Wednesday, December 7, 2011

My First Flounder and workamping Lamar!

Wow, time gets away from you. First I have all the time in the world to relax, then I dive in and am having trouble keeping my head above water! Yes, this is my life!

Sunday we headed out fishing on the big pier at Goose Island State Park, again! We love it out there! Saturday night was spectacular - sea snakes and speckled trout and a red drum and a little gar and jelly fish... The White Pelicans and the night herons... Sunday morning found dead fish along the shoreline. Lots of them, and more floating in. Hm - not good. Nobody fishing either, oh well, lets see what happens.

Everyone knows I'm not a traditionalist in anything I do. So, As John is setting up the tried and true method of fishing off the dock, I'm hunting through the tackle box for a floating jig head (I found an elongated orange one) and find some cool froggy looking jelly type baits. I put the two together and John just shakes his head. "You won't catch anything on that." So I cast it out and begin reeling it in and BOOM, I got a huge hit and ..... ah, my line's broke!!! I look at John with a big grin and he just shakes his head. Remember the little dare devil spoon with the piece of corn on it I tried for Ice Fishing :) So I put on a steel leader and another orange floating jig head and the froggy legs and continue casting and not too many casts, boom (not quite as big as the first time) I got one!!! and here it is!


My first flounder!

It was 13". Fourteen is legal, so she took a little dive off the pier back to the wet, but it was so cool! My photographer is improving - no blurry pink photo this time! :) It was windy when we went out, but it continued to increase, and we finally decided to call it enough before we got blown down the pier!  So many beautiful jelly fish.

Back at camp/home we stopped into the office after getting some groceries and talked with Mitch - the manager. He went over park rules and what would be expected, etc... and it all sounded just fine, so we started work on Monday morning.

Sunday afternoon, after talking with Mitch, we headed back out to the dock. Our new friends Leonard and Terese were out there, so we had a great gab session. They had us over for dinner our first night in town, and oh that was wonderful. It's so neat when you click with someone. We have more friends to do things with now than we ever did back home - couples that we can do things with. This is not to say we didn't have friends - I cherish them all, but we only had one couple that we got together with, and I miss them, but I'm so grateful to have other people of like mind now. Anyway - we invited them over for fresh ground flour pancakes on Tuesday morning (which was also wonderful!). We found out the Red Tide out on the Island was awful, and people were having problems breathing - the air was thick and they had to cover their noses and mouths when walking outside. An estimated 3 million fish died this time. About 4pm while we were talking, Leonard pointed up and we all turned around and looked. On the leading edge of the cold front was a huge flock of something- swirling and undulating. They turned out to be sandhill cranes - hundreds of them - way up there! It was incredible to see. The cold front was actually a blessing, for it knocked out the red tide, and my cough is also gone. I didn't think I'd ever be happy about cold weather, but to see all the dead fish. I'm grateful for this cold snap. It was greatly needed.

Monday I started learning the office procedures here, and took on the task of organizing the kitchen in the apartment. (I'll finish that today). I also put together an activities calendar and will do our first exercise class today - Chi Gong. It's very low impact and feels wonderful! We'll have movie night on Friday, and Social Hour every night at 4. Indoor games in the evenings and outdoor games on Sat. Dulcimer and guitar lessons, craft time. Like I said, we're getting busy! John was out and did the weed eatting and he'll be doing mowing on a Zero Turn radius mower one of these days soon.

Now to get ready for my class and have breakfast!

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