Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Floating Blind on the Sudbury

Fair skies and recently risen water levels were what I found late yesterday afternoon when I launched into the Sudbury River at River Rd. in Wayland.  At the boat launch I encountered Dave and his dog just heading out in his well camouflaged floating duck blind (photo at left).  I was struck by the boat's low profile and pointed bow.  Dave said it could be sculled and that he was working on developing his sculling technique.  Woodies and teal were his objective.  He went downriver while I went up.  With this year's duck hunting season now underway, I make it a point to wear my blaze orange hat and gloves.

The late afternoon sun was blinding when looking west but provided a backlit effect to the east...
 
After passing under Route 20 I went to the right to where a large culvert used to bring Wash Brook under the long abandoned Central Mass Railroad...

Beavers were allowing only a trickle of the brook's flow to pass through the culvert resulting in most of it entering the river just above the wooden trestle...
Back in the days when the railroad was operating this diversion would not have been tolerated.

Below the Pelham Island Rd. bridge I encountered what, most likely, were the guts of a deer that had been field-dressed earlier. Archery hunting season for deer had begun that morning.

On my return to the boat launch this lone tree served as a reminder of our approaching "stick time"...
I believe it was TV meteorologist Eric Fisher who recently used that term to describe the time after the trees have shed their leaves.

Some trash found along the way...

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