Dam Fishing

 

We met our friends to spend the afternoon fishing and just hanging out by the river.   Our hope was to catch lots of fish.  Technically we did catch lots of fish, we just should have put a qualifier on there that we want to catch lots of "big" fish.  The size of the fish though did not detract from the amount of fun we had.

 

 

Lunch in the sand.

 

 

For the rest of us, we pulled up a rock to perch on.  When the lunch bags were opened, we discovered that we had all packed pb&j.  Does that make pb&j the official sandwich of fishermen?

 

 

The boys didn't do a whole lot of fishing but, they did do a whole lot of exploring.

 

 

 

The skies grew dark and our friends had to leave at 3:00 p.m.  In an odd coincidence, the first lightening cracked at the same time and the rain started to fall.

Longest Day Challenge

 

Dad, Dancer and Spark got up to see the sun rise.  There are a few things I think just a father should do with his children and watch the sun rise while mom sleeps is one of them.

 

 

After eating breakfast at McDonalds they went fishing.  They caught seven nice big fish but, didn't bring the bucket with, so they all went back in the lake.

 

 

They got back home around 9:00 a.m. and Spark went right out to the camper to take three hour nap.  Nikki, while she looks like she was up to see the sun rise, is just lazing on the couch in her normal dog fashion.

 

 

Excited by all the fish they caught in the morning we went back that night to try and recatch them.  A dog fish that Dancer excitedly reeled in.  It is all dirty because it fell in the drive and then it took a little chasing to get a good hold on it.  Dog fish are not really a food, I suppose if you were really hungry you could eat it.

 

 

The bait station.  Spark isn't all that interest in the actual act of fishing, he likes to come with and bait hooks and take off the fish.  Dancer is our true fisherman, she always catches way more than the rest of us.  I think she has so much success because they can sense that she doesn't eat them.  On the other hand, the family is lucky they don't have to rely my fishing skills for nourishment.  I have a license solely so I can legally hold the pole. 

 

We left the PWA just in time.  As we were driving out, the sky opened up and the rain started to fall like it was being poured out of a bucket.  No sunset for the longest day challenge.When we got to our house the rain hadn't started yet and we were able to get inside and close all the windows before it started. 

 

 

We had enough fish for a snack so we cleaned them, fried them up and enjoyed them right away.  11:00 p.m. is not too late for eating fish. 

 

 

Mr. Fluffles was seriously hoping this had his name on it.

 

Dancer caught this bullhead and we decided to keep him and see how he tasted too.  I remember my aunt Loretta use to go out at night and fish for these ugly buggers, they were her favorite fish.  We cleaned it up and I have to say, in the future we will be saving them, she was pretty tasty.

 

The longest day then turned into the shortest night.  Once it started raining it didn't stop.  We went to bed because it looked like a normal rain storm.  At 2:45 though we were awaken by the electricity going on and off, on and off and everything beeping when it would come back on.  It did this for about three times and then we lost power.  I got up to find flashlights and see what was happening.  What was happening was that our basement was getting wet.  We have a low spot outside the door and it comes up over the door jam.  So with the wet vac right by us, but no power to turn it on, we started to scoop and mop water.  Thankfully right about then the rain stopped and we only had a couple of buckets come in.  Outside it sounded like a tornado was coming through, that freight train sound, and the trees were whipping back and forth. Thought we should try to find a local radio station and it sounded nothing was mentioned for our area.  We sat up about another hour and watched.  By about 4:30 I prayed for safety and went back to bed.  I don't know how long it lasted but in the morning we had a tree down and about a bazillion branches.  We have a couple more nights of storms forecasted so we are going to wait with the clean up until after all this bad weather leaves us.  We are very fortunate, a lot of people in the area still don't have power back since Friday morning and it could take as long as Monday or Tuesday in some places.  Ours was back on by the time we go up.  There was also a couple houses that burned from lightening strikes.  And another positive note - the garden got watered!

One Fish, Two Fish, No Fish

Our town is having its festival today and Spark entered the fishing contest.

 

 

The kids had 35 minutes to catch as many fish as they could and they proclaimed the winner by the person with the most weight of fish.  There were a lot of one and two ounce fish and the biggest one we heard was six ounces.  Spark didn't catch anything which made him quite disappointed.

 

 

I waded out in the water to take a picture of Spark on the shore, where the water was crazy cold, we haven't had really had any warm weather to speak of.  When I downloaded the picture I saw that the rest of the family was plenty busy on the shore as well.  Here it looks like Dad is playing the air bugle.  It is early in the morning so he is probably belting out reveille.

 

And Dancer, "put your right foot in and you shake it all around, do the hokey pokey."  That is what its all about!

 

Stalking the Redhorse Sucker

Dancer wants to do one of her 4H projects this year about a fish called the redhorse sucker.  This is a fish that is native to Minnesota.  It is fun to catch but not eaten very often because it has many small bones in it's flesh.  We saw a lot of redhorse being stunned while watching an electrofishing demonstration this summer.  This fish is very fiesty in the water and fun to catch.  It can be challenging, especially when the water is strewn with boulders.

 

We went fishing beneath a dam on the Mississippi river.  The dam is little ways north of us.  It is a fun place to fish and this year the water is really low which makes river fishing easier.  All the rocks in the background of the picture below are normally underwater.  The rocks are big and jagged and hard to balance on.

The redhorse has large scales on it's silver sides.  The side looks like a carp with the large scales.  It is easy to see the red part of it's name.  The sun was already shadowed by the bluffs on the river bank.  In the sun the fins are an even more brilliant red.

The redhorse sucker is a bottom feeder, note the fleshy (not toothy) mouth.  It's mouth points downward for vacuuming food off the bottom of the river.  The fish is being held up with an ice fishing gaff, it's violent thrashing would break the fishing line.  The best bait for catching this fish is a big fat nightcrawler.  Fish near the bottom in a slower moving area or pool in the river.  Dad spent a long time fishing in a likely part of the river while jealously watching the rest of the family reel in fish after fish in a different area.  The point of our trip there was specifically to catch a redhorse for Dancer to take pictures of so we had success!

On The Banks Of The River

 

Dancer

 

 

and Dad fished

 

 

and caught a lot of nice ones.  No fish for dinner, they had no bucket with and the river is the color of coffee so who knows what those fish are harboring.

 

 

The water level is very, very low. 

 

 

A stick full of the invasive zebra mussels. 

 

 

The rest of us looked for cross rocks, which we did on the shore because with the water so low they were all on the dry ground.  We were there with our farmish kind of friends and enjoyed PB&J sandwiches around a camp fire the boys wanted to start even though the temps were in the 90's.  The little blur in the right hand corner is smoke from the fire. 

 

 

A rainbow in the dam. 

The Perfect Way to Spend A Sunday Afternoon

Sitting at the lake with a fishing pole in hand.

A fish is a fish no matter how small.

For some of us this is about all that got on our lines.

Canoeing with farmish kind of friends.

Longest Day Challenge

Every year Dad and Spark do the "Longest Day Challenge."  They get up before sunrise and then, as usual, are up at sunset so they can say they see the whole day.  Normally they would have done this on the longest day of the year but, Dad worked so they chose Sunday.  It took two days to get the pictures to load so that is why it didn't make the blog until Tuesday.  This year Dancer joined them because they were going fishing, and she doesn't want to miss out on a chance to fish. 

Sun rise 4:51 a.m.

They were up too early for the bait shop so they went to breakfast first. 

They had a couple fish tales but didn't bring any fish home. 

There was no time for a nap when they got home because we had to leave for our summer 4-H party.  Three hours of go-karts......

water slides......

friends and......

bumper boats.

On the way home we saw a sign for bunnies and stopped to get a couple.  Our girl rabbit will not accept a male.  She has two to choose from and I guess she doesn't like either one.  We tried singing Lionel Richie songs, several opportunities with both boys, and even resorted to holding her for them but she is an ice cube.  So we got these two cuties who came with pedigrees.  We have never had an animal with papers before so we are feeling pretty hotsie totsie now.

Dancer named hers Miranda. 

Spark chose Willow.

Willow must have felt she got dirty on the car ride home and needed a bath.

Sandal surfing.

Supper on the fire pit. This is what we do when I don't feel very creative with diner, or just plain don't feel like cooking.  We make these parcels by double wrapping (prevents most burning) in aluminum foil veggies and fruit.  I just butter the foil and add a couple pats more butter and then either throw in some salt and pepper or cinnamon and sugar.  We have done everything from pears to broccoli and they all turn out fantastic.  Brats on the skewer and dinner is done with almost no clean up.   

Sunset was at almost 10:00 p.m.

We finished out the day by stopping for ice cream on the way home. 

It's Too Nice Not To Blow Off School

When you live where it is possible to have snow on the ground eight months out of the year, you take advantage of nice days October.  This month has been unseasonably warm here in the great white north, we have hit over 80 degrees a couple of times in the last few days.  Our norm for this time of year would be about 60 degrees for a day time high.  On the weather they said today broke a record from back in 1890 something.  If these temps only come around every 130 years I feel it is our duty to enjoy them.

We spent the late afternoon taking the canoe out, hopefully not for the last time.

Dad helped them get all their fishing gear and themselves into the canoe.  For some reason this step always invokes quibbling between them.

Off they paddle.

It seems every single time they have to go through the rushes, the turn must be too sharp from the dock to the lake.

They made it right through and were on their way.  They have gotten quite proficient at paddling and steering the canoe.  We taught them the old fashion way, put them both in the canoe and shove them off to figure it out for themselves.  Through trial and error they learned.

After Spark and Dancer came in, Dad went out with Dancer to try fishing in a little cove across the lake.  I fished off the dock but only got one fish that was nothing to brag about.  As it was getting duskier the mosquitoes started to dine on us.  Spark and I decided to call it quits when we needed two hands to swat at them all and drove to a side road where we could see the cove, we couldn't see it from the dock, to make sure Dad and Dancer were still afloat.  They were so we headed home to start chores and dinner.

We realized that Dad had the house keys in his pocket out on the lake so we did the chores and then waited on the porch for them to get home.  It was a happy sight to see them drive in.