Saturday morning we ate a breakfast of brook trout, (caught by Grampa & the boys the previous evening!) scrambled eggs, baked beans, and blueberry muffins (picked by Dad & the boys!). Scrumptious!!
We gathered our things and headed for Shagg Pond in Woodstock, about 1/2 an hour away. We drove through some gorgeous farm country on the way! Shagg Pond is a small pond, which doesn't have very good fishing. We didn't catch a thing, but I got some awesome photos of a mother loon and her chick!! I couldn't believe it!! I also couldn't believe that I was trying to take them with my second-rate camera because I don't dare bring my Sony out in the canoe. Oh well.
That afternoon we decided to explore another pond - North Pond in Norway. It looked really small from the boat launch, but we soon discovered that the more you paddled, the more pond there is! It sort of meanders around and in and out of all sorts of little ponds. A wildlife haven! We saw a whole bunch of mallards, a pair of cormorants, a kingfisher and other songbirds, and an eagle's nest.
After paddling and fishing for a while, everyone was getting tired and bored, so we ended back towards the boat launch. Our youngest started fishing with his new frog lure, which he had been asking me for weeks to take him to Wal-mart to buy because his grampa had told him to get one - we finally bought it Friday night! He was casting it out and then reeling it in at lightning speed, so I told him he should slow down. He did, and the next time he cast it out, we saw a fish strike at it! He cast again, and by golly, that fish actually grabbed hold!! He immediately started struggling against the weight of it, so Dad started to take the rod. I told him to let go because it was so important for the little guy to do this himself. He was really working hard and that fish was fighting for his life!! He wound the line around the weeds and did his best, but if there's one thing I know about my younger son, he is determination personified!! He got that fish out of the water and we couldn't believe our eyes - it was a 16 1/2 inch bass!! Holy moly!!!! He was ECSTATIC!! We got to shore first and he couldn't wait to tell Grammie & Grampa when they returned to the boat launch.
On Monday, despite the boys' urging that we go fishing again, we hiked up to the Pinnacle. (You may remember it from this post on October 17, 2007 and this post October 21, 2007.) The weather was perfect for hiking, although it was too hazy to see the mountains in the distance. Oh well. The 3 dogs, Daisy, Duke and Haley had a blast - especially playing in the big mud pit that Daisy found! Our oldest was developing blisters on his heels where his hiking boots were slipping...so he took them off! Cringe-worthy for most of us, but he runs around barefoot so much that his soles are tough! He waded right into the mud with Daisy - YUCK!!
After our hike we were starving, so we drove into town to enjoy the lunch buffet at the Great Wall Restaurant in Norway - the best Chinese food at a great price...
0 comments:
Post a Comment