Jul 3 - an even dozen

Crappie, that is. Yes, starting with the end of the day, I have another feed of crappie in the fridge. It makes for a late night though, fishing until dark (after 9pm), boating back from Smiths Bay landing, cleaning a dozen fish, cleaning up.

Is there such thing as an "uneven dozen ?" -- ponder that.

Backing up, we had Coho salmon for dinner since it was already in the fridge and older than the previous day's crappie. Sweet potatoes and asparagus completed the picture. Actually an Italian red wine completed the picture, but you had to know that given the number of cases of wine that I seem to be buying !

Backing up some more, I made a couple of trips to the minnow traps, setting one out in the pond that Bob Simms found and another on the other side of 522 by the culvert carrying the water down from said pond and under 522. When I came back to both of these mid-afternoon, they were full of minnows -- I'm now stocked for the next few days. The minnow traps are in the car.

Backing up some more, I mowed the lawn. After that I was exhausted and soaked with sweat -- I used the heavy lawn mower and it's just too heavy to push up the hills. Even though it is self propelled, that does nothing on the hills and it weighs a ton.

Back to the fishing -- when we arrived (Abby came too) at the fishing spot I saw that one of those little green spots on the Doppler was headed our way. The wind picked up and a wall of water came towards us. I was prepared with my raincoat but it pelted down so hard that Abby was trying to take refuge under my coat too. Unfortunately it's a coat made for one person, not one person and a dog, so the best that I could offer her was a life preserver draped across her to fend off some of the water. With the wind at my back she was at least able to stand in my lee. She looked pretty forlorn.

The crappie started biting as soon as we arrived -- I guess that they like the rain -- and were biting on and off all night. I didn't lose as many as the previous night. I credit that to a change of hook to which I credit a catfish. Yes, I caught another catfish, same size as the one the previous night. The hook was buried in its mouth and I used the pliers that I'd brought this time to get the hook out ... wow ... the hook broke. I also caught a good-sized rock bass that provided much more fight than the crappie, but the catfish was tops on that score. Of course with only 6 feet of line out it's simply a matter of hoisting the fish up and into the boat. I don't even bother using the reel. As Gavin commented the night before, I could simply be fishing with a stick and a line.

Due to the wet and the cold -- the cold being due to the wet -- I headed home 1/2 hour earlier than the night before so I'll never know if there was anything else biting at dusk. At that point I didn't even know how many crappie were on the line, but knew that it was a bunch and I'd have a lot of cleaning to do. The crappie that I'm catching at this time of year are small too -- some hardly worth the effort, providing little more than a forkful of fillet. It reminds me of some of the small perch fillets that Carol and Allister brought up from the vendor close to their camp -- tasty and tiny.

So that was my day. Sandy went into town to meet with the therapist there (yes, Loring has a small "health club" and a therapist. Without an appointment, however, all she could do is pick up a business card and she'll call to make an appointment.

Today and tomorrow promise to be sunny. I'll go riding one of the two days. Today I also have Mass at 4:30.

Jason et al left sometime around noon yesterday, heading back to Brantford. Bonnie's company is gone so she of course had a lot of cleaning to do since the crummy weather kept them inside most of the time. Oh -- her doctors are still dithering around vis-a-vis her knee. The latest opinion is that perhaps nothing more needs to be done ?? -- however, that opinion came with a cortisone shot and she's feeling great ! It's the first time that she's been pain-free in like forever. We'll see ... perhaps Sandy needs the same thing ?

Back to the lawn mowing -- yesterday's edition was with the heavy mower that my Mom favored. I think that it's probably the best thing for the back forty up by the barn, with its large wheels, but the Honda is probably better for the hilly stuff around the cottage front and side. My mom's mower has an oversized rear wheel which makes it easy to lever up and down, with drive wheels on the front. Going up hill, however, you tend to put weight on the back, making the Honda's rear wheel drive easier to use. There's also the lightweight non-self propelled mower in the shed -- it's truly lightweight. Perhaps I'll try that next time before I jump to any conclusions. The only trouble with that one is that it's 2-cycle and has a very small leak at the gas line. Any residual gas in the tank leaks slowly and evaporates in a few day period between mowings. It doesn't really leak, it sweats, if you know what I mean.

The last couple of nights I've been putting the bird feeders in the shed and of course the garbage in the garage. Wouldn't a bear love fish heads ... and that's what he/she got yesterday when Sandy took the garbage to the dump. Apparently there were several baby bears milling around including one at the top of the slope, with the big bear at the bottom. When Sandy threw the garbage bag down the big bear hogged it for itself, naturally smelling the fish heads. What a taste treat !

That's it. I'm all out of crappie, rain, fish head and mowing stories for one day.