Hobbit Trees and Other Curiosities

The woods at Yellowwood are taking on a yellow hue. Black-eyed Susans line the road in.

I get to the lake a little earlier than usual and decide to make a full loop. I come up short on a wedding photo shoot. That's a good place to fish, too. I hang back so I don't mess up the photos. There's a pause, so I kick on around. As I pass I call out that I hope I didn't get in any of the shots. The photographer says, "Oh don't worry, I'll just photoshop you out." For a moment I wonder if I exist.

And by the way, I'm pretty sure the groom, an outdoorsy type, is wearing a sheath knife. To his wedding. Seems a little odd. Did they exchange knives in lieu of rings? Or is there some compensation going on?

At the point by the boat docks a bass finally hooks up on the plastic worm.

Things get slow again after that. I have time to admire the beauty around me. A sassafras leaf floats by sending a not-so-subtle message that we're getting late in the season.  

Acorns are thick on the oaks. Deer, squirrels, chipmunks, possums, mice and other rodents, as well as a variety of birds will depend on them to get through the winter ahead.

Hickory nuts are weighing down the shagbark branches, and squirrels are hard at work feasting on them and gathering them in. A steady rain of rind and shell fragments drop into the lake from overleaning trees.

These hickory trees are prone to tent caterpillars. I think of them as Hobbit trees. In Mirkwood the dwarfs were captured by spiders, spun into bundles, and hung on branches until Bilbo could rescue them.

I make it around the loop but the fish are quiet all the way around. There is a pretty good hatch of the big white mayflies going on over by the dam, but few fish are taking advantage of them. I tie on a big light stimulator but am largely ignored.

I begin fishing down the dam but some folks are bank fishing and creating light pollution up by the spillway, so I kick out around them and head for the ramp and home.

Maybe the next time I come more fish will have discovered those big juicy mayflies.