Despite the long weekend, today was the only one that I could count on being able to go fishing, so I decided to travel a little further afield than I usually do, and drove to the Sawmill in Montague.
The day was beautiful (mostly sunny, about 80 degrees) and stream conditions were good,
I arrived around 11:30 AM and fished from the South Street bridge to the Center Street bridge until about 1 PM.
My harvest along the way: five (6" to 11") brookies and five (12" to 17") rainbows. (Oh yeah, five small dace as well).
Then I walked back to my car along the road and had a quick lunch: a couple slices of horseradish and cheese stuffed salami, a swig of homemade red wine, a handful of baked locusts (a recent birthday gift - - and surprisingly bland), another of homemade granola, and a few sips of melted water from the frozen water bottle that I use as an icepack,
Next, I drove downstream to fish below the Book Mill ("Books you don't need at a place you cann't find").
The parking was full near the Book Mill itself, so I parked a few blocks away and walked down the streambed of a small feeder brook to get into position.
I fished below the Book Mill from about 1:45 to 2:30 PM.
Oddly, I only had one strike in that section during the entire time - - but it was OK because I managed to round out my total with a single (11") brown, thus permitting me to complete my "hat trick" (at least one brook, one brown and rainbow) for the day.
On the way home, i stopped to fish the Cold River by the Black Brook bridge (on the boundary between Florida and Savoy) and caught another couple small (6" - 7") browns.
I don't think I've had a day this good on the Sawmill since that stream's (and my own) heyday back in the '80's, when I regularly fished it with my father.