Life On the Lake 

Dedicated to the Joys of Waterside Living

"Tombstone Dance," by Robert Arnold
16"20" pastel and ink, sold at Museum of Northwest Art Annual fundraising auction, June 2005

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For the past eight years we have participated in the annual MONA auction and helped raise money for this noble institution.  And every year but one, our work (photographs the first two years, paintings or drawings since) has sold. Not all work sells, however. But a lot of art loving patrons, full of expensive gourmet food and wine, bid against each other in a time-limited feeding frenzy. The really good stuff is sold at a silent auction upstairs at the museum; these are the big names. Downstairs, where we get hung, the art is more modestly priced, but much of it gets sold annually to knowledgeable and kind-hearted patrons--the kind with a little extra cash to blow on their home furnishings as a hobby.

So it is satisfying to participate in such a show, and to be briefly among a lot of talented local artists. And this year our painting sold for a nifty $269. Not a lot, admittedly, but not bad, either, and it is nice to know somebody likes our stuff and will part with real, live money to buy it.

Even if the cause is highly charitable and tax-deductible.

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One may sing the praises of that torturous sport, catch-and-release fishing, but there is a down side of it. Our lake has just survived a blue/green algae bloom, along with the abundant yellow/green filamentous algae that has been present, oh, since early spring, and now about all there is to mar its beauty and clarity is duckweed. So far that is not bad, and the good citizens of the lake collectively are planning on having it poisoned out of existence with some not so benign stuff called fluridone. But in the meantime, it lies prettily along the shore in clusters and is not all together ugly.

Pictured above is  a week-dead bluegill which I caught inadvertently while fishing in poor visibility for trout. Sure, he was guarding his redd, but I didn't know it was there, or I would not have fished near or over it at twilight, and he came out and grabbed my fly, like any good male bluegill might, and took the fly deeply. I tried in the failing light to release him carefully, using curved forceps, but I could not, and finally I broke him off accidentally, leaving the fly in his mouth. He swam off, and I prematurely congratulated myself on not having harmed him.

Well, I was wrong. He died, either from the buried hook in his gullet, or from various stress factors, and I discover his small corpse just today, and photographed it, for the sake of all my fellow Sportsmen, who smugly fish catch-and-release.

He has paled and bloated, and duckweed adorns his corpse. Those dark dots near his vent are two feasting flies.

We do harm quite often, and must own up to it. I feel painfully sad at what harm I sometimes do. But, please note, this doesn't keep me from doing it again. Some people are just never learn. I am probably among them.

Last night's early moonrise

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Trout fishing is holding up, though it is slowing between strikes, which are plenty often enough to keep fishers happy. Yesterday's warm Sunday afternoon brought out lots of boats. I remember how fishers always killed and kept their catch; today it is common to release all or most of your trout.

A father (it was Father's Day, after all) was out in a boat with his two young sons. The boys wore life jackets, as the law mandates. One boy hooked a trout on a troll, as I was watching. He reeled it in with great excitement. His father netted it for him. Then the father unhooked the trout and, while his sons watched, gently lowered it back to the lake. I  had the impression it was not the first such trout today.

We have come a long, long way. While in college, I fished Cottage Lake on opening day with two frat brothers. The limit then was unconscionable: twenty trout per rod. We started while it was still dark and by nine A.M. had our limits.

Sixty trout, all of them dead and gutted. What carnage, what a great waste. (You may think I'm bragging, but I'm not.) Few of those trout, or opening day trout like them, ever reach the frying pan, I am sure. Then and now.

How pleasing it is to see how the catch-and-release ethic has spread from generation to generation.

Thanks for the visit,
Robert C. Arnold, Editor