Friday, June 13, 2008

Fishing - the flora and fauna.



The scenery up at Gan is always fun to float through. This particular rocky island is a prime Pike fishing spot. This and other unposted shots can be viewed at my site over at FlickR.



I learned to love watching these Blue Herons fly by and fish while on canoe trips in Arkansas back in the early 1980s. It's always fun to watch them. So majestic. So prehistoric looking. I like to think I'm watching something like a a pterodactyl drift by.



One regular visitor at our little cabin was the local house cat, Remington. I petted him enough, he got to where he'd come when I called. He reminded me of two of my own little hunters. He doesn't really like to be held for long, as you can see in the expression on his face.



He's a cutie. We particularly loved to see him go after chipmunks that were also common visitors to the yard and bushes around the cabin. There's nothing like watching a pure hunter go on point and start stalking.


Some of the scenery around the lake is almost too pretty to believe.


At one point we found ourselves fishing under an Osprey nest.


The daddy (I assume) was actively fishing while the mom stood guard. Who knows, but they sure were cool to watch.


Now and then we found ourselves fishing next to a Loon or two, or three, fishing themselves, darting under the waves and coming up with mouths full of little wigglers. They're fun to watch, and to listen to.


This is a shot of the fish we caught and ate on Friday night. There were two Crappie, two Pike and one little Sunfish, just so a few of us could see what they taste like. They were all cut up, bathed in a mixture of milk and beer, covered in bread crumbs and fried in a mixture of lard and bacon grease. Yummmmmy!


Friday evening, the same evening of the fish fry, we found a turtle tryin' to cross the road outside the cabin. I said Box Turtle, but Scott corrected me, saying Painted Turtle. It was a purdy little critter.


We put him down next to the picnic table and eventually he wandered off.


There were lots of flowers around, the folks who run the place living there and taking great pride in the place, as you'd imagine. Most of my flower shots came out blurry though (damn autofocus), so here's the exception.


On the last evening, as we took the boats out of the water, this little critter swam by and joined us.



A few mornings earlier another snake was found in one of the boats as the guys got into it to start fishing. Friendly little buggers, eh?

Anyway, Hope you enjoyed the pictures. I sure enjoyed takin' them. Next year we'll do it all again. Later.. Cheers.

6 comments:

Suldog said...

What sort of snake was that?

I, too, love to watch a cat stalking prey. Nothing like it. I could watch that operation for hours at a time. The patience, the precision movement, the unbroken concentration - all amazing.

JDP said...

Great photos FHB, my son and I are going on a fishing trip next week to Northeast TX, hopefully we will catch some fish and get some good photos as well.

JDP

FHB said...

Sully - I'm guessing Water Moccasin, but I don't know. Didn't get close enough to ask.

FHB said...

JDP - Cool. Good luck!

fuzzbert_1999@yahoo.com said...

Pewwwt...got a cat hair in my mouth!

Beautiful photography and looks like it all, with the exception of the "no shoulders", was fun!

Haven't told you about the snake I had to kill in my fireplace last week! Kept hearing something peck on glass and I thought it was the patio door, but turned out to be the fireplace screen!

He was about 3 1/2 feet long and I hated to pop'em, but I knew if he got out into the house it would be hell catching him.

I had one bird shot .22, so I loaded it into my Beretta, yes, it fit into an auto clip, put on my safety glasses, and popped him in the face!

Strange thing...I didn't dream about snakes that night.

PRH said...

Outstanding Photos....and of course a good "fish story"