Many thanks, Dr. Douglas

Jeff Douglas and I hit the illustrious "River X" yesterday for a couple of hours after lunch. I subscribe to the notion that you get to know someone pretty well when you fish with them. I'm pretty sure Jeff is one of the most decent people anywhere.

He called me up when he found out I was in town, loaned me a rod and took me out to try a new spot. The photo above is from his blog, linked in the column on the right.

We spent most our time fishing a seam between clear creek water entering the turbid river water. The fish weren't exactly on fire but they weren't made of asbestos either. Slooooow tube jigs at a creek mouth caught 1 spotted and 3 smallmouth bass between 12 and 14 inches. Jeff had on another nice smallmouth that threw the hook at the bank.

The weather was good, the company was good and it was super nice to be back on an Illinois stream for a bit. It was an enjoyable afternoon and the very essence of what fishing should be.

Many thanks, Dr. Douglas!

Bluegill, Barbie and the daughter

Back in Illinois for a bit now.

The daughter actually ASKED to go fishing. Grocery trout are in season, but I didn't have the heart to buy a stamp.

Bluegill. That's what a 5 year old needs.

Tackle. Hmm. Most of it is in Belize. Buy new? Ok. We're only dunking worms so it'll be cheap. Buy a few hooks and get a new reel for one of the old rods laying around the house. Easy.

We hit Dick's Sporting Goods.

Whoops. Twenty bucks for a decent spinning reel. How to avoid that?

What's she doing? Oh no! She sees the pink Barbie fishing pole! Quick! Distract her! See the nice jerk baits? This one is infused with a synthetic fish-attracting compound. Aren't they interesting?

Too late. She wants the Barbie pole.

Testosterone falling. Humiliation looms.

But then...

...why fight it. Buy her the stupid Barbie fishing combo. It costs half what an actual reel costs. Sure, it's crappy and tacky and it'll break down in a day but she'll be happy that she got what she wanted. What else matters.

Fine. Off to Lake of the Woods with the 2 foot neon pink Barbie pole, some hooks, a bobber, environmetnally friendly non-lead b-b split shots, and a tub of worms.

Arrive at the park. There's that same spot my son caught his first bluegill. Let's take her there.

Hmm. The Barbie pole can actually cast. Have they improved the quality of these children's toy rod combos? Devious fiends. Probably think they can trick me into buying a 2nd one. Fat chance. I'm only buying ONE of these monstrosities in my lifetime. Well. Maybe two. The son had a Snoopy pole, but that really doesn't count. It wasn't pink.

There's the first bluegill. It's a female. Appropriate. We let it go.

Now she wants to cast the rod.

Oh boy.

Protect your ears from flying hooks.

Hey. She can actually cast!

No one's bleeding and there's the 2nd bluegill. And the 3rd.

Now the conservation officer arrives. We could be dumping nuclear waste and this guy wouldn't give us a ticket. The daughter is too freaking cute. He smiles and coos and turns into jelly and then oozes off to hassle the inter-racial lesbian couple bottom fishing down the bank. I can hear stern lectures about the numbers of poles anglers are actually allowed to use.

Are those women actually lesbians? Hmm. Gaydar isn't sure. Maybe the Barbie pole is throwing me off.

There's bluegill number 4.

Now she sees the bell tower in the distance. One more fish and then we'll go climb it. The last fish is a bass. It's very small, but she knows it's a bass. Wow. I'm impressed.

The Barbie pole did actually last the whole trip. It even survived a whole hour of casting practice off the front porch.

Casting practice? The son never bothered with casting practice.

Hmmm.

Maybe I need to reconsider the Barbie line of sporting goods.

Dawn Patrol

I was up this morning at o'dark thirty to accompany Shane Pech, head ranger and Fisheries Officer for the Southern Environmental Alliance on the first patrol of Placencia Lagoon.

The sun rose as we headed north into the lagoon, peeking out just enough to aid search for our intended targets...gill nets. As you may have read in earlier posts, gill nets have done serious damage to fisheries in the lagoon. Having an enforcement officer come and patrol our lagoon to remove them is a huge step forward for conservation here.

Half-way up the lagoon, we found our quarry staked out beside a large luxury resort. The net had already had its' buoys cut (people hate gill nets and tend to vandalize them). We had to drag the monofilament monster out of the muck to haul it into the boat. Soon both of us were black from the waist down.



A quick tour of the rest of the lagoon produced no more nets. We did find that some leaking oil barrels discovered last week had been cleaned up by the Department of Environment. Well done, DOE!



SEA will be patroling the lagoon regularly to dampen illegal gill netting. Shane was pretty pleased to have made at least one "catch".

The ride was nice enough and the wildlife was terrific. We saw one osprey (fish in tow), multiple brown pelicans, a young dolphin and one manatee on the morning.

Not a bad way to start the day.