I had been planning a backpacking trip up to a few of Lee's favorite rivers in the Jackson area, but due to some family issues my friend was unable to make it and I had another opportunity to spend the weekend with my wife and two daughters along the Nezinscot River.

Due to the recent rains, the water had come up quite a bit since my first visit.  This was a good thing however, as it opened up a lot more water and fished completely differently. 

Since my last trip, I had purchased a new 11' Tenkara rod which collapses down to about the length of my forearm.  I think it will be perfect if my backpacking plans ever come to fruition.  I also had tied up a variety of flies - a mix of tenkara and traditional wets.  I also brought a dozen or so assorted EHC dries that I purchased from KTP.  I decided to leave my spinning rod and traditional fly gear at home and really focus my efforts on getting the most out of the Tenkara rod.  I have to say I really enjoyed using this rod and had a blast experimenting with various flies and techniques on the river.

Over the course of the weekend I probably only hooked about a half-dozen trout, so the fishing was pretty slow given the amount of time I was putting in.  I did catch a lot of chubs, so at least that kept things interesting and let me know my flies/presentation were at least somewhat effective.  The trout didn't appear to be very concentrated - whenever I caught a fish or had one come up and take a swipe at a fly, I would try to duplicate the same approach in other, similar water without any success.  And I was never able to find more than one trout in any given location. 

So in the end, I caught trout fishing both upriver and downriver, on a mix of dries and wet flies.  The wets were successful dead drifted as nymphs and also swung and/or pulsed in the Tenkara style.  As in my previous trip, I also caught fish on my first cast with a dry after really fishing the same water hard with a variety of wets just minutes before.  Hopefully that is due to the fish and not my technique.

I've since learned that the Nezinscot gets stocked pretty heavily with browns in the spring, but I was at least a mile or so from any likely stocking area.  So even though these were stocked fish, they were in excellent shape and had great color.

Overall, the weekend was a great success - the girls had fun swimming, sunning and reading along the river.  I got my fishing time in, and had a chance to play with the new rod and spend another couple of nights experimenting with sleeping in a hammock.  We also had the opportunity to break-in the Dutch Oven I got as an X-mas present last year and had a great dinner one night and a desert the next.

I remembered to bring my camera this time, so a few fishy shots to share, along with some pics of the new rod and hammock setup.

Still hoping to make my way up to the Whites, fingers crossed that I can convince one of my local friends to make the trip up.

-- Tom

Edit - trying again with photo album

So far the hammock setup has been great - only have around 4 nights in this one, bought it earlier this summer.  Its a bridge hammock, so much flatter and more comfortable than the other hammocks I've tried, especially since I like to sleep on my side.  The attached bug net is great!   

You can see my blue DIY underquilt (converted from 30+ year old LL Bean synthetic sleeping bag).  The first night I used a DIY underquilt based on a poncho liner.  This was more than sufficient last time when the temps were in the mid 60's overnight, but now with the temps dropping into the low 50's I could feel the chill start to creep in.  The second night I tried the blue bag, which was much better but I felt like if the temps got any lower that I would need something more.. So I just ordered a new down UQ that should get me down to 25-30*.  Any excuse to buy new gear

I'm glad I am getting the chance to experiment and learn all this stuff now, and not when I've hiked a few miles into the woods

-- Tom

Tom

Very nice report.  I needed to approve your uploaded pictures and did not see them until now.  I was away at the Doctors this morning.  I did a quick edit of your post and resized the pictures.  You should be good to go, if you have any questions about how to use the media gallery or any other thing see if there is something in the help area of the site.

See Yah

Lee

Heck ya nice little report. Dutch oven very cool . What kind of Vidal's did you cook up ?  Nice hammock set up.  Thanks for sharing .

Tom

I must say you are very good, you read in the help that you needed to disable the smilies to make the slideshow work in the forum.  That desirves a .

Well done.  I did one small edit on your post and made the width of the slide show 600 not 640, fits better.

See Yah

Lee