Very Low Water

I set out from the bottom of Salmon Cove, which is one of my frequent trips. The plan is to check on the beaver lodges and the dam below the mouth of Dibble Creek.

Last night, the temperatures finally dipped to below freezing, but just barely. The only ice I will see today is in the bird bath in our back yard. It is sunny, about 40F by the time I get started, and there is a steady 10mph wind. That wind was supposed to be out of the west, but here it is coming straight down Salmon Cove - more of a north wind. 

New Lodge

150 yards out, I find a new beaver lodge. It has lots of fresh trimmed branches on the pile, and the extended entrance "hallway" that I've been seeing during the drought.   I add an unidentified medium sized Hawk and two mature Bald Eagles to that first 150 yards. The Eagles are perched on Haddam Neck with about a hundred yards between them. The second lodge on this side (river-left) looks abandoned. There are no fresh branches and the mound looks like it is collapsing in spots. Abandoned beaver lodges don't usually last too long.  After a year or so, if one didn't know it had been there, you wouldn't notice.

Bald Eagle pooping

At the top of the cove, I decide to do the side trip into the Moodus before heading upriver. But, I turn back while still in the mouth. Already I am in just 6 inches of water and I figure the tide has just about that much to drop before rising again. The idea of wallowing out of the Moodus some knee deep in mud does not appeal.

I cut across the top of the cove, picking up the deep channel and heading upstream. The low water from the drought and low tide makes this the lowest water level that I have ever seen on the Salmon, by a long shot.  I pull up at the mouth of Pine Brook. The shallows that are above the islands in this area are close to a foot out of the water. I know that I will come to a series of bars not too much farther on. It is time to call it a day and head out. This will be a high tide paddle until we get more rain.

Rock Pile on the outside of the bend

With the tide down, I am forced over to the far left side of the cove. The bottom of the shallow center of the cove is right at water level as far down as Dibble Creek. There, the deep channel swings over to the creek, but the mouth of the little bay where the creek enters is a foot above the water level. But, the low water has exposed a man-made rock pile. It is a fairly neat construction of cobbles and boulders, maybe a canoe length in diameter. I'd guess that it was built to hold a beacon. There is a similar structure just across the cove. I 'm not even able to check on the two huge lodges in Haddam Neck as I cannot get close enough to pick them out of the brush. Well, at least the Eagles are still here.