Mar 13, 2012

My Weekend Outdoors - 3/11/12

It was a pretty nice weekend here in the Northeast with warmer temps and clear skies, you know the kid of day you must take advantage of and spend as much time as possible outdoors and I did.  I did some backyard birding and photography, made a little maple syrup and even got into some trout with the fly rod and before I get yelled at, I even did some house work.

With the night time temps warming up the sugaring season may be coming to an end and I can't say I am sorry to see it end.  As tasty as pure maple syrup is, it is truly a labor of love and Monday started week 5 of the season which includes many late nights during the week and longer weekends.  On Saturday Bubba and I bottled up another 6 gallons which helped us get closer to the 60 gallon yearly average, down some from last years 101 gallons though.  When you poor this stuff over your pancakes you quickly forget about those late nights and long weekends. 

Where the Magic happens - 30 gallons of sap per hour
 

Finished Product


Makes the time all worth while

The activity at my bird feeders has really picked up over the past couple weeks with new visitors showing up which is a good sign spring is on the way as the birds start migrating back North.  The newest visitors around my house were Red-winged blackbirds, American Goldfinches, Common Crackles, Mourning Doves and finally a couple of Robins.  At one point I had 10 American Goldfinches enjoying my offerings at the same time.  I think that is a record for me.  The highlight though was a hawk that thought he would get an easy meal at my feeder.  He didn't but came close twice.  I'm not sure if it is a Coppers Hawk or a Sharp-shinned Hawk as they are very similar and hard to differentiate.  I do hope to see the Baltimore Orioles come back this spring.

Coopers or Sharp-shinned Hawk?

Mourning Dove

Red-winged Blackbird
Sunday afternoon found me fishing the Willimantic River TMA which is a fly fishing only section open year round for catch and release fishing.  I took a quick lunch run up there last week and was skunked but today was definitely more productive as bent rods and tight lines produce some nice trout to hand.  All released to provide someone else with the enjoyment they gave me.  I broke out the Greys Streamflex 10' 4wt and rigged up to Euro Nymph using a coiled sighter.  I picked up fish on brown rubber legged stonefly, a Frenchie style pheasant tail and a walt's worm.  I did miss a few as well.  The two best fish was a 14"  hefty rainbow and a 13" tiger trout.

This hefty 14"+ Rainbow took a size 18 Frenchie PT w/Orange Bead

This Rainbow trout took the size 18 Frenchie

Tiger Trout took the Rubber Legged Stone

A little video from the release of the bigger rainbow.  Looks like I need to work on my one handed video release technique though.  This was taken using my Olympus TG-310.


My daughter and I even got a little archery practice in and man were we rusty.  Not bad for a weekend outdoors.  So what did you do this past weekend?

18 comments:

  1. Wow, that tiger trout is GORGEOUS! Is it a hybrid?

    This past weekend I drove to the Outer Banks on Friday night...Saturday morning I went to a NWR and took a wildlife driving tour, and Sunday I went to an aquarium! Great weekend!

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    1. That tiger trout is a hatchery fish and I believe they are hybrid of a brown and brook trout. Shouldn't you be the one to tell me this?! :)

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    2. Haha, I know little to nothing about fish :)! I took only 7 weeks of fish ID, as our Intro course is 7 weeks fish 7 weeks mams! Give me a year and 3-4 more courses on fish and I'll get back to you!

      Looking forward to getting home to some syrup!

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  2. Looks like you had a blast! That's awesome! Some great looking fish.

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  3. You had a fine weekend. Maple syrup and corn pancakes to die for.

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    1. Thanks Brk Trt. Still have to get into those wild streams like you do. Soemday I will.

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  4. Would love to have some of your syrup here in South Georgia! If you ever have a desire to send some South, just let me know! :)

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    1. Trey, drop me an email with your address and I will see what I can do.

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  5. Great pictures!!

    The tiger and breakfast look great!

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    1. Breakfast was delicious - eggs, pancakes, thick cut bacon, potatoes, venison sausage and the syrup made it even better. Dang, I'm hungry now.

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  6. Sounds like it was a beautiful weekend for you and a productive one at that. I love maple syrup, where can a get one of those turkey on bottle? Do you sell them?

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    1. Rick, we had bought a few of those bottles from a vendor and we keep refilling them for people. We don't have any syrup in those bottles at this time. Everything is in the plastic bottles right now. Sorry. I'll see if Bubba can get some for next season.

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  7. Looks like an awesome weekend, and those are some gorgeous fish!

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  8. great weekend to enjoy for sure. looks like you took full advantage of it and was well rewarded. great job and thanks for posting!

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  9. That syrup looks yummy!! Quite a few things we make is very time consuming too and you question if it is worth it...but just like you said, in the end while you are enjoying it, you forget all the work it involved!! haha. When you decide to start selling it, I'm all in for buying a bottle or two ;)

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  10. @Chris & @doubletaper - thanks for the comments,

    @LB - Well said. Drop me an email and I will see what I can do about getting you some syrup - that's the least I can do for winning some of your Jam last year. Good stuff.

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  11. I CAN NOT for the life of me find your email address anywhere on here!! hahah. I know Google changed stuff up but lawdy mercy. My email address ellebee1@comcast.net. I'll hook up up with some new jams too in exchange for some syrup so make sure to leave your mailing address too!

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