Posted by Chuck Grimmett. Learn more on his About page.
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Brookies in Putnam County
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…
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Sampling Bin BWO Hatch
Today during our Trout in the Classroom macroinvertebrate sampling we had something very cool happen: Dozens of tiny BWOs (blue-winged olives) emerged right in our sample bins! Afterward we could see the shucks in the bin. It was great to be able to show the students this happening in realtime. Also, here is a nice…
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Brook Trout Conservation on Earth Day
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: The stickers were a big hit. I ordered them from AssetArtist on Etsy. The younger…
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Spring Ramp Pasta
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: In each…
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Wild Westchester Brook Trout
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,…
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Frijoles Charros y Frijoles Puercos
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: Notes: Since I made a full pound of beans, I had plenty of leftovers. What do you do with leftover charro beans? According to…
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Cecil E. Heacox’s The Catskill Flytyers article
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…
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Walking the lower Pocantico River
I walked and fished the section of the Pocantico River running through Rockefeller Preserve to document disturbances with TU’s RIVERS app as part of the Big Apple Brook Trout program. Some main takeaways: The largemouth bass I was surprised to catch when I was casting to rising trout:
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Spotted Salamander
After three weeks of walking through the woods at night looking at vernal pools with a flashlight, I finally found a spotted salamander! 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…
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Woodland Spring Flowers
Charlie and I have been keeping an eye on the patches of Trout Lilies in our local woods, and today they were in full bloom. 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…
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First row of the season
Jon and I got out today on the Croton River for the first row of the season. 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…
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Wax-dipped Daffodils
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.
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A few thoughts on DEC NY’s 2026 trout stocking
I looked at the trout stocking pages on the DEC’s site for the first time today for Westchester and Putnam counties: I prefer wild fish, but there are only a few streams in this region with wild populations, so the state stocks the others. Two things stick out to me: They didn’t stock the regular…
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Caramelized Beans with Tomato & Cabbage
I’ve been lax on the bean dishes the last couple weeks, but I’m back with a good one: Alison Roman’s Caramelized Beans with Tomato & Cabbage. It was good! Pretty easy to make. Not a lot of active time, mostly waiting on things to cook. I used cabbage and tomatoes from my freezer, since I’ve…
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Month of March 2026
I am thankful March 2026 was much different than March 2025, when I was in the hospital for a blood clot in my kidney. I’m doing fine now, and I reflected more on that in my birthday post. March started with some fly tying and catching my first trout of the season with snow on…
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Trout in the Classroom 2026 Releases
2026 Trout Release season is underway for the Trout in the Classroom program here in the Croton Watershed! I went out on Monday to help with the macroinvertebrate sampling, student macro identification, and the releases. It was spring break for Charlie and my parents were in town, so the three of them came along for…
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Green frogs
Another nighttime walk in the woods with rubber boots and a flashlight. Lots of green frogs out tonight.
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Wading Around
Charlie and I went and explored a creek about 13 minutes away from our house. I heard rumors that there is a native brook trout population there and Charlie jumped at the chance to try out his new waders. Win-win. It was a beautiful sunny day, and we only needed a light jacket. The first…