Sunday, July 4, 2010

Sassafras River - Fourth of July

I took the girls down to the River for the afternoon on Sunday 7/4 to spend a few hours fishing. The grandparents were there, and Dave and Lori were going down for the afternoon as well.


It was another day of small panfish off the wall with only one catfish. But the catfish was a great one. Grace, fishing in 12 inches of water about 12 inches off the bulkhead, hooked this nice one. This is the fish of the year so far, a 21 inch channel catfish weighing in at just under 3 pounds. I brought this fish in because it would have pulled Grace's little ultralight rod out of her hands. Fighting a fish this size on a tiny rod with 4 lb test line is tremendous fun, and it was touch and go as to whether I was going to be able to land the fish. It fought hard for quite a while, and I was just hoping that I could get it up off the bottom so we could see it before it snapped the line. Fortunately, with Dave helping out with the net, we were able to get it in. You can see the size of the fish versus the size of the pole...

On the road coming into the neighborhood, there is a nesting platform on top of one of the telephone poles. This year, a family of Osprey are calling it home. There are three little ones, although as can be seen here they are not so little any more. At least two adults are also here, bringing fish back to the kids. When one of the adults shows up with a fish in its claws, the little ones go nuts and start making an awful racket of squawking and crying out.
It is nice to have a chance to see these beautiful birds right out the car window.

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