THE BEAR SWAMPS

This Remote Adirondack brook holds native trout for those who will bushwhack the thick forest. My father brought us to a secret place he called The Bear Swamps.  

Each trip begins with ambling our fly rods, creels with worms, red flannel shirts and old Stetson hats covered with Citronella.  To this day that scent brings me back there.  After a half hour boat ride and 45 minute hike through the dense underbrush we would arrive.  We had to follow a vague overgrown trail and at times bushwhack the thick Adirondack forest to get there.  From the time I was a little boy Dad and Uncle Jim would bring me and others to this remote place to fight black flies, mosquitoes, deer flies, moose flies, tall grass and thick alder trees covering sections of water to engage our quarry-the native brook trout.

This remote brook and meadow would deepen significantly if beaver moved in and built a dam. This meadow would form a large pond and deep channels, at times, if the water got deep and allowed for good habitat and feisty native brook trout (which were good size).  With no beaver came low water.  The pond became various channels or shallow pools and trout were forced to find refuge below anything they could.  Staying small was a successful strategy.  Dad's rule was you could not keep anything under 6 inches.  State law had no size limit.   Small as they were the fun was not diminished.  Low water also meant, as a fisher, you could see the structure they might be hiding under such as logs, stumps, rocks and embankments.  So the challenge became structure fishing and sight fishing.  Lifting the hooked trout, as it wiggled like mad, into your net was the final challenge.  Very often the trout dropped into the tall grass missing the net and finding it could take some time.  If the fish stopped wiggling you couldn't hear it thus not find it.

Thanks Dad and Mom, Uncle Jim and Uncle Bob for all those INDIAN LAKE adventures.