More Fishin'

 One of the real joys of this summer is watching Steve's health improve. With his back and knee pain sufficiently controlled enough to go from steadily unbearable to intermittently annoying, he's been more active, increasing his energy, strength, and balance as time passes. He's enjoying life much more, and that includes his first love, fishing. (Just wait: he'll read this and try to reassure me I'm his first love but we all know better. It's OK dear.)

Last week we went to the river 4 times. Paul converted a slab of plywood Steve bought into a platform to hold his steel folding chair firmly on the riverbank without its legs sinking into the mud and tipping. It perfectly fits around his chair, and in the process, the rim which keeps his chair from sliding off the platform also keeps his fishing rod in place when he needs to set it down for a moment. Just before we figured that out, his rod tried to travel into the river and I was called to stop it before it did. There was definitely a good fish on the end of his line, but by the time Steve got back to the rod the fish was gone... along with his hook and nightcrawler. I wasn't allowed to reel it in for him. Steve has the fishing license. I refuse to pay out-of-state license prices when we'll be back for good next summer and I can fish for resident prices. Anyway, I bring my camera.  Steve fishes, I shoot.

This is his latest catch, from Friday evening. We decided to take a last visit before all the holiday boaters came to the launch and scared all the fish with their noisy motors running over prime fishing territory.  A little looking around netted me this "catch". 

 We found evidence of coons pulling clams out of the river. Apparently they don't know that's illegal. It's also pretty apparent they fail to completely clean out the shells, as little snails have to come along afterwards and finish the job.

I'm not sure exactly what kind of critters leave these tracks from down below, whether clams or snails or even some well hidden worms. But as water levels drop along the banks and people/dogs/boats haven't trampled on the sand/mud yet, these show up.

But  when you're there for fishing, the next to the best time is this, reeling in to see what's on the other end of your line this time.