On last week’s post I extolled the virtues of the USGS Quadrangle Topo map as a planning tool. My exploration of a blue line is always planned by studying the maps that I have available to develop my hike to find and explore those streams. I did not have a topo map for the first stream on this past weekend’s radar, but the review of a GIS map looked simple enough. Park here, hike a little over three fourths of a mile along a stream, come to the mouth of a Class A Wild tributary stream, head upstream, catch native brook trout and shoot pictures. Sounds easy enough right? Everything started well for the first two hundred yards when things began to get increasingly soggy as I progressed. Well over a half of a mile of swamp, tussocks, beaver channels and high stepping knee-deep mud later there was no sign of the Class A stream. The entire lower end of the stream I sought was colonized by beavers which had turned the entire area into acres of swamp with no definition of a tributary stream corridor anywhere. Needless to say I did eventually find the stream and it wasn’t worth making a cast when I finally found it. 2.2 miles and four hours later I was back in the car, exhausted and covered with mud and sweat, but I did manage to salvage the day by exploring another Class A Wild stream that exceeded my expectations and is pictured here. Blue lining can be like that too. Till next week …… www.ramsayflies.com #ItsAboutTheFish #PAWild
