Day Two on Lake Eufala

 (Wednesday 16 September 2020)

Fishing on the first day was a bit of a bummer. The minnows were easily procured, although we had a peculiar choice between goldfish, bass or crappie. I thought commercial minnows were always "shiners", whatever that means, and definitely not goldfish which aren't even a native species.

Everything went fine as far as getting ready and  launching the boat. But there weren't any fish!

I caught one small crappie, probably under ten inches. We saw a lot of small fish but not really any big ones.  And we did a lot of searching around for structure, like submerged trees or old tree trunks, but didn't easily find it. The water was very shallow at first but in the old creek bed it went down to 51 feet, but even then it was very warm--eighty or more degrees.

A lot of gulls were finding fish. Or maybe not "a lot" but a handful. I probably saw about twenty in the two or three hours we were out. And a couple of cormorants. Interesting thing about cormorants and gulls--when the boat is motoring past them, cormorants fly away. But the gulls just stay put and let the boat go on by.

Over by the boat ramp there was a Great Egret and a Great Blue Heron that seemed to stick together. Could I be wrong about the egret--could it be a a white morph of the Great Blue? No--the bird book doesn't think so. I think the two just liked to hang out together.

And I saw an odd cormorant swimming low in the water...could have been an Anhinga. But I'm not going to count it..that sort of thing can fool you if the water is choppy.

Eastern Kingbird by water's edge and I heard and saw a couple of warblers, but in fall, no telling what type of warblers they could be. Another time.

After the fishing I enjoyed a late lunch and walked the dogs. Sadly, the weather was hot enough that my walk--at the speed of elderly, arthritic Zack--was very unpleasant. There didn't seem to be a breath of air stirring.  While wandering around the campsites I tried to make note of any that we might like to try again. I found exactly one--plus, of course, the one we were in. Almost all of the campsites shared a water hookup in pairs, and some of them are a trio. The campground is so nearly empty that nobody is camped right next to anyone else, so the shared water hookup was not an issue. But down in the lower-numbered sites I saw what I'd been wondering about--a pair of camper sharing a single faucet with a splitter. So we'll bring a splitter in future just in case this sort of thing happens to us.

I was really confused, because I hadn't noticed anything on the web site about shared water hookups. Most likely they considered that water at the site is water even if it does have to be shared with the site next door. (Later: checked it. The reservations website doesn't mention it. Just says "water hookup.")

After our joint walk I did the dishes and took Molly on a solo, faster walk. A north wind had begun to blow, or should I say a brisk breeze, and it felt much better at first. But up the hill away from the water you could barely feel the breeze and it was miserable.

There were no birds to speak of, but I planned to take a long, morning bird walk on the morrow, taking along just one dog. (Or maybe none!) To see if I could do better.

Birds for the day: 7 Canada geese. Weird warblers. Scissortails. Mourning Doves. Blue jays. Carolina Wren. Bah.