Life On the Lake 

Dedicated to the Joys of Waterside Living

M. Jackson in earlier, less troubled, days.

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What is the difference between "not guilty" and "innocent"?

Ah, that is the question. Michael is being treated by the world's press as though he had committed the crimes he was accused of. What cynicism! What if he didn't? Then he is not merely not guilty but innocent. And the difference is . . . enormous. The difference is ALL.

I never have been a fan of  his. And he has given the word "weird" new meaning. As of late, he has looked decidedly unhealthy. The trial has taken its toll, evidently. It is now time for him to get on with what we might call His Life. I'd like to see him put on a little weight and get out into the sun. No, not into the sun, I guess. I'd like him to resume his normal of life of unbelievable weirdness.

It is tempting to say something sarcastic, but I find for once I am lacking in that popular department. Instead, I'd like to wish him good health.

The riot in motion bloom

405

This is indeed a wonderful time of the year--cool, but with warm afternoons. The lake is being plied by fishers throughout the day for rainbow trout averaging eleven inches, and most are catching and releasing them, which is why the good fishing is lasting so long. Bait or troll, it doesn't much matter. Selfishly I wish the other fishers would go away, but they won't, not so long as the fishing holds good. And I think the trout are not fighting quite so well as earlier. This is because the water is so warm. I will take its temperature today, but suspect it is near 70 degrees.

Last night, as the Mariners were winning strongly for a change, I accomplished the Hat Trick. This is a perch, a large-mouth bass, and a rainbow, all on a #14 Black Hare's Ear nymph and within a minute of two of each other, just as full dark presses down on the lake and the bats and nightjars are a-flying.

A beautiful time of day and strangely quiet, as the last of the boats has been loaded onto trailers and into the back of pickup trucks, and driven away.

A mother mallard stood on my dock and tolerated me with cocked eye, as her brood of eight skittered through the cattail shallows, quite independent of her and highly interrelated.  Each is about the size of my clenched fist, yellow-buff, unable to fly, but can scoot almost as quickly as if it could. Then, the brood safely past the hazard of me, the hen hops off the dock and joins them, and I am able to leave the dock where I have been left standing, waiting, and enter the bright house, where the Mariners are hitting the ball oddly like crazy, and announce proudly to my wife, "Hey, I accomplished the Hat Trick again."

Not mentioning I had failed to take a fly-caught fish for the previous two nights of hard twilight casting.

This is a taxidermist's idea of what spawning bluegills look like; it is remarkably lifelike, but my bluegills are still alive, and the female has pronounced barred stripes

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The bluegills are on their third redd of this spring and today they delighted us with their carnal activity. My wife, my male Lab, and I watched them, unashamedly, and I said to her, "Does this give you any ideas?" And she said, "Non!" but in English, which I take means the same thing as in French. (No Go, Joe!)

But the nest is clean of silt and the small stones are as if polished. and the two fish are most industrious. I think the spawning normally lasts but two or three days; then the female disappears and the male guards the nest ferociously. I am careful now not to cast flies very near the shoreline, for in my inattentive past I have and caught him easily. They are totally regardless of us and of being watched. They are . . . busy!

Carefully released, I am sure my fish from past years recovered and the male returned to his nest and his guard-duty job. I really admire him, and her, and their biological industry. And soon we will have--living under our dock--baby bluegills by the scads.

As the spring advances.

Of course the rosebed doesn't really look like this, not even in a windstorm, but still, if you close your eyes and shake your head. . . .

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These days start out with soft rain and thick clouds, but by mid-day brighten and prosper through the long afternoon. Generally they don't get warmer than 65 degrees, with the sun breaking through a sky wispy with remnant cloud.

The rhododendrons are gone, except for a few stragglers whose blooms are drifting to the ground; the white ones look like a dropped handkerchief. Poppies  burst forth everywhere like taillights, and the weeds reappear daily. No need to sprinkle these days; the morning rain will give us all the moisture we require.

The lake edges are littered with duckweed, but it poses no big problem yet. The thick algae in suspension has dispersed, gone, but there are pockets of the yellow/green filamentous stuff clinging to the shoreline pockets. And lots of pondweed and rushes there.

Trout continue to hit like there is no tomorrow, and the perch are becoming a big nuisance; I regularly get two year-classes of perch on my flies at twilight:  last year's are about five inches long, an the previous year's a couple or three inches longer. They fight poorly, but the trout . . .  .

Ah, the trout. They average eleven inches and are feisty as can be. The jumped repeatedly, often a couple of feet into the air, and sometimes they tail walk like steelhead.

I reward them by gently letting them go.

Thanks for the visit,
Robert C. Arnold, Editor