THE MARINER, or, THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA, or, STILL WATERS RUN DEEP, or, DAS BOOT, or…

Okay, enough post title fun. A much younger friend has been pushing me to go fishing and gold panning with her, those being pretty much the only two forms of recreation out here. The river is running hard and fast right now because it’s fed by snow melt from the High Sierras and it’s still melting away in spite of a hot July.

So gold panning isn’t safe in the river and the water is too murky and fast for fishing, which leaves fishing in the lake. The fish hide in the deep shadows once the sun comes up, and you have to get there early. That, and this lake is not heavily populated with fish, which makes catching anything a challenge. But it’s something to do that’s fun and inexpensive.

Yesterday morning we found a quiet spot at one end of the lake where some big bass were feeding on minnows, didn’t catch anything, but at least it’s a promising spot and if we could be out on the lake instead of casting from the shore, we might have better luck. So after I came home I logged on to Amazon and ordered an inflatable boat and a couple life jackets.

They should be here by this coming Wednesday, and by next weekend we will be out fishing on the lake instead of casting from the shore.

I had a small outboard motor boat and trailer but got rid of it because the lake became so low during years of continuous drought that there was no safe place to launch the boat. A new dam was recently built at one end of the lake and now the lake is at record high levels, great for boating, only this time around I have a rowboat that I don’t have to pay all the yearly registration and license fees for. I could have filled my freezer with fish filets for all the money I gave the Taxman because of that boat.