Bites

May 23 at Yellowwood and deer flies were out. They became a minor irritant when the fish began to bite, too. Another lovely spring afternoon on the lake.

I'll Keep Trying

May 20 and I'm back at Yellowwood. I start down the east side as usual but a couple in a little boat pass me and settle down in my way. I could go around but they would just do it again, so I cross over.

Bluegill are active in the shadows.

And a pumpkinseed. This guy hit hard and my reaction set launched him into the air.

Note to self: it's the time of year to check the cup before drinking.

The shoreline trees have been busy with the flitting of migrating warblers. Today I finally get a shot of one. My point and shoot can't do it justice, but I can see enough to make a sure call: Prothonotary, warbler of swamps and marshland.

I fish down the west side finding the haunts and hideouts of bluegill.

I see a little white mayfly but can't discern a hatch. Last year there were bass lined up along the dam snacking on them. As if to confirm the memory I pull in a little bass.

That's the only bass this time, but there are bluegill here too, working in the dark.

Fireflies spangle the dam with lights. They've been active for several weeks. Tonight I try for a shot but as soon as I click the shutter they all turn off at once. As soon as I put the camera down they come back, thousands of lights rippling up and down the shoreline. I manage to capture a few including a reflection in the water. That seems like a victory of sorts.

It may be that capturing fireflies on a digital memory card is as anticlimactic as sticking a few in a mason jar was when I was a kid. But I bet the survival rate is higher. As with the bluegill and bass, I'll keep trying.

"The Wings of Daylight" by W. S. Merwin

Alexey Terenin

Brightness appears showing us everything
it reveals the splendors it calls everything
but shows it to each of us alone
and only once and only to look at
not to touch or hold in our shadows
what we see is never what we touch
what we take turns out to be something else
what we see that one time departs untouched
while other shadows gather around us
the world’s shadows mingle with our own
we had forgotten them but they know us
they remember us as we always were
they were at home here before the first came
everything will leave us except the shadows
but the shadows carry the whole story
at first daybreak they open their long wings

Yellowwood Days

I'm behind in posting my fishing trips. So here are two back to back.

I have been fortunate to be able to get to Yellowwood on a regular basis, and to observe the changes, big and small, that mark it's daily transformation through the long season. These are two trips from early May, as the trees leafed out, the blossoms bloomed and withered, the lakeside weeds sent shoots above the surface, and pollen falls covered the water with just a portion of the astounding abundance of the stuff of life. Through it all I continued to seek out big bass, but turned finally to the varicolored and reliably feisty bluegill, which on one day seem amazingly gullible yet on the next seem like the pickiest and trickiest of fish.

MAY 9

MAY 14

Goldfinch and House Wrens

Always good to have goldfinches around.

And a pair of House Wrens setting up housekeeping in a woodpecker's hole. You couldn't ask for better neighbors, although they can be a little noisy.

Scale, No. 29

The one that goes both ways. Get it HERE.