During Thanksgiving break, I went to one of our favorite fishing spots in Buffalo New York. The fishing spot is on a stream called Eighteen mile creek, which runs through a town called Hamburg. This phenology site is similar to my usual one in Burlington because they both are part of watersheds that run into massive lakes. My site in Burlington is part of the Winooski watershed which runs into Lake Champlain, while this site is part of the Erie watershed which runs into Lake Erie. Therefore both sites have an effect on the amount of runoff and phosphorus that runs into lakes. The main difference between the two visited sites is that Eighteen mile creek is all natural where as the retention pond in Burlington is man-made and controls the water flowing into the lake. After doing some research I found some history behind Eighteen mile creek. The land around Eighteen mile creek was originally inhabited by the Seneca nation of the indegnous Iroquois people. The Seneca Nation’s name for the creek is Koughquagu. In 1812 settlers started taking over the land, but were afraid of the abundance of gray wolves and panthers. A five dollar bounty was made for each wolf and panther hide. This lead to both species being over hunted and their populations put into danger. Eighteen mile creek is surrounded by several types of oaks, maples and ashes. I’ve seen many species of wildlife around the creek including a few bald eagles. Brown trout and Steelhead use the stream for spawning between early October through May. I have been fishing on Eighteen mile creek since I was real young so I’d say my sense of place there is much better than my sense of place at the Burlington phenology site. Instead of being surrounded by a busy college campus, the fishing spot is a ten minute hike through the woods. This gives great nature aesthetics and I love closing my eyes and listening to the sound of the stream and birds chirp. During this visit my friend was lucky enough to catch a steelhead using an egg sac fly. My brother had a brown trout on the line, but it broke off. I didn’t get much action, but it was still nice getting a line wet.
Town. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.townofhamburgny.com/history/.
