Dear Parents,
Greetings from Nickerson State Park! Today we wrapped up the portion of our trip in the Berkshires floating the Housatonic River for Northern Pike and several different species of bass. The crew had a blast floating two different sections of the river while learning the basics of fly fishing from a canoe (a new experience for most). After our drive from the Berkshires to Cape Cod, we stopped in Buzzards Bay for some laundry and a staple of LFFE — a hard-fought game of ultimate frisbee. After a few Gatorades to replenish those electrolytes, we pulled into camp, watching the sunset over the many kettle ponds, looking forward to several days of fishing the Cape for the wild and hard-fighting Striped Bass that call the saltwater home.
Our time on the Housatonic was extremely successful. Pike are ambush predators that hide under log jams and overlying trees (or anything else that’s hard to cast to) just waiting to sneak up on an unsuspecting bait fish, frog, or even birds in a single motion, leaving nothing more than a little wake in the water as evidence. Luckily for us, our boys did a pretty good job of convincing the Housatonic’s pike that our flies were prey, a notoriously difficult task. We ended up landing eight pike and getting eats from many more. Along with that, we caught the largest largemouth bass I have ever seen come out of the Housatonic, as well as dozens of good-sized smallmouth, largemouth, and rock bass.
As we get ready to eat dinner (if we can ever get the kids back from the kettle ponds next to our campsite), we look forward to our time on the striper flats. The group is getting along well, and we greatly appreciate their maturity; it’s a rarity to get a group that enjoys a rather calm conversation throughout the entirety of a drive. It’s been a blast getting to know them, and we look forward to their progression even more as anglers with this upcoming challenge.
Tightest of lines,
Eli, Max, David, and the squad
