Today I fished the small headwaters of a stream I drive by daily that eventually empties into the Hudson River. When I say small, I mean small. The average depth of the section I fished on state land is probably 6in, with an average width of 5ft.

I saw lots of eastern blacknose dace in the stream, but something slightly different caught my eye too, so I stuck my phone down in the water to record a video to be sure:

Yes! Swimming around with the blacknose dace is a tiny trout parr. I took a temperature reading: 60F, even in shallow water. Great sign on this 85F day. I got out my fly rod and started working the pocket water.

I wasn’t getting any hits at all on my dry flies (I tried a size 16 Mr. Rapidan and a size 18 BWO Sparkle Dun), so I tied on a size 16 bead head hares ear nymph and started working the three pools on that section of the stream.

In the deepest of the three, probably 8 ft deep, a decent sized fish followed my fly right up to the edge and then caught a glimpse of me and swam away with a splash. That caught my attention. It was the only thing bigger than a dace I’d seen. I had to know what it was!

After about 5 minutes of slow casting, I got a strike, but whatever it was didn’t take the fly. I decided to put a tiny indicator on at around 5ft of depth and let the fly slowly float through the pool. The indicator disappeared on the fourth retrieve and I set the hook. The fish jumped out of the water and I knew I found what I came for. I had a trout on the line.

Not just any trout… I caught a brook trout!

What surprised me was the size. 9 inches! I expected something in the ~5in range since the stream is so small. A healthy 9in brook trout was a great thing to find.

I quickly let it go and we went our separate ways. It swam back down to the depths of the pool and I hiked back up the stream to the car.

What a delight to find another stream with native brook trout close to home.

Note to self for my next tying session: More size 16 and 18 bead head hares ear nymphs to sink to the bottom of holes like this.

Jay Guarneri wrote a great article in the 2026 edition of Tenkara Angler about collecting zenmai from ferns and tying kebari with it. He inspired me to go out and collect some of my own zenmai this spring.

Read Jay’s article here, (page 80!) then come back.

What is zenmai? My Best Streams calls it “cotton of flowering fern” and has this pop-over info box:

Flowerring Fern “Zenmai” sprouts about from April to June and those sprouts are covered with cotton. Zenmai is distributed in the Korean Peninsula, China, Taiwan and the Himalayas. The same kind of Zenmai is distributed worldwide except Australasia. There are Yamadori Zenmai / Cinnamon Fern (Osmunda cinnamomea), Yasha Zenmai (Osmunda lancea), Oni Zenmai (Osmunda claytoniana), Royal Fern (Osmunda regalis), besides Zenmai (Osmunda japonica). The cotton of zenmai is often used to the body of traditional tenkara fly. The people who lived in the mountain village spun the cotton of zenmai into thread and made the winter clothes in the old days because this material has performance of water proof. It can be said that it is a wisdom of the mountain village’s people. It is also well known that the sprouts dries and becomes food.

http://www.hi-ho.ne.jp/amago/b-streams/flytying/tenkara.html

Jay recommends looking for Royal Ferns, Cinnamon Ferns, and Interrupted Ferns here in the eastern US. I had a hard time finding them in the woods by our house. Almost all of the ferns I see regularly are not species that make the cotton.

I finally found a patch of Cinnamon Ferns today near a brook and collected about a dubbing pack’s worth of zenmai.

I found the stuff fairly easy to dub with a little wax on my thread. Though as Jay pointed out when I was messaging him on Instagram, I was lucky to get some nice straight fibers, which makes dubbing easier.

I chose to tie futsu-style kebari in size 14 with orange thread and grizzly hackle.

I’ll probably tie some hen pheasant soft hackles next.

I also want to go out and collect some more. I collected from maybe 1/20th of the patch I found. Another bunch similar to what I collected today should do nicely.

Want to buy some zenmai kebari? Go check out Jay’s Kebari Shop on Etsy. He sells them and they look better than mine.

Also, here is a nice example of a stick caddis we found today:

Just different feathers, no flash, because I don’t want the cat to accidentally eat plastic if it gets too excited.

I call it “Maizy’s Deceiver.”

I tied it on a swivel clip, which will be able to clip to the end of a cat toy wand they already have.

Maizy, and the elusive other cat, Bob, seemed to enjoy playing with it.

I used multiple colors on this one, relying on dyed feathers. For the next one I plan on using all natural feathers that haven’t been bleached in any way. I wonder if the cats will enjoy the natural scent?

Charlie’s school had an Earth Day event today and I set up a table on conserving brook trout, New York’s state fish, and the only trout native to the eastern US.

I put together some stuff for all age groups:

• Coloring pages for the younger students
• A pamphlet on the trout life cycle for middle school students
• A pamphlet with information about brook trout and conservation tips for junior high students and adults
• Books to look at
• Info on the bugs trout like to eat in streams
• Maps of known brook trout populations in the local area and the eastern seaboard
• A diagram on stream temperature management
• An Algonquin legend about how the brook trout got their spots as a gift from the Great Spirit
• Stickers for everyone!

The stickers were a big hit.

I ordered them from AssetArtist on Etsy.

The younger students loved the coloring pages, too. Here’s one someone colored:

Amanda helped me make the poster board. I sent a bunch of materials and copy her way and she laid it all out beautifully. Thank you for your help, love!

We had a really fun afternoon at Charlie’s school. It was interesting to see what the students gravitated toward. Some liked the trout, some liked the bugs, some wanted to talk about fishing, some wanted to know about why I like brook trout so much.

Do you want to do a brook trout conservation table? I put together some resources to get you started:

Brook Trout Conservation Tabling Resources – Chuck’s Notes

notes.cagrimmett.com

Yesterday I foraged some nice ramps out in the woods. I decided I’d make a spring pasta with them:

I drove over to Tuscana Pasta, a local pasta maker here in Peekskill, and picked up some fresh cavatelli.

I didn’t follow a recipe and I won’t try to write one here.

I added:

• Pancetta
• Mushrooms
• Ramps
• Peas
• A white wine pan sauce

In each bowl, I topped the pasta with some fresh burrata, meant to be mixed in while you eat.

It was great! I typically only forage ramps once each spring, so they are a special treat. I look forward to them again next spring.

I’m glad that works, but it is wild that we need to use workarounds in Apple’s pre-installed video editing app to edit videos from iPhones in their standard orientation.

Today I caught a beautiful wild brook trout today in Westchester County, just five miles from my house. I’d heard whispers that this small stream contained brook trout, and I was delighted to catch one on my first outing there.

I’ve caught brook trout in Cross River, but since so much stocking goes in there, it is hard to tell whether they are wild or holdovers.

But in today’s stream, which I’m not going to name here, I am pretty certain this brook trout is wild, as there are no stocking records I can find for this stream.

New technique: Sticking your iPhone down in the water while running a video to film the fish swimming away.

A beauty!

I caught it in classic brookie territory: Around the deadfalls.

The stream also has some nice macroinvertebrate life, including some giant stoneflies and some free floating caddis, both of which are indicator species of clean water, which was running at 54F today.

This stream is a wonder. Small, but full of life. I also saw a turtle trying to disguise itself as a rock:

This small stream is a gem hidden away in Westchester. Who would have thought we have wild brook trout here? We do. Let’s conserve them.

• A pomodoro timer that actually looks like a tomato and has zero chips or digital displays.
• A wind up mechanical watch.
• A dryer without internet connection.
• No voice assistants in the house.

I picked the iSpring RCC7AK. It is working nicely so far and we can taste the difference in a side-by-side comparison.

For this week’s bean adventure, I made Charro Beans, or Frijoles Charros. I looked at multiple recipes and cobbled together my own, which I’ll attempt to put down in words here:

• 1lb dried pinto beans, soaked for four hours then cooked with onion, carrot, and bay leaves.
• 4 tbsp bacon grease
• 1/4lb Mexican chorizo
• 1 serrano chile
• 4 garlic cloves
• 1/2 red bell pepper
• 1/2 poblano pepper
• 1 cup chopped tomatoes
• Salt

Notes:

• I didn’t put any bacon in there, thinking the bacon grease + chorizo would be enough. Next time I think I’ll add bacon. I think this would be a good use for bacon ends you sometimes see on sale in butcher shops.
• I know charro beans are typically soupy, but I cooked this batch down until they were a little thicker, which is how I prefer them.
• I ate these frequently last week: On the side in a bowl, as an ingredient in tacos, as the sole ingredient in tacos, and in breakfast tacos. Delicious, versatile dish.

Since I made a full pound of beans, I had plenty of leftovers.

What do you do with leftover charro beans? According to Arnie Tex, you turn them into Frijoles Puercos.

I used a blend of Arnie’s recipe and this recipe from Maricruz Avalos:

I used Oaxaca cheese, which Charlie calls Mexican String Cheese. It basically is!

The Frijoles Puercos were great. We ate it as an appetizer the first day, then the next day we put it in breakfast tacos with scrambled eggs. Highly recommended.

Amanda even put some on a hot dog in place of chili, and now she is requesting that I make another batch soon.

I think I’ll make some for the next friend hang cookout.

Following my post containing the scans of Cecil Heacox’s 1969 Charmed Circle of the Catskills articles, Ed Ostapczuk emailed that Heacox did a follow up in the May 1972 edition of Outdoor Life on Catskill Flytyers. Naturally, I had to track that one down, too.

It turned out to not be online either, so I set some eBay alerts for that edition and got a hit a few days later.

Here it is, also available on the Internet Archive:

I donated the physical 1969 copies to the Jerry Bartlett Angling Collection at the Phoenica Library. I’ll donate this May 1972 copy as well the next time I’m out that way.

At some point, I think someone needs to publish a Cecil Heacox Collected Works project. Perhaps that is my responsibility, now that I’ve confronted the possibility. If you want to help with that, let me know.

One interesting aside: I noticed that Outdoor Life republished the March 1969 Cecil Heacox Charmed Circle articles online today. I can’t help but think my tracking the article down last month and sharing it widely popped up on their radar and prompted them to republish it. I might never know. Regardless, I’m happy to have multiple versions available online now for redundancy and resilience.

Some main takeaways:

• I documented some erosion and some places I’d be concerned about surface runoff, but in general this is a pretty well maintained section of stream.
• The water temp was warm for this time of year. Mid 60s in most spots, as high as 67 in one spot. I get that this is the lower section and the past couple days have been hot, but that is higher than I’d expect.
• There is already some conservation work happening. Some removal of things like Knotweed, bolstering the banks against erosion with large rocks, some young tree plantings.
  • The office said that the local Trout in the Classroom program is changing this year and they only allow brook trout releases there, no brown trout releases. The state still stocks brown trout, though. I wonder if we can change that?
• I caught a young largemouth bass and hooked up with that I’m pretty sure were two small (6-8in) brown trout, but they didn’t make it to the net. Both slipped my barbless hooks at my feet (from what I did see of them I noticed the lighter upper body, so pretty sure they are the smaller stocked browns). Lots of rises today, though, in the three bigger pools in this section of the river.

The largemouth bass I was surprised to catch when I was casting to rising trout:

It was hot enough that we realized our car’s AC needed recharging, so Charlie and I worked on that after dinner.

They all said, “Not yet, 1-2 weeks.”

Time to tie some big striper patterns.

They are slow on land, but pretty quick to swim away and hide in water. I had to be patient and wait about 30 minutes for this one to come back out after I initially spooked it.

Such neat little creatures.

Much to my dismay, I learned after lugging my SLR out that I had forgotten the memory card in my card reader on my desk. So iPhone photos will have to suffice.

We also saw some Wood Anemone and fiddlehead ferns:

Charlie found a black and yellow feather that we think is probably from a Northern Flicker.

Lots happening in our yard, too. Arugula, radishes, and volunteer tomatillos are sprouting, the rhododendron, forsythia, and tulips are blooming, and the yard is full of violets.

Charlie and I spent some time earlier this week scrubbing out the guideboat and getting it cleaned up. Despite being wrapped in a tarp in my boat racks behind the workshop, some raccoons found their way in and made a mess.

Inspired by Brian Schulz, I picked up some Aere Beach Rollers to use as float bags in the guideboat. Think of them as repurposed inflatable dock bumpers.

INFLATABLE BEACH ROLLER – AERE Marine

Inflatable Beach Roller, Reinforced Fabric, 2000 Lbs Capacity Made from Heavy Duty Materials, 9 inches x 60 inches. Large air valve included.

aeredockingsolutions.com

I’ve never flipped, but they give me piece of mind going out in the Hudson during windy weather, and when taking Charlie out. I strapped them in with 4ft x 1in straps.

They did not interfere with my rowing, and I found them comfortable as arm rests and to lean my legs against. They also had a secondary benefit of holding my removable seat in place, even when the boat is upside down on top of the car.

Tertiary benefit: Decent makeshift fly rod holder.

Jon and I plan to do some tests when it is warmer out. We’ll row up to a favorite swimming hole and flip one boat with float bags and one without float bags and compare the difficulty we have in recovering them. Both of us know how to self-rescue in kayaks, but haven’t tried in the guideboats before, so it should be interesting.

One of the main draws of the Adirondack Guideboat is the overall stability because of their shape and displacement volume. Still, good to be prepared, especially when a 4yo is a passenger.

Speaking of Charlie, he didn’t go with me today because I don’t feel comfortable taking him out on the water when it is this cold. The water temp was 53F and the air temp was around 56F. Too cold for someone without much body fat who is still learning to swim. I promised to take him out as soon as it warms up.

As Jon and I were rowing back downriver, someone on a dock waved us over. We met Gareth Hougham of the Hudson Valley Stream Conservancy, who recognized our Adirondack Guideboats and wanted to see them and chat with us. Gareth is a delightful guy doing great conservation work in the area, and I’m glad we got to meet.

Hudson Valley Stream Conservancy: www.streamconservancy.org

Welcome to Hudson Valley Stream Conservancy, we are a tax-exempt nonprofit that works in aquatic ecology, water-related infrastructure, environmental education, and outreach.

streamconservancy.org

A secondary reason for going out today was to try casting a fly rod from the guideboat for the first time. Can you believe I’ve had the guideboat for almost 5 years and hadn’t cast a line from it yet? I brought my 8wt striped bass rod and cast it around the mouth of the Croton River, though still on the Croton side of the train trestle. Way too windy today to go out into the bay.

I didn’t catch anything, but I did get some practice casting from the boat and now all my gear is ready. I’ll go out again soon and target some striped bass for real.

Nice evening out on the water. Looking forward to the 2026 season.

We saw this post on Instagram about dipping daffodils in beeswax to preserve them and decided to try it out.

Here they are:

Amanda strung them and hung them above the mantle.

Here’s one (with a bonus mini one) in a dry vase on my bookshelf, still looking great after 6 days.