
Trout Unlimited’s Scott Ritchie fished as his fellow chapter members heckled him at Beckley Furnace on Saturday, April 16.
Photo by Patrick L. Sullivan
NORTH CANAAN — The Blackberry River is well-stocked and fished hard.
It also has Beckley Furnace, which is Connecticut’s only industrial monument and as such has a couple of picnic tables.
On a pleasant day it’s a nice spot to grab a sandwich and relax.
Saturday, April 16, was not a pleasant day. The temperature struggled to get much above 50, and there was a nice bone-chilling breeze. It wanted to rain.
None of that bothered the members of the Northwest Connecticut Trout Unlimited chapter. Chapter President Ken Ludwig provided doughnuts and coffee for the early going, and grinders at lunchtime.
Beckley is always a popular fishing spot, especially in the early part of what used to be the trout season.
The state of Connecticut got rid of a closed season for trout, and the new regulations took effect this year.
Sort of.
Prior to 2022, there were rivers that had year-round fishing (such as the Trout Management Areas on the Housatonic and Farmington rivers).
But the state still required a new license at the start of the calendar year, and for those of us who bought one (plus the so-called trout stamp, which extracts an extra five bucks from the angler and doesn’t include any sort of stamp), we could then fish those year-round areas plus any other open water (not otherwise regulated) until the last Saturday in February.
Then we had to wait for the third Saturday in April for “Opening Day.”
This was changed a couple years back to the second Saturday in April.
It’s worth noting that April 16 would have been “Opening Day” not so long ago.
None of this mattered to the TU members either. They were too busy shivering and telling each other stories about past angling triumphs.
Also on the agenda:
1. Is a $1,000 fly rod worth it?
2. What the heck is this fish this guy has?
3. Is Scott asking for trouble by getting up on that boulder?
As spin-casters circulated in and out of the Beckley Furnace area, most of them hauling off a fish or five, the TU membership stayed out of the water, with the exception of treasurer Scott Ritchie, who suited up and established himself just upstream of the bridge.
For the technically inclined, Ritchie was nymphing with a tight line and extra weight added, with sighter material rather than a strike indicator.
For the less fussy, Ritchie was flipping a little weighted thing into the current, and occasionally catching something.
About one out of 20 times, that something was a fish, not a rock or piece of submerged log.
Most serious anglers prefer solitude for the practice of the craft.
Very few enjoy having a gallery of hecklers watching.
But that’s what Ritchie got from his fellow TU members, who shouted out helpful things like “Don’t slip!” and “Trophy fish!”
At noon or so lunch arrived and the membership continued to talk about gear and adventures with their mouths full of grinder.
The answers to the agenda questions above:
1. No. For $1,000 you can buy expensive waders that will leak just as fast as cheap ones, and a mid-range rod to go with them.
2. That is a rather sickly looking brown trout straight from the hatchery, where it was bullied.
3. Yes. It is always easier to go up than to get down.
Glastonbury High School crew attempted to battle wind and white caps on Lake Waramaug at the Kent Invitational that was ultimately cancelled, May 10.
KENT — The annual Kent Invitational regatta on Lake Waramaug did not start this year due to strong winds of 30 miles per hour on Saturday, May 10.
The gusts caused white caps on the lake's surface and boats were unable to stay in lane or arrange on the starting line.
An initial starting time delay ultimately led to a full cancellation at 2 p.m.
GREAT BARRINGTON — Attarilm Mcclennon woke up on Tuesday morning to see a man standing on the fire escape and talking on the phone outside his apartment building in Barrington House.
When Mcclennon stepped out into the hallway that connects Main Street with the Triplex parking lot, he saw another man lingering there.
Mcclennon, who works at his family’s Momma Lo’s Southern Style BBQ downstairs, said he stepped outside to the unfolding commotion in the parking lot as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested two immigrants who live and work in the building.
But soon Mcclennon realized something — the man on the fire escape and the other one in the building looked a little familiar.
“I realized those two dudes have been walking through this hallway all week,” he said, adding that it was during the daytime.
Mcclennon’s brother, Ahmed Mcclennon, said that he also noticed a similar type of surveillance of the building last summer that he believes may have been ICE or other law enforcement.
Attarilm Mcclennon right, saw the arrests by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Tuesday morning unfold at the Barrington House apartments where he lives and works.HEATHER BELLOW — THE BERKSHIRE EAGLE
The May 6 arrests are the latest to rattle the Berkshires as federal authorities pursue President Trump’s aggressive mission to deport or otherwise remove undocumented immigrants. A March crackdown resulted in the capture of at least 10 people in the Berkshires — and 370 statewide.
While the administration has said it would target undocumented people with criminal records, there have been numerous examples of agents detaining people who have never been charged with a crime.
It is unclear why ICE targeted these men. An ICE spokesperson did not respond to requests for information.
Tuesday’s raid took place on a busy morning in the heart of downtown. It shook bystanders and drew people out from Rubi’s Cafe and The Triplex Cinema.
Videos shared with The Eagle show people videotaping the arrests and asking ICE officers questions about warrants and due process. Others taunted the officers, most of whom were masked and heavily armed. Avery Ripley, who works at Rubi’s captured video, including that of a drone overhead.
As officers walked one of the men they arrested down the fire escape from his apartment, one person was heard saying they “love America,” and thanked the officers for “doing their jobs.”
Mcclennon said that one of the men arrested works at Fiesta Bar and Grill, which is across the hall from Momma Lo’s, and asked the Mcclennons to call his boss.
Great Barrington Police Chief Paul Storti said the department received a phone call from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security around 5:30 a.m. to let them know that they were in the area.
Barrington House owner Richard Stanley said he did not know the tenant personally, and expressed dismay at what he called “gestapo” tactics he says are meant to “intimidate.”
Ben Elliott, a Select Board member who works at The Triplex Cinema, was arriving at work when he saw the commotion. He also videotaped one of the arrests.
Elliott said he had heard that ICE also may have also arrested someone off Bridge Street near Quick Print and the Berkshire Food Co-op around 7:30 a.m.
The ICE arrests involved multiple unmarked vehicles, some heavily armed law enforcement officials and a drone.
Seeing that one of the officers had a battering ram to break the apartment door down, the building’s maintenance director Sean O’Brien got his keys ready. But that turned out not to be necessary, he said.
“None of that came to pass,” O’Brien said. “They knocked on the door and he opened the door and surrendered himself.”
Some bystanders confronted O’Brien, thinking he was helping ICE — which he and witnesses and Barrington House tenants said that was far from the truth.
“They turned on me,” O’Brien said. “It just ruffled my feathers up a little bit because they had the completely wrong idea of what happened."
“A woman was screaming into the window, ‘You called them, you called them,’” O’Brien said of the accusation that he had called ICE.
O’Brien did call local police to keep the peace and stop the trespassing.
Hearing this, Mcclennon’s brother Ahmed Mcclennon, said of O’Brien, “He’s the coolest man in the world. He would be the last person to do that.”
And O’Brien said that ICE officers were “very polite and professional to [the tenant],” and “were not abusive or anything like that.”
He also said that one of the men arrested is, “to the best of my knowledge, a very, very nice guy and a hard worker.”
“I would be very surprised,” O’Brien said, “if he were guilty of some extra crime that brought their attention to him.”
Heather Bellow is a reporter for The Berkshire Eagle.
LAKEVILLE — ARADEV LLC, the developer behind the proposed redesign of Wake Robin Inn, returned before Salisbury’s Planning and Zoning Commission at its May 5 regular meeting with a 644-page plan that it says scales back the project.
ARADEV withdrew its previous application last December after a six-round public hearing in which neighbors along Wells Hill Road and Sharon Road rallied against the proposal as detrimental to the neighborhood.
Landscape Architect Mark Arigoni, representing the applicants, said the new proposal’s page count is due to it being “very comprehensive and complete,” built in response to feedback from P&Z at a January pre-application meeting.
Much of P&Z’s criticism of the initial proposal revolved around its size and intensity, which commissioners said was incongruent with the neighborhood.
Arigoni briefly summarized the major changes of the new application, saying the number of cottages had been decreased from 12 to four, though each will now span about 2,000-square-feet as opposed to the maximum of 1,100 square feet of the earlier proposed array.
An “event barn,” which was one of the more contentious aspects of the initial application, has been relocated to be a part of the expanded main inn building, as opposed to its previous position as a detached structure.
Arigoni highlighted that a noise study — the lack of which was one of P&Z major criticisms of the first proposal — had been conducted in February and March, analyzing the levels of slamming car doors, traffic, waste collection vehicles and other ambient noise components of an active hotel site. He also explained that a new architectural firm had been contracted: “I think you will all see the changes to the plan, in terms of context and character.”
P&Z Chair Michael Klemens stressed that no action would be taken at the May 5 meeting. ARADEV will appear before the Commission again at its May 19 meeting, where P&Z will discuss the application’s completeness and potentially schedule a public hearing, which “will come a lot later,” Klemens said.
The application comes in the midst of ongoing litigation against the Commission relating to ARADEV’s first application. Angela and William Cruger, Wells Hill Road neighbors of the Inn who formally intervened in the 2024 hearing, filed a restraining order against the Commission in February alleging that it engaged in unlawful “spot zoning” that favored the Wake Robin expansion when it altered a regulation in May 2024 to allow for hotels via special permit in the Rural-Residential 1 zone.
Klemens announced that P&Z is opposing the restraining order. If it is approved by the judge, though, the May 2024 regulations would be declared invalid and the Commission would not be able to review applications pertaining to them, which includes ARADEV’s proposal.
FALLS VILLAGE — Housatonic Valley Regional High School girls lacrosse kept rolling Tuesday, May 6, with a decisive 18-6 win over Lakeview High School.
Eight different players scored for Housatonic in the Northwest Corner rivalry matchup. Sophomore Georgie Clayton led the team with five goals.
The Mountaineers' record advanced to 5-1 with a cumulative 41-point goal differential halfway through the season. The lone loss came at Watertown High School on April 10.
Georgie Clayton draws four Lakeview defenders. She scored five goals in the game May 6.Photo by Riley Klein
"We will be playing [Watertown] in the championship on the 28th of May," declared Coach Laura Bushey at the midway point of the 2025 season. Last year, HVRHS lost to St. Paul Catholic High School by one point in the Western Connecticut Lacrosse Conference championship.
The game against Lakeview May 7 went on despite ominous cloud cover at starting time. Rain earlier in the day made for a wet field, but the clouds parted by the second quarter for a sunny afternoon of lacrosse.
HVRHS wasted no time setting the tone. Georgie Clayton repeatedly sliced and diced her way through midfield to create offensive opportunities for the Mountaineers, who took a 7-1 lead in the first quarter.
Tessa Dekker elevates for one of her three goals against Lakeview May 6.Photo by Riley Klein
The lead grew to 11-3 by halftime. Seniors Lola Clayton and Tessa Dekker created a one-two punch on attack with Dekker setting up plays from behind the net as Clayton cut to the crease. The pair combined for five goals in the game.
Once the lead extended to double digits in the second half, the clock ran continuously. Lakeview found scoring chances but HVRHS sophomore goalie Sophia DeDominicis-Fitzpatrck saved more shots (7) than she let by.
The game ended 18-6 in favor of HVRHS.
Lola Clayton bounces a shot past the Lakeview defense.Photo by Riley Klein
The following players scored for the Mountaineers: Georgie Clayton (5), Tessa Dekker (3), Lola Clayton (2), Islay Sheil (2), Katie Crane (2), Annabelle Carden (2), Mollie Ford (1) and Chloe Hill (1).
Lakeview's goals were scored by Layla Jones (2), Isabelle Deforge (2), Juliana Bailey (1) and Caroline Donnelly (1).Goalie Sophia DeDominicis-Fitzpatrick secures the ball.Photo by Riley Klein