Saturday at the dam - Part II or Why do I fish?

People ask me how I can fish 160-180 days a year.  I am on 121 days so far.  Sometimes I don't get any fish for hours or days. I don't fish just to fish...I enjoy the outdoors and nature.   Being fishing means that I am outdoors and not thinking about the stock market or my bills.  I am just fishing and relaxing.  I love to wade in the river and feel the power of the current telling me that I better watch what I'm doing.  The repetitive casting is relaxing and my mind wanders...what little of it that is left..!

The picture is the view upstream of where I was fishing.  That dam is home to between 16,000 to 20,000 bats who hibernate inside the spillway of the dam. One brown bat can eat 3,000 mosquitoes in a single night.  I put up a bat house in my back yard just in case a few want to roost there.  I have a neat newspaper clipping on the bats at Manistee Dam that I'll show you when you visit.

I noticed a very good fisherman as I waded along.  I tried to get a picture of this intent fisherman. 

This is a Blue Heron.  Sorry, it was a close as I could get.

I was sorry that I forgot to bring a few Walmart bags to pick up trash.  I usually remember.  Salmon season is bad for the river.  I try to take out trash several times a week.  That is my river, I live here and fish here so I can take care of the beautiful river. I do not say anything to the fisherman, I just pick things up.  My random act of kindness.  My daughter taught me to do random acts of kindness every day....or at least when I think of it.  

I talked to 2 fishermen on the river before I left.  They wanted to get a little 'beta' on what was happening.  i gladly shared some of my observations from the last few days.  As I climbed Cardiac Hill, I paused to look back down at the river.  There were several more fishermen.

As I reached the parking lot, I noticed it was full of cars, at least 15.  The guy next to me had his teenage son and said he wanted him to get one on.  He asked what I was using and I gave him a bottle of fresh egg sacs that I tied up this morning.  Hopefully the boy will have a great day with his dad on the river, trying for a 'big one'.

As I pulled into my drive I noticed a squirrel on my bird feeder.  You know, that squirrel-proof feeder I bought.  Well, that is a story for another day.