Wow, it’s been quite an eventful few weeks. Unfortunately, none of said eventfulness was due to incredible achievements of a fishing-related nature. For starters, my truck was stolen. Yes, the venerable old Dodge 4×4 which I had owned for what seemed like my entire adult life was taken from me. Jacqulyn and I had used it to haul our bicycles to a popular local trail (which is located in the middle of town, by the way, not in a remote location). When we came back less than an hour later, it was gone. The BMW I had parked behind and the spanking new Dodge Durango I had parked in front of were both still there, so obviously the criminals had good taste. The Huntsville Police Department is hot on their trail, so I expect it to be returned any day now (if you didn’t note the sarcasm, you should have).
Had to travel to Arizona for work after that. Just before leaving I began to feel ill and assumed I was coming down with a cold. On my first day in Phoenix, it became clear I had something worse, probably the flu. By the second day, I was suddenly feeling much better, good enough, in fact, to climb the Cholla Trail up Camelback Mountain. Bad idea. I began to feel light-headed near the top, so I came back down and took it easy. By the next day it was clear that I didn’t have the flu. Instead I had the fire-breathing hell bug. Very common this time of year.
That bug lasted long enough and with such severity as to cause me to cancel the first backpacking trip of the year that was supposed to occur over last weekend. The weather on Friday and Saturday also provided a convenient excuse. The plan is to make that trip up as soon as possible, although some new disaster (admittedly minor in the scheme of things, but annoying nonetheless) is fully expected by all.
Also in the last few weeks, I procured a decent commuter bicycle, which I hope to possibly ride to work if I can ever work up the courage. The roads to my workplace are not the safest for bicyclers; however, there are signs they may four-lane the main road, which would definitely improve my courage quotient. Also got myself one of those small, rugged, waterproof digital cameras. I chose the Panasonic TS3. Certainly doesn’t provide the quality I’m used to, but I can be much harder on it than my fancier camera gear. I nearly killed my main camera last year during a major downpour on a backpacking trip. I came so close to killing it that I’ve been hesitant to take it on long trips ever since. I figured some sort of camera was better than no camera at all. Plus, I can play around with some underwater shots.
The last month hasn’t been completely devoid of fishing. I fished for bass and crappie a couple times. On one of those trips, my father and I located the grand mother load of 8″ crappie. We must have caught 50, of which only 5 stretched the minimum 9″ for keeping, and keep them we did. There’s only one reason to crappie fish in Alabama, and that’s to catch a mess for frying.
Nathan
