Life On a Lake 

Dedicated to the Joys of Waterside Living

Osprey over the lake yesterday

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Travel? Why should I travel? I am exactly where I want to be.

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This is the season for spiders. They appear in the shower, in the bathroom sink, and everywhere there is a drainpipe for them to enter. To think very much or very hard about the life of the spider is to think about fate. It is best to avoid such thoughts whenever possible.

I like spiders. Well, sort of. I try to practice the philosophy (?) of live and let live. It is more an attitude than a philosophy, especially if you care about words, and I do. If the spiders will leave me alone, I will return the favor. But some of the ones at this time of the year are, well, huge. You could just above cover one of them with one of those silver dollars that gamblers seem to come across in Vegas, and nobody else does.

I speak sadly, because in the past week or so I've killed three of the brutes. One I lived with in the bathroom sink, quite tolerably, quite pleasantly, until a companion appeared one morning. That was too much. I thought we had an agreement? I reached for a piece of paper toweling and, suddenly, they were no more. Or, rather, they were a black smudge, rather like used motor oil, in the center of the toweling. Into the garbage, along with the thought that at least they didn't suffer. No, death for the long-legged pair came suddenly. As death should.

Today, a the sink where I mix my paints and clean up after using pastels, there was the third spider. I tried to practice my Zen attitude toward life for half a day, but the spider crabbed (a fit word) my work, and every time I ran water, he panicked and ran around the edges of the basin, trying to escape.

It was pathetic, his scrambling way. And I tried to avoid hot water, which might  have been horrible for him, a simple spider. Sometimes, even with the cold, he would ball himself up, like a rubberband that had seen its best days, and try to disappear, as it were. But given half a chance, a few moments later, there he was again, huge and seemingly astride the wash basin.

It was then that I knew his time had come. I reached for the papertoweling and did the dirty deed in a nanosecond. Once again I complimented myself on my efficient killing, then returned to my work and tried to forget it.

And nearly did.

AH, FOR THE LONG SEX LIFE OF THE BLUEGILL

Bluegill, in full spawning dress

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The bluegills here at the lake have been spawning since spring, and I had thought they were about done. They dig redds in shallow water along the shoreline, which are visible to all the lake denizens, who in time become very protective of their "personal" fish. But young boys target them on the redds, where the eggs are guarded by fierce males. The female will spawn over and over, each time creating a fresh redd, which is easily visible because it consists of pale small stones. The redds stand out along the algae-covered bottom like sore thumbs.

I've caught them in past years unintentionally. This year, and last, I've avoided fishing anywhere near to where they nest, knowing the male will swim out to grab my fly even if it is not near to him. I treasure this small, feisty fish and wish him well. in spite of its great fecundity, we are not overrun with bluegills, as we are the other zooplankton feeders, the yellow perch.

Last night the spinyrays were hitting, and I was catching one- and two-year old bass regularly. they are not very big, but fight well for their size and are easily (and nearly harmlessly) released from a small flyhook and their big mouth. They fight surprisingly well, and I know at once that it is a bass, and not a perch, I've hooked at first strike.

But this fish was a bluegill, and for a moment I thought it might be its cousin, the pumpkinseed, of which this lake has but a few. How bright was its orange-and-cream belly, and how large. Swollen. She must have still contained eggs.

What, egg masses still at the end of August? Guess so. Once this summer Norma and I observed a pair going at it. The male looked quite different from the female, who had tiger stripes. They seemed not at all aware of us pornographically watching and continued spawning, which is not at all sexual in the conventional, human sense. (Or need I not have said this?)

The bluegill fought well and had enough of a toothless lower lip that I could grip it and thereby still her for the release. I dropped her unceremoniously back in the warm lake and she instantly disappeared into the murky depth.

How lucky I was, for this brief instance, to have come in touch once again with the invisible but vital life of this lake.

And "touch" is the right word.

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Morning visitor to my dock, this great blue heron is in search of small perch and this year's large-mouth bass fry, which are congregated in the warm, shallow water. But he is very shy, and a moment after I snapped this picture from my doorway, he chose to fish at some less populated location; in other words, he flapped off a few docks. Often, though, he fishes from his stilt-like legs in the shallows, out from the cattails, standing as though his legs were cattail stalks, and his sharp beak will dart on his crane-like neck into the thin water and spear a bass that is only two or three inches long.

The bass are making great growth, feeding on zooplankton and insect life. The bass that are deemed one+ years old will weigh up to three-quarters of a pound and fight more than respectably. They will take a nymph fly--usually on its first presentation to them, if it "acts right." And this year's crop of bass will keep banging it, but usually fail to get hooked, in spite of their big mouths.

When you hooks a small bass, it is easy enough to grab the fish by its lower lip and unhook him. He becomes still, as though he knows you are trying to release him as carefully as you can.

Of course such a sentiment is a gross example of the "pathetic fallacy, as it is called in literary circles, when you attribute human qualities to inhuman objects or conditions. Knowing this much, this little, doesn't make the experience any less important or enjoyable.

At the lake we all must share--man, bird, fish, creature. It is not a choice we have to make. It is the environmental condition.

Share or do without.

Thanks for the visit,
Robert C. Arnold, Editor