A good walk spoiled, manners and monster woods beasts...

I tried out a birthday present from Mary and Miguel today. It's a canoe cart. Mary always thinks about how hard it is for the old man to move stuff around. One time she got me a two wheel dolly. Maybe in the future I'll get some kind of tuba toter. 

 The idea behind the canoe cart is that you strap the canoe to the two wheel frame and pull it down to the water. I knew the perfect place to try this contraption. It was a forest service road blocked by a locked pipe gate. the boat slipped under easy enough and the road was made from a white rock base. Only thing was after walking several hundred yards and having the road begin to turn impassibly muddy and washed out from the recently receded high water it curved away from the lake and headed the other way through the woods. I turned around, headed to the truck and launched at near by Monterey Park which is now open for launching with the water right at the top of the ramp.   

After launching and paddling down the bank for 50 yards and beginning to fish it started to rain. I pulled the canoe into the flooded timber under a sweet gum tree and waited it out. It was not really a good shelter and while I sat there getting a good soaking and thinking all those things you think while sitting in a downpour like bad luck, being unloved and if all this portends some bad thing happening next this guy, who was waiting around the boat ramp pulls behind me. I thought he might tuck into the woods like I did and as turning around in a canoe is a balancing act I did not pay him too much mind till the rain stopped and I paddled back out to resume fishing. I was a little surprised that he had begun his fishing where I had left off and was continuing down the bank in the original direction I headed. 

I thought oh well and headed for a creek channel on the other side of the cove.   

Then this guy comes along. He heads down the opposite side of the creek bank I'm fishing. He's covering quiet a bit more ground than I am with a paddle vs. and electric trolling motor and I know that this is not a long creek so I turn and head for another spot. 

I grew up on the lake and it seems boating manners maybe taking a slide. I would never crowd another fisherman, especially a guy in a canoe or cut in front of his fishing. When we fish the cypress tree sand bar these bass boats often speed by at 50 miles an hour  quite close. I have noticed a decline in boat ramp etiquette also. Instead of being ready to launch when you back down and pulling up in the parking lot to tie down after loading people park on the ramp doing what ever they need until ready and this seems to be ok with all others as it seems like it's an if you have the ramp it's yours's kind of world now.   

Despite a long fruitless walk in the woods in search of a secret launch, crowded conditions and rain I did have a good time. I took this photo of the biggest blackest squirrel I think I have ever seen. You see black squirrels occasionally but this guy was a monster. I kept quiet and observed him from the water praying he would not swim out and turn me over.  

And I did manage to keep the string alive. I think I have caught a fish every time I have had the canoe out for a fishing trip. This is a Kentucky Spotted bass. With no size limits in the state of Texas for these guys this is a legal fish. That spinner bait was in my dad's old tackle box still in the package brand new. My dad passed in 1991. That bait waited a long time for a fish.