Photos from the field

The summer season has been met with the same severe weather that seemed to be present this winter. If wind was not at hurricane force levels the hail and tornado warnings would arrive instead. There were one or two days of sunshine but I remember setting my 10lb anchor and still drifting at about 5 knots on the tooner. In retrospect, I am very happy for the fish I have caught this far in 2010.

There are always shots that don’t make it into my fishing posts that are not ready for prime time. I submit those to you now in this excerpt of Photos from the Field.

(Above: A cormorant had infiltrated a flock of pelicans. It looks like one of them wasn’t too happy about it.)

Walking the trail one day I see what looks like a large brown leaf with two black dots. Upon closer inspection it turns out to be a polymephus moth emerging from it’s cocoon. My guess is the moth was recovering from emerging and needed some time before it could fly. I moved the moth from the center of the trail by cradling its body with two dried stalks of grass to a nearby clearing

http://www.fcps.edu/islandcreekes/ecology/polyphemus_moth.htm

First and foremost I keep my eyes open for the dangerous things in the great wild such as rattlesnakes, mountain lions and of course rabid left handed squirrels. Keeping my eyes open also helps me spot the amazingly interesting things in the great wild as well. Take this fungus flower for example (see below). Never have I spotted fungus in this area let alone a fungus flower. After exhausting a whole 5 minutes trying to figure out what type of fungus this is I decided to move on with my life and re-line pole #3.

(Above: This is a fungus flower with a 12-inch radius. It is rare that I see these in this area at all let alone one of this size.)

All “hail” broke loose…

Dodging blizzards was bad enough but now the snow has solidified and an be downright painful. The eastern part of the state has seen tennis ball sized hail. That would knock an angler down if even if him\her were fishing with a hard hat. The Front Range is getting hailstorms in marble size.

is one day that I was glad not to be on the water.)

A few of these hailstorms have had some serious volume and literally leaving drifts of ice. Ripping through trees and windows there was a bit of cleanup after a storm like this.

(Above: This was a storm where we battened down the hatches and prayed they would hold. Nature can be fearfully awesome at times. Note to self: Get thicker hatches.)

In closing I want to once again thank the two or three avid readers of my blog. Hopefully you find this material interesting, entertaining and creative. The backlog of articles, items and photos is continuing to be a problem and I find myself having to trim down a few pieces to get them in as well as abandoning some projects altogether for 2010. I will do my best to date fishing reports that fall outside of a week or two when posting on my blogilicious.

Good luck and good fishing.