Goin' Fishin'.....

Not every day is a work day here on the Refuge.  Sometimes the refuge offers us a special tour or trip, like the one we'll be taking in a couple of weeks for a birding tour off Bar Harbor.  Sometimes we just take a day and do something fun.  Yesterday was one of those days...

We went fishing!  Now I'll tell you right off that neither Bill nor I have done much fishing in our lives.  When my kids were little I used to take them fishing at Dow Lake...  they'd catch a bunch of bluegills and their Grandpa would help them clean them when we'd get back.  It must have taken a dozen of those little guys to feed one little kid.  But I just haven't done much fishing since.

Kirk loves fishing the brooks in this area and told us about the brook trout he'd bring home.  Bill & I have a great memory of a trout dinner when we were volunteering in Alaska....  Didn't take too long to decide we all needed a fun day off from work and maybe bring home some fish for dinner.

We loaded up a boat and headed for a nearby lake.

Guess this should have been "the end" shot....  but here's Bill getting the boat into the water.

That canoe you see in front of Bill is for a Loon Survey we'll do on Saturday.

No motor...  just oars and manpower!

Bill caught the first fish and handed it back to Kirk to put on a stringer.

It's kind of curled up here, but actually was big enough for a person's dinner.

It was quite cold and windy....  I swear I saw white caps on the lake.  It was so windy that we had to drop anchor just to keep from blowing around.  Bill caught a second fish...  Kirk and I didn't catch any.  But seeing this moose at the far shore was enough to keep me from being disappointed.

It felt like it was getting colder...  and windier...  so we headed back to the docking area and loaded up.  Kirk knew of a brook that would likely have trout...  off we went.

 Success!

Bill and Kirk both caught several nice trout....  

I took a break and headed back to the refuge as I had to get to the Post Office before 1pm.  By the time I got back to that brook, the guys were about out of worms and ready to head home.

Kirk gave us his fish, and between what all of us caught, we had enough for dinner last night and a few to put in the freezer.

Trout don't have scales so are easy to clean..... except for being really, really slippery!  I lived on a farm long enough that those kinds of things don't bother me.

I fixed fresh trout for dinner last night...  it was wonderful!  I didn't think to take any photos, but....  trust me...  it looked great too!

Here y'all thought we spent every minute here working, didn't you?

That's All For Today!