4th of July weekend friendly fishing competition

We decided to do a little leisure paddling as opposed to our normal racing/training paddling this weekend. Early Friday afternoon Travis, Ed and Dan were sitting on the patio talking about the plans for the upcoming holiday weekend. Well it just so happened that Dan had his canoe already strapped to the roof of his jeep with all his fishing tackle in the car. Naturally they came up with the plan to float down the Nashua River starting at Rt. 117 and ending in Harvard where we normally put in for our training runs. This was an idea Travis and I had talked about a million times while we hammered up and down the Nashua in the spring time this year so it was awesome to finally get a chance to do it. The weather was perfect and the whole entire weekend was ahead of us so why not have a friendly fishing competition from the canoes? The teams were Ed and I in our “barge” and Dan and Travis in Dan’s canoe. Travis and I navigating the river, while Dan and Ed fished. The river was up nicely so the paddling was easy and slow and the fish were in there even though Dan and Travis couldn’t seem to find them. Ed and I on the other hand were nailing those tiny suckers, by the end of the excursion Ed caught 5 and Dan caught zilch!!! Not only can I read rivers but I also know where the fish are hiding, ok, that might be an exaggeration but you wouldn’t have known it this day.




First catch of the day, a baby pickeral!! Hey I mentioned above that these things were tiny alright!

 


Its not a leisure trip if you aren't taking photos of the beautiful flowers








Dace # 1



Dace #2

In Dan's defense he did decide to quit fishing for awhile and just relax in the boat.



Dace #4 was a fiesty one!



Sunday afternoon after sitting around and talking about all the fish Ed and I caught I think Dan wanted a rematch. We packed all the gear up again and headed over to another training favorite of ours South Meadow Pond. This time we had more company and more vessels but the same amount of fisherman. Jess (Ed’s wife) and Jen with Roxy her little Chihuahua (Dan’s girlfriend) came along and paddled with their significant others while Travis and I paddled around in the pro boat. Now anyone following the blog knows we spend a lot of time on this pond. We have been bragging that we know where all the fish like to hide because we are constantly scaring them up as we speed over the top of them chilling out in the coves.  The water was warm and the pond was down about two feet from what it normally is so the fish seemed plentiful to me. The water level was down so much because some knuckle head in town accidentally ruptured a 150 year old cast iron pipe that feeds water from the adjoining pond, Coachlace , down to the Main St factories. This accident caused quite a bit of water to drain from both ponds in no time at all. Luckily enough no properties were damaged in town even though the fish and any other wildlife are a little constrained now. The draining has slowed since volunteers from town went out with sandbags and plywood and built make shift dams till they figure out a real fix for the issue. We had such a great time paddling around with everyone and enjoying the lake and the fish even though we weren’t reeling them in ourselves. Ohh yes, just in case your wondering Jess and Ed were victorious over Dan, Jen and Roxy’s fishing abilities with a whooping score of 8 to 3. Sorry Dan, better luck next time buddy.

Ed pretty excited about his first catch, a large mouth bass

Dan's first catch of the day, also a nice large mouth bass

Floating about

Ohh look a Crappy!

This ones as big as Jen's head

Ohh and this ones as big as the dog!

Pretty Heron we always chase around the pond, he thinks we are chasing him anyways

Roxy was pretty cozy for the trip, she even passed out here for a while



Another nice one, at least these fish were actually measurable

Rafting up to float and enjoy the views on the lake, what a great paddling weekend!!