On Wednesday, I snatched the opportunity to go fishing after dinner on the Main Hoosic in North Adams and Williamstown.
But my outing proved to be a fool's errand because, due to all the rain we've been having, the stream was running high and chocolate milk-colored.
So, to console myself, I went to Fish Pond and played tug-of-war with a rock bass and a dozen decent-sized sunfish.
Well, the rain hasn't let up much in the past few days, but today I gave the North Hoosic a try in the late morning and early afternoon.
It was overcast, misting and 62 degrees.
After hiking through the tiger lilies and Japanese knot weed (or what we used to call "bamboo" back when I was a youth), I took a few desultory casts at a handful of spots.
Unlike the Main Branch (which is larger, flatter and sandy bottomed), the North Branch is smaller, steeper and rocky bottomed - - so the stream was clearer, but (alas) still too high to fish productively.
Even in the few calmer and deeper spots that looked promising, there just weren't any takers for the enticing offerings at the end of my line.
Shifting focus, I went to the Natural Marble Bridge State Park, hiked upstream on Hudson Brook (a feeder stream of the North Branch) and in relatively short order caught two brookies (one 8" and one 11") and four browns (one 9", two 10" and one 11").
Then, after taking a break to pick up my younger daughter to drive her home after her volunteer shift at a local museum, I fished an even smaller brook closer to home - - where (interestingly) a 6' high and 15' or 20' long section of retaining wall had fallen into the stream since the last time I had been there a few months ago - - and landed two more (one 7" and one 9") brookies to even out my brookie/brown ratio.