Fishing and Observing

Since the last post Papa Coyote has been fishing twice, but the fish suffered little discomfort from his actions. Saturday Perry, Jim and I caught several smallmouth bass on the Oxbow Reservoir in Hell's Canyon. Wednesday Jim and I traveled north of McCall and walked two miles into Pearl Lake. The wildflowers were blooming profusely. We saw arnica, mint, glacier lily, shooting star, red monkey flower, huckleberry (berries not yet ripe), dwarfted huckleberry (berries not yet ripe), columbine, elepahant head, two different ranunculus, lupine, fireweed, parrot's beak, heath, red Indian paint brush, yellow Indian paint brush and magenta Indian paint brush, elderberry, spirea, bluebell, mountain penstemon, and a few that I have forgotten the name of and will have to look up. We hiked in the day after a hard rain and saw only one species of mushroom and wouldn't you know, I could not find it in my mushroom book. Drats! We only caught three cutthroats at Pearl, but had several other fish on. The fishing was slow. I did have one really large fish on for about four seconds, but could not hold him. The Fish and Game has cut way back on stocking mountain lakes in Idaho. They used to stock most lakes every two or three years with about 600-900 fingerling. Some lakes were stocked every year and some lakes were stocked with more fish than the usual 600-900. Now they are stocking every three or four years and they are only stocking about 250-300 fish per drop. I suppose now that they know that Otto and I are not going fishing several times a year, they can afford to cut way back on the stocking program. The real reason is probably the escalating gas prices and the department is looking for ways to cut back and save money and mountain lake stocking has been one program chosen to be cut back. For those of you who might not know, fish are not native to the mountain lakes of Idaho. All the lakes have to be stocked by air and those lakes in the Wilderness that were not stocked prior to the passage of the Congressional Act that created the Frank Church of No Return Wilderness Area cannot now be stocked. So once in awhile one will come upon a beautiful lake that looks like it will be great fishing, but it will be completely devoid of fish. I took the camera on both of these fishing trips, but forgot to take pictures. Dumb! Dumb!! Dumb!!!

I have included pictures of the some of the denizens that can be found on or near the house. The barn swallows have hatched and are looking out over their world (and mine). Their nest is attached to the northeast corner of the house overlooking the pond. I was able to get some pictures of the fish that mostly hide under the lily pads. Feeding does seem to draw them out and they are becoming a less shy.

In the first picture of the pond, if you will look in the upper left corner, you will see the largest of the black fish that are in the pond. He is just to the left of the gold fish that you can more clearly see. In the third picture you can see several of the small black fish that have mysteriously appeared in the pond. This picture is taken with a flash at night. In the last picture you can see three of the large goldfish and one orange koi in the upper left of the pond. I have only ever put goldfish and koi in the pond, so we don't know what these black fish are all about.

You all have a wonderful day now,

Papa Coyote