A New Camera and a Fishing Report...

I went through a couple of those Canon point and shoot cameras and while I like them they don't stand up well to canoeing, duck hunting, catfishing and tuba playing for extended periods of time. It's usually the little accordion screen lens protector that goes and while that does not keep the camera from operation but without the lens gets scratched and photo quality suffers and we can't have that. For a while I have been using an old Kodak that seems indestructible but it's like stone age tech as far as digital stuff goes and makes the greatest tubing behind the boat photos ever but it has other shortcomings and Cathy has felt sorry enough for me to purchase a late Father's Day present, a Nikon D31000. It's used, bought from the Unclaimed Baggage website  and some might probably consider it old tech but it's the nicest camera I've owned. It lacks the zoom I'm used to but things far away are getting less and less important to me and on our fishing trip yesterday we took the first fish photos with it.    

Cathy with the first fish photo. She's seeing if the new Frida Kahlo bucket hat can catch fish. Lots of digital info on the photo file. I can tell by the upload speed compared to a cell phone pic but then some of ya'll might have a better phone camera than me.  

Grandson Warren has been staying with us all week. I know some of ya'll want AI but yesterday Warren learned where the long boat cut is and how to recognize it, how to ease the boat up to the dock and how to come around and stop for a swimmer in the water without running over them with the boat. If you don't need these skills pass on by. 

One of our favorite spots late summer through the winter is a stump that is on the edge of what I suspect is an old oxbow lake off the river channel that we named the dog walker because when we discovered it there was a dog leash tied to it. It was a poor producer last summer and on trying it this trip we found that it had been broken off (upper part is still held on short stump by the trotline string that is tied to every stump in the lake) but still had enough stump above the water for a tie off. The fish have returned and we had a good bite. 

I marked a GPS way point incase this stump breaks further and as long as my depth finder lasts longer than a Canon camera it is saved so I can remember it as WP025 so I can anchor and fish this spot. Big fishing secret revel: always tie to those stumps barely sticking out of the water. Human nature says everyone else is going to tie to the tallest stump. It's easy.  

Final count was 16 cats in less than an hour. Back of the boat where the transducer is said 39 ft with fish 4 reel turns up.  No great size but we could have had all we wanted. Cathy does not skin catfish anymore because of a shoulder replacement and arthritis and I told them I felt like I'd clean 20 today. They got pretty close.

Blue heron photo with head bent attending to his grooming as I learn to work the new camera.