Blog 115 Lake Ketchum Art Galler

Where are the birds of winter--or fall, at least--I keep asking the lake? I get no reply.

But then this morning, a small flock of bay ducks appears, far out on the water. I glass them and think they are lesser scaups, but Norma says, No, they aren't. I look again, this time through the spotting scope, and see that they are ring-necks, without a doubt.

Good to have them back. I suspect they feed mainly on small fish, and that is why they often are seen in deep water, and frequently dive, first one, then all the others, in oddly synchronized movements. But as seen in the Google picture above, they can be found feeding on marsh grasses.

Pierce (aptly named) in the comic strip, "Zits," tell us, "I believe that paperclips are the larval stage of wire coat hangers." (Comic strip is better known as Jeremy, probably.)

This year's bass measure 3.25 inches in length already. They hit at my fly at dusk, but rarely are hooked--even though they are "large mouth" bass. They are perfect replicas of the adult, and upon close examination this fact is proved, over and over.

Last night I hooked and released two of them, plus a pretty bluegill. The bluegill was in deep water and not on a redd. She measured only about eight inches in length, but fought valiantly--as would we all, I suppose, if our life was in danger.

No trout on the fly last night, or many nights, but they take readily on bait still, and I hope all winter, as they did last year.

Meanwhile we are enduring a bright green algae bloom. It is sort of pretty, if you care to look at it that way, and I don't. We need some rain and some wind to wash and blow it away.

The first big leaves of autumn have fallen, mostly unnoticed, over the past few weeks. The elephant-eared cottonwoods are among the earliest, along with some yellow alder leaves. But the abundance (see above) are yet to come, and I both look forward to them and dread them, for with them comes the heavy rains and soddenness underfoot.

{Microsoft Word tells me there is no such word as "soddenness," but I beg to differ. You ought to know first-hand, Bill Gates.)

Apples on our two trees are temptingly pink but I know along ways from being ripe. There are tests for ripeness, but it is too early to think of bringing them out and remembering how to apply them. But the apples are pleasing to look at and are gaining enough weight to bow their limbs and perhaps cause them to crack.

Meanwhile the fishing has picked up--well, some days it has. One of the little games I play with myself is to try to catch a limit of trout off my dock while I am cutting the grass with my hand-mower. I figure five trout in one hour is my target, and in spring I often make it, but in autumn I am luck to get one or two. (That hour, by the way, allows for tying on new hooks and getting my bait back in the water.)

Well, on Saturday, I brought off the trick and was happily proud of myself, but sensed a comeuppance would be due. It came on Sunday of this Labor Day weekend. I fished off and on for more than an hour. Yes, I had lots of strikes, but missed them all, one after another. So I played an old trick on the lake; I turned my back on it. And, sure enough, it worked. I caught the fish, an eight-inch yellow perch who came to the dock with hardly a wiggle.

Now it is another day and time exists to try again. More anon, as the old-time writers used to say.

As autumn approaches, more clouds arrive; if they roll in on a sunny day, toward dark they mix with the setting sun and--for just a moment, and easy to miss it--sky and land are in rosy balance. Then it is gone, and a slow dusk arrives and gradually the light of day leaves, and it is night again.

The dominant species in the lake now is the yellow perch. (See above.) They are not large, but even a nine-inch perch is fat and, for those who like to eat them, a tasty morsel, with a few of its brethren alongside. So while I do not target them, they provide a consolation prize when the trout are not hitting, such as at late mid-summer.

The trout fishing dropped off sharply around the Fourth of July. Oh, I still pick up the occasional one while fishing for bluegills and . . . whatever. So, on the third of August, I was delighted with three nice rainbows, averaging about ten inches.

Then, on the tenth of August, yesterday, I caught five, which is a limit and a target for us catch-and-release fishers. True, most of them were logy and only splashed around moderately. But they were feeding trout and looked to be in good condition.

Now, in October, they will start to put on growth again, and should furnish excellent fishing throughout the winter, as they have the past two years, when I discovered (with some help from long-time friend and fish biologist) that they can be caught. Only, most people have given up fishing for them by then.

Why do I love living at the lake? Formerly, eleven years ago, we lived in a city, Seattle. Perhaps the following will in part explain it.

"Your last email describing the current state of your kitchen [repairs] caused me to flash back to an incident that happened in our Seattle house.

Bob had taken the dog and gone fishing for a few days. I took the opportunity to clean the kitchen cabinets. I had removed the cabinet contents and stacked the dishes, pots, boxed food, et al on the dining room table and chairs. Then I scrubbed the cabinets and went to work. They would have all day to dry. I came home from work to find the front door kicked in and the VCR gone. I called the police and soon a policeman was staring at the dining room. I explained that I was cleaning but he still looked askance at the dining room. I remember that I had a lot of trouble finding a flat surface to fill out the report.

As a follow up to this I received a telephone call a couple of months later telling me to go to the police station to pick up my stolen VCR. I did and was given a VCR of the same make but not ours. I said, "This is not our VCR." The policeman said, "It is now." So I walked out with a decidedly heavy machine, trailing attachment cables. A couple of blocks later I thought of leaving it on the curb. I didn't. Now you know how the police department gets rid of recovered property.

Oh, fond memories of living in Seattle and being broken into regularly."

No more needs to be said on the subject, I think, at least for the time being.

We are into the dog days, I fear, but there are some advantages to hot weather and a low lake. Everything is in bloom or bearing. Blueberries, raspberries, strawberries--whatever you have is producing now. And last night we had our first zucchini from the garden. It was huge--about twice the normal size. And tender. And sweet.

The lake temperature is 23 degrees C. a meter down from the surface. That is about 72 degrees F. But the lake is enduring its first big algal bloom, and it is the thick, yellow-green matted stuff that clots together and forms barriers. Besides this there is some small bright green algae that may or may not be toxic; you have to transport it to a special lab under refrigeration to know for sure, and the test is expensive. Besides, by the time it is tested and you've learned the results, the stuff has probably transmogrified and acquired different characteristics. Such as no longer being toxic. So we sit and wait, and bear it out.

Of course swimming is, or should be, curtailed. And fishing is difficult, even if it is only the perch and bluegills that are hitting now. Oh, trollers pick up a trout or two on pop gear that alone puts up such a pull against line and rod that it is hard to tell whether a trout or not is attached.

It's been an excellent year, up to about a month ago, for trout that I can't complain. I'll start again when October comes round. And that won't be too long a wait.