I crashed through familiar knotweed and splashed into a familiar riffle, my headlamp illuminating a pale patch on the flood water in front of me. Good so far. But rounding the bend, the large fallen sycamore that had been there this spring, marking the upward limit of brook trout ( speckled trout) migration, was no more. New logs were here, dispersed in strange directions, rooted firmly in stream gravel as though they'd always been there. But they hadn't been. These half-trees had just "shown up" here within the last 6 months. Already, deep scour holes had been washed out below them, creating new patterns for fish and fishermen alike to learn. It was not gradual metamorphosis over time but was drastic change. The homes of many of last year's aquatic animals were gone. New ones abounded.We've been too often lured by tales of nature's constancy but nature is nothing but change and the streams are nothing but change. We mesh better with nature and fish better too when we learn to welcome this change. The next pool had a new family of mink to raise and a female kingfisher to show me the next spot to cast my 4.6 ultralight with 4 pound test for the only native trout in our state.
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| My grandson Cody Spink working a pool for native trout or a salmon in Maine |
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