Wood River, Rhode Island

Labor Day, September 7, 2009
Hope(less) Valley, RI

With the canoe atop the Subaru, the bucket of blueberries and dead dragonfly still in the trunk and no legal fishing status in the state of Rhode Island, Caleb and I set out for the frosty Wood River.
We stopped for a sale session at URE and to get a RI 3-day fishing license. I found myself completely annoyed at the following: the lack of lighting in the dressing room, the fact that the dressing room was located out on the open floor and had only a little modesty flap for a door; and the annoying women that stood outside and tapped their feet waiting to use the dressing room. Our URE trip concluded with me making some regrettable decisions on some sale yoga clothes and Caleb's purchase of the three day RI license.
We drove a little further and headed over to the Wood River. We first investigated at the dam at Wyoming Pond. After reluctantly walking over the dam with quickly flowing waters, we made it to a spot where Caleb was sure he was seeing surface rises from Brookies. We went down a little further and then waded into the River. We went from rock to rock until we came to a large rock where Caleb caught many, many dace. Then he became overly excited as he though that he saw a Rainbow Trout. I didn't really believe him but then he pulled up the large beauty. He caught it using a bead-head caddis fly nymph on an ultra light 6 ft. casting rod. I was clearly impressed and happy that we got to photograph the little fellow.
For the next few minutes, I took some interesting pictures of dragonflies eating mayflies. One mayfly got away, but not before the greedy dragonfly had chewed off its left wing. The one-winged mayfly sulked away. Unfortunately there are no wing repair shops in this part of RI and the sweet mayfly knew its fate.
As I was doing this, I heard Caleb shouting like a girl. I quickly stumbled through the pebbly waters over to him and saw what all of the fuss was about: a gorgeous Atlantic Salmon! In all of the excitement of catching the fish and trying to get a photograph, the fish freed itself from the hook and gave us the old sliparoo back into the chilly water. I was devastated that I didn't get a photograph of it. It was just adorable.
We tried for a little while longer in this spot but soon left after the action slowed. We went back to the public access area at the dam at Wyoming Pond and attracted quite a crowd as Caleb caught largemouth after largemouth, using the dace we had caught earlier for bait. We also taught the onlookers about crayfish. (Or craw-dads as i like to say.)
We left there and went on a little further to a stretch of the river by a baseball field. Caleb attempted to catch anything here and even used a spinner. I attempted to stand on my head. Then we might have hit a skunk and had to deal with the smell the whole way over to the Barberville pool by the dam. We waded through and though it was very picturesque, we did not catch anything.
We then left to go home to make Mexican food. Homeade salsa made from vegetables in ye olde gargen.
Totals: 7-10 dace; 1 rainbow trout; 1 (possibly two) Atlantic Salmon; 1 crawdad; 4-5 largemouth bass; 1 pickerel sighting; 1 skunk run-in; 1 crawdad and an angry woman waiting for a dressing room at URE.