SHOP NOTES | C.J. BOVA RODS

The sounds on many rivers allow us to fall into a somewhat hypnotic state and transports our senses to a more serene and most often inquisitive place. If we step away from all of the digital madness in the world today and find ourselves completely alone on a river there is a very noticeable difference in heart rate, thought patterns, and levels of concentration. Most noticeable of all is that time has little or no measurable bearing. The position of our shadow or the waters angle of reflection is really the only que when it comes to relative time. The sounds that a fisherman makes is somewhat limited, I suppose that's why I come across so much shy wild life from one season to the next. Fox, Heron, deer, the elusive badger, and turkey are all the usual suspects. This past season two coyotes came sloshing across the river twenty or so feet in front of me with absolutely no inhibition. Recently an unlikely visitation of a hummingbird has kept me thinking about the qualities of silk...

  One of the more interesting of the fall terrestrials is the tree cricket. This amazing insect will appear in the bushes or trees bordering fields or meadows during the last weeks of summer or early weeks of fall. Along trout streams this insect is on the main menu for most trout especially big ones. The tree cricket is usually no larger than one inch in length and has a pale green or whitish colored body depending on the species. Found in the Gryllidae family in the Orthoptera order of crickets, roaches, mantids and grasshoppers, the tree cricket is part of the Oecanthinae subfamily. They are nocturnal insects and often hard to spot since they easily camouflage their presence among the leaves of their chosen habitat. I run across them all the time in August and through the fall in my yard. Because I live on a road that quickly dead ends into my home trout stream the insects I find in my yard are generally accessible to the trout down the street. The last several years ...