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Sunday, Jul. 23, 2006 - 8:39 p.m.

The photos I DIDN�T get�plus- canning season is in full swing�.

Lease and I had a relaxing yet interesting weekend.

How so?

Well�

We decided to spend a good chunk of the day Saturday sitting in cheap folding chairs, trying to land a few keeper channel catfish.

Everything but the �keeper� part happened.

Between the two of us, we landed at least 25 catfish. None were larger than 10� long, meaning they all weighted less than � pounds each (Moose warned me, but we went there anyway. Oh well�.)

The high temperature was only 80�f , so it made for a pleasant way to spend a day. We did catch plenty of fish, so at least we weren�t shut out.

Oh yeah- and we spent part of our time feeding small fish to the tamest Blue Heron on the planet.

Say what?

Here�s the story.

After fishing at this location for about an hour, I looked to my left and noticed the strangest thing-a smallish Blue Heron, standing about 10 feet away from me on the rocks. Not only that (they are so skittish, I have never been able to get closer than 50 feet from one before it flew away), it was staring right at me.

I quietly told Lease to look to her left, fearing it would spook at the first quick movement we made.

It didn�t- it just stood there, looking intently at us.

Strange�

A few minutes later, I accidentally deep hooked a small yellow bullhead catfish. Since it was sure to die (yes, this bothers me, but it happens when you bottom fish), I decided to see if the heron would eat it. I tossed it about halfway between where he was perched and where was sat.

He/she slowly walked towards the dieing fish, stabbed it with his long beak, and headed down the bank from us. It took at least 5 minutes before it had the fish just where it wanted it in its mouth. Once there, it dunked the fish into the water a couple of times, and then slipped it down its long throat. Moments later, it was back 10 feet away from us, staring at us.

If it could talk, it would have been saying something like, �come on- more!�

Lease landed a tiny drum perch moments later. I tossed it in the heron�s direction. With no hesitating, it quickly picked up the drum and swallowed it in one gulp.

This was totally cracking me up. This one heron was so unafraid of humans, it had decided to let them capture its meals for it.

I loaded up my only light rod with a tinsel jig and a wax worm, and quickly caught 7 or 8 small (4� or so) green sunfish, which I passed on to the heron. A couple of times people were slowing to go under the bridge and I called out to them to watch. They were just as surprised as I was that the heron would take the fish that easily.

What an incredible thing to take part in.

The only (really) bad thing about this whole interaction between man and beast?

We didn�t have a camera with us yesterday.

I haven�t brought one to the lake since the day I lost my old Fuji back in May.

I could have had the best up-close photos of a blue heron I could ever had wanted yesterday, and all of my cameras were in the closet at home.

FUCK!

Even though I didn�t catch any keeper catfish yesterday, I am tempted to head back there after work one day this week. One other fisherman came out from the other side of the bridge yesterday and asked us if �that crazy big bird was hanging around, begging for handouts� (his words). I guess he had the same experience on Friday, and had feed it a bunch of gizzard shad he was netting for trotline fishing the night before.

So maybe, just maybe, it will be there when I take my camera the next time.

If not, I missed the best chance I will ever have to take close-up shots of this regal bird�.


Today?

I canned garden surplus for 4 hours.

In the kitchen now are mason jars cooling, filled with the following:

12 half-pints of blackberry/nectarine jam (pretty stuff- looks like peach jam with a few bugs tossed in for flavor)

14 pints of sweet pickles (I am done making cucumber pickles this year. 14 dill, 20 sweet should be plenty)

6 pints of banana peppers (Moose gave them to me Friday- a coworker of his planted way to many, and wanted me to do something with them)

And�.

4 pints of jalapeno peppers.

That�s a bunch of work.

Tomatoes should start kicking in next week, with enough ripe ones to make batch #1 of salsa by late this weekend/early the next week.

I picked the few peaches left on my back tree yesterday. There should be enough for a batch of jam by midweek, when they should be ripened. The tree rats had done a good job of wasting them over the past week. I expected that they would start showing up, but not this quickly.

There are two less of the filthy rodents living here in our neighborhood since Thursday.

I�ll leave it to your imagination to figure out what that last sentence means�.

Antique - Futuristic


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