Spur Of The Moment

Steve walked out of the bedroom about 7:30 this morning. He was so pleased with a trip to the river with his fishing buddy last night that he suggested he and I head there later this afternoon, like 2 PM. I had the advantage, however, of waking earlier and catching the weather forecast. They're saying the "feel-like" temperature, aka heat index, will be around 110 then. We'd be sitting in the sun. No thanks.

I countered with, "How about right now?" I'm not sure it took a full 5 seconds for him to agree. Breakfast could wait.Take the dog out and feed her, take our morning pills, get dressed, load the car and scoot! In about 40 minutes we were pulled into Franconia Landing, liberally dosed with OFF!, Steve ready to fish, me ready with my camera. I'm not fishing this year because an out-of-state license is expensive. Next year mine will be reasonable, and Steve won't need one at all, as residents. He got a permanent free handicap fishing license a couple decades ago, and had the foresight to hang on to it in case we moved back.

Franconia Landing is our favorite spot for the St. Croix River. First it's a federally protected waterway along much of the river's length, and with building restricted, wildlife is commonly seen. Second, once spring flood high water levels are over, we drive the car down the ramp, turn onto the sandbar, park, unload, and sit in our favorite folding outdoor steel& canvas chairs. You can at least see the car here, but Steve and chair are there as well.

 

 That is shot looking upstream, on the MN side. from a second sandbar on the other side of the landing road. A quick turn and I can get the Wisconsin side, heading downstream.

I will wander periodically depending on what's there to shoot. Otherwise it's mostly like a private date with Steve with terrific scenery, and occasional wildlife, not counting any possible fish.

Neither of us cares to go on weekends. It's crowded, both the landing and the river itself. Several outfits rent canoes and a shuttle ride back from downstream, lots of people are out fishing, the paddle-wheeler from Taylors Falls passes with tourists aboard, downstream, then up. Being retired we have the other five days, and while a rare boat comes down/up the landing, rare is the operating word.

Fishing was adequate this quiet cloudy morning. Steve caught a decent sized perch. What we believe to be a northern pike made it nearly to shore before biting off Steve's hook, nightcrawler and a bit of line. I can prove the perch:

However for me the best part of the morning was what greeted us when we first got there, and stayed around doing her (?) own fishing for about a half hour before wading leisurely away upstream. 

I needed that half hour. With all the cloud cover, my camera kept insisting it needed the flash. This meant it not only held the shutter open enough to blur the photos a bit but the resulting photos were dark anyway at that distance. My 30x optical zoom is fully extended, and this severely cropped. She is not as close as the photo looks. After over 40 shots I have about 5 I like. I did manage video for a couple minutes, which does a better job of working with whatever light level is there. But since I wasn't willing to disturb another creatures' fishing (OK, I really mean my opportunity to get more shots) by scaring her away just to go get the tripod from the car's hatch, the video is somewhat wobbly. If one can get past that, her activity is fascinating.

Once she left we did hear one crow, and saw three geese and a later hawk in flight. Several fish jumped. No deer appeared this time.  Somebody did fly a helicopter over the river heading downstream for unknown reasons, business or recreation.

Steve has suggested we repeat this tomorrow. I'll have camera batteries charged and tripod nearby. We'll have to check on the crawlers supply.