New Hampshire Nature Notes
by Eric Orff

I remain toadless here but have seen them elsewhere and some great fishing fun.

Wednesday 07/26/2006

Summer stuff is showing up now. Within the last week I have spotted several juvenile grasshoppers. I did find my first young-of-the-year toads last Wednesday along the side of the Suncook River near the pit where the river now flows. Still none at my place yet. The Suncook River took another turn for the worse again late last week draining way down in a day, but the heavy rains of Friday and Saturday have brought the river back up.

I was finishing the list of Fish and Game properties assigned to me to check for flood damage last week when I spotted dozens of monarch butterflies in the fields at the Bellamy River Wildlife Management Area in Dover. It is great to see them back. Last summer was a bust for them here as vast numbers were killed off the previous winter in Mexico.

Last Friday I met my fishing buddy Jean Brochu at Hampton Harbor a little after 7:00 am for a morning fishing trip for flounder. He had been following Rocky Gauron's daily reports of his fishing fleet and one of his boats had a morning flounder trip that had been producing well. I managed to catch my limit of 8 delicious flounder in the four-hour trip. Plus the boat only travel a couple miles south and anchored off Plum Island just south where the Merrimack River meets the sea. We filleted the whole lot at his camper in Stratham and had plenty of fish to divide and share with family. Oh yes, a group of vacationing Canadians offered me their catch too, which Jean and I shared as well. A morning of flounder fishing costs me $33, that's less than it would cost me to take my own boat down to the Merrimack.

Summer silence still fills the air here. My wife and I took an evening cruise on my little raft last evening. There was a sum total of one green frog calling. Bats were plentiful in the sky at last light though. Still the river, and all the brooks flowing in, are running real high for late July. Everything remains spring-green it seems. The cicadas should start buzzing any day now.