I remember, although from the other side. We took our time and pushed the floaters out of the way and eased over the main log with just enough water that we didn't rub. Then, M spotted a critter to our right, and we backed up to confirm it as a opossum hunched on some drift wood staying dry.  It definitely looked interested in staying dry, so we moved on. We managed our way up and out through the main entrance channel with just a couple of wrong turns. Tidal marshes fill from the outside in, as a sponge set it in water. Nell's Island does the same with a couple main flood/drain channels and a maze of others that don't fill/drain with much of a current.

We crossed the marsh to the east zigzagging through spartina islands and channels. Spotted a couple dozen Black Ducks, one Teal, a dozen or so Canada Geese. The Geese were migratory, being that they spooked from quite a distance. Then in and out of Beaver Brook, where we spotted some more Ducks and a couple of active Kingfishers.

Draw Down Day

I get to Pond Brook and find the water down about six feet.  Surprise... it's reservoir draw down so that the dam can be inspected. I can't reach water that is deep enough to float the canoe without going knee deep in mud. I get back in the car and head upstream a mile to the bigger launch that the motorboats use. 

Three motor boats are at the ramp, their owners struggling to get them out of the water. The ramp is greasy with old algae growth. Their tires spin as they try to haul up the slope. I promptly slip on the greasy surface and get pile driven into the ground by the canoe on my shoulders.  I get out of it with a bang on the knee and a fresh new coat of algae on my pants.  One of the guys asks if I'm okay and I answer, "Yes," but I'm thinking, "I'll let you know after I go canoeing for a few hours."

It is a fine day with the temperature already at 70F, no wind, and nothing but a high haze of clouds between here and the sun. I head upstream.

Drown down exposes six feet of shoreline height that is rarely seen. It is all rocks - some bedrock, and a lot of boulders and cobbles that most likely come from the same source. The edge of the forest floor shows that the soil is not much more than 12 or 18 inches thick before it begins to mingle with the underlying rocks. The reservoir, of course, washed the soil away from the exposed shoreline, which I imagine settled fifty feet below in the old river course. There are still quite a few stumps on shore from when they cleared the forest before flooding the area in the mid 1950's.  I paddle close to shore just in case something interesting is exposed. However, I don't expect anything of significance as this modern shoreline was just a line of elevation high in the forest above the river, which is where any people would have chosen to live.

The other thing that the draw down exposes is the infestation of zebra mussels. The broken shells litter the bottom, and many of the boulders and drift logs are coated with them. They are harmful non-native invasives, and inedible. They are why I make my partners wear shoes when we canoe here.

I paddle upstream to the Poison Ivy Island.  From here, it is about an hour and a half round trip to Lovers Leap, which I would like to see at draw down. But, my late start and my tumble at the start makes this, far enough. On the way back, I hear a mammal calling from the bank up ahead. I can't place it, but finally I spot the critter. A racoon. I recall that sound from a time when, one night,  we had a family of them climbing in the tree outside of a our bedroom window.  A bit farther on, a mature Bald Eagle passes me and takes a perch on the far side of the river. Add sixty Mallards, two dozen Canada Geese, a Great Blue Heron, and a few Kingfishers.

I get back to the put-in after three hours. I saw not one other boat the entire time.

It is Definitely Autumn

I put in under the highway bridge on the big river. The tide is on its way out and the current is going gang busters downstream, so my thoughts of heading up to the quad islands get shoved aside. I head down, following the shoreline with a bit of NW wind at my back quarter. It is sunny, the light is low, and the temperature in the 50's. The water is cool, but not yet cold.

When you get to the fork in the marsh, take it.

I take the side entrance to Nell's Channel, but steer clear of Nell's, taking the east of Nell's Channel Channel, so to speak. I expected no other paddlers, but it must not be hunting season either, because no one is in the marsh. I flush some migratory Canada Geese, which in turn flush a couple dozen Black Ducks from someplace out there. As I get up near the top of the channel, I spot a lone Duck tucked in under the edge of the spartina. Lone Ducks are a bit strange and the last time I saw one it turned out to be a Ruddy Duck.  This turns out to not be a Duck, but a Coot. I don't see Coots all that often.

I circle around to the east and head back out. Of note, this might be the first day in a long time where I did not see a Night Heron. While most of them are south, a small few of them will winter over.

I cross the river at the lowest drawbridge using the current and eddies to move sideways. It's not tricky water or anything like that, but I enjoy seeing how little effort I can put in to do the ferry. I sneak up the shoreline behind the marina, marveling at the awesomely poor condition of the wooden dock platform. No way I would drive any machinery on that. Then, I recross the river at the train drawbridge. There is still a 3 knot current coming down.  

Saw just 3 Great Egrets - one in the marsh, the other two on the return upriver. One Great Blue Heron, two Kingfishers.

Autumn Leaf Time

Yesterday's winds are a thing of the past, and it is, once again, too nice to not be out. 

I put in at Indian Well State Park, and head down river to just above the dam. There is a sign at the put-in telling everyone that it is 3 miles to the dam. This means I can cruise at 6 mph without cracking a sweat...not. I wonder when they will fix that sign, as it is precisely 1.56 miles to the dam, and when one turns around, they can see the park's boat launch.

I cross the river to avoid a fisherman working the shaded west shoreline. A good sized mature Bald Eagle takes off from in front of me and crosses the river to a shaded perch about 75 yards downstream of the fisherman.  

I turn at the dam and head upriver as far as the Eagle Scout put-in, and then return. The leaves are just tilting over to spectacular with the maples going bright yellow. It won't be the best leaf year that I've seen here, but it will be a good one.