-Author Unknown
We tried hard to get an early start on the lake, but what with me giving the dogs an extra-long walk and then fixing and eating breakfast, we didn't succeed. Finally, at around ten o'clock, we left the poor dogs in the RV and headed out to the launch site. Launching was fairly painless--Ed's become pretty good at backing the trailer down a ramp--but I was disappointed at the total lack of bird life to observe while he did all the work.
And so it went for several hours. No birds and even fewer fish. Ed caught a smallish white bass. I caught naught but a slight sunburn.
It's a nice lake, a little smaller than Lavon but with fewer "arms", so the water is all in one big sheet. At one end there are drowned trees sticking up in water; and when we were coming back in and overshot the cove where the ramp is located, I saw a few birds around. Cormorants in the distance and a possible tern that was out of binocular-range so fast that I couldn't guess at the species.
It was cooler than it had been the week before, but at 96 degrees still deathly hot. I sat outside for a while after "fishing" but I wasn't really comfortable until I went in. Yes, it was a stupid idea to go camping when the temperatures were in the upper nineties, but I didn't know the forecast when I planned the trip. I was hoping for low nineties. Here is what I wrote:
It's miserably hot and I have no energy to do more than the minimum of dog walking...so...put it together. No birds. No energy. No scenic view. And after three hours of not fishing, I stink.
Our plan was to take an afternoon break and then go fishing in the evening. But Ed wanted to go in search of a creek where he could get shiners--all the minnows he could catch close to our campground were perch. So off we went on a drive. We ended up pretty much circling the entire lake to end up at the dam, where we drove down a long, long roadway behind the spillway down to the river (creek!) that created the huge lake.
They had a pretty fancy fishing station set up there; two people and a kid were fishing at the top and another guy was bow-and-arrow fishing down in the water. Ed took his traps down to the creek and I wandered around bird watching, or trying to. There was a big old Great Blue Heron up in the grass on the other side of the creek. He just stood there for the whole time we were there, which turned out to be a very long time indeed. A trio of snowy egret sat on the rocks in the river and posed for a gorgeous picture, but of course I didn't have my camera. And from time to time I'd gaze across the creek and see a stick standing up in the tall grass that turned out not to be a stick at all, but the neck of a smallish Great Blue Heron.
If I'd brought the dogs, we'd have gone for a long walk upriver and around, but by myself I wasn't too motivated. Plus I was hot. We stayed so long, with Ed watching minnows and me wandering around and seeing only the same egrets and herons, that I started getting dehydrated. I had been thirsty when we left; I took no water; it was a 35-minute drive out plus another ten minutes getting down to the creek; then over two hours muttering about and waiting. But I discovered the restroom was open and the sink worked---water! Warm but potable. When you're thirsty enough, even warm water is heaven.
When we got back--a shorter drive but still thirty minutes--it was getting dark already and neither of us were really interested in taking out the boat. Dinner was barbecue chicken, expertly prepared on the grill by Ed, plus mashed potato (Ed), sweet potato (me--heavenly! I get tired of them quickly but when I haven't had one in while, I love 'em!), salad (me) and ranch style beans (Ed.) Laugh if you will, but there's not much better eating when you're tired.
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