| This past weekend I had my first memorable experience with acid rain.
My fishing buddy (Dave) and I decided to try a new pond that he had heard
about. The place is called Lake Solitude and is located halfway up the
side of Mt. Sunapee here in NH. The lake is somewhere around 8-10 acres or
so and seemed to be fairly shallow (3-4') throughout.
Well, we started up the mountain at around 8:00 on Saturday morning. It was
a two mile hike up to the pond. Halfway up I decided that I should have
stayed home to watch cartoons. I was very glad that I decided to bring only
one rod that day. We made it to the pond just in time to save Dave from
having to hear me say "are we there yet?" for the fiftieth time. (Hey, two
miles, uphill, with a backpack full of fishing tackle and lunch ain't so
easy!)
By now I was ready to do some serious fishing. I tied on a small Panther
Martin spinner and started casting. We started working our way along the
edge of the pond, fishing wherever we found a break in the trees. Halfway
around the pond and a couple of sandwiches later, we were both wondering
why we had hiked up here just to get casting practice. About that time,
we met another group of hikers. One of them came over to the rock we were
fishing off of this is the conversation that followed:
hiker: Catch anything?
us: not yet
hiker: I'd be really surprised if you caught anything in here. This pond
has been declared dead.
us: huh?
hiker: This pond is on the list of waters killed by acid rain. Seems it
has a p.h. of about 4.5 or so.
us: oh <thinking: yeah, right buddy. Why don't you go back to your hike.>
hiker: I'd be interested in hearing about it if you do catch anything in
here. Let me give you my card <gives card to Dave.>
me: <thinking: yeah he's probably from Greenpeace or the Clam Shell Alliance
or some other "Save the ____" group.>
ok, sure, have a nice day.
<hiker leaves>
me: Well?
Dave:It says <name>, Manager, State of NH Dept. of Environmental Resources.
(or something like that)
me: Oh. Want to go home now?
We fished for another 10 minutes or so and then started working our back
the way we had come. We met up with another group of hikers. This was
a younger group and they looked like the type that you see hitch-hiking
and don't stop to pick up. The type that leaves the extra sweater out of
the pack so they can put in another six-pack of Bud.
them: Catch anything?
us: Nope, kind of slow today.
them: A friend of ours was up here last week and he caught a nice bunch
of trout.
us: here???
them: yup, over on the other side of the lake.
us: thanks.
<we move on>
Dave: Well? Do you believe them?
me: Nope, but can we afford to risk it?
Dave: Let's go back.
About a hundred feet further around the pond than we had made it the first
time, we saw a half dozen trout just sitting there about six feet off
shore. We caught four nice 10" brook trout and brought three of them home
for dinner. (We normally practice catch and release and in fact, these
were the first fish that we brought home this year.) One of the trout had
been eating bugs from the bottom of the pond and another had a newt in its
stomach. We also brought home a water sample. The scale on the p.h. kit I
use in my home aquarium only goes down to 6.0 but we could tell that the
sample we had brought back was much lower than that. Based on interpolating
the color scale in the kit, we believe that the p.h. was in the 4.5-5.0 range.
We saw lots of frogs and lots of newts. But the only fish that we saw were
the size of the ones that we caught; no fry, no minnows, no perch, or pickeral.
The fish meat had a light pinkish color when cooked, not white like the stocked
trout that we usually see. I assumed that they were natives. They looked
like very healthy and very clean fish. Dave says that they were very delicious.
We plan to write to the guy from the state who gave us his card and tell
him what we caught. Maybe the pond is starting to make a comeback.
Does anyone know if the State Fish and Game Dept. will provide a list of
"dead" ponds and lakes if you ask for it? I'll let you know what we find out.
tight lines,
Jeff
|
| Rich,
In between snores, I caught talk of reduced emissions, better
enforcement, the usual. I understand he's meeting with the Canadian
PM today and acid rain is a definite topic. I'd like to hear that
he's willing to sign the treaty on acid rain that the Canadians
are asking for. That would be a good sign.
Over all, I'm more encouraged having a fisherman in office but I
seem to recall that Carter was one too and I can't recall any specific
accomplishments.
-SSS-
|