Slow Fishing but New Recipes...

Not really our first trip to the lake this year if you count the slough fishing when I claimed to be duck hunting or the wet sand spinning mud hogging on the banks of the Sabine but it was the first boat out trip of the year and Cathy caught her first retirement fish.    

Fishing was a bit slow. Though it was nice warm and sunny water temps are 50 degrees. We checked a shallow water spot we caught some last trip of the year in 2021 but mid day with the lake 4 feet low no fishing hanging in the shallow water. 

Plenty of winter bird life to see. Here's a bald eagle keeping watch from a lake side tree. 

I believe this bird is a loon showing what is termed "non-breeding colors." This bird would dive and reappear as much as 50 years away. They are catching fish when they do this and different from other birds they have solid bones that makes them less buoyant. Breeding rage is mostly in Canada so this guy needs to get busy changing colors and covering ground to be in time for the big party.   

Fishing was slow but look who has big fish for the day. 

We watched a controlled burn in the Angelina National Forest that the Lufkin News reported to be 1022 acres. I had a recent discussion with the engineering department of the family. Biomass is carbon already in the environment. Biomass is widely available, reliable and can help reduce waste. It's not like old dirty coal or oil buried in the ground for millions of years dug up and burned. It's renewable in a quick healthy way and when battery technology is able to store the energy you see going up here climate change is solved. 

Great white pelican. Not a diver but with that big bill he's a scooper. There is usually a bunch of these guys around in the winter but as the breeding range is mostly again in Canada it's probably time to bottle up and go. 

Maybe not catching the biggest but caught the most. Final total was 7 cats all caught deep on a slow day. 

All fresh fish catches inspected by experts to insure finest quality.  

We put a package of the biggest fillets back for later grilling and used this recipe to cook catfish cakes, kind of a poor man's crab cake. 

One last bird photo of these cormorants or by it's East Texas name water turkey.  On some Texas lakes there is a school that slips up to these old roost trees and tosses out a slow sinking bait for big catfish lurking underneath to suck up the bird poo. I have tried but no luck with this method.