The Mighty Orc...

 Saturday saw us at the Live Oak Listening Room to celebrate the proprietor Jerry's Double 40 Birthday Party. The BBQ was by Richardson and Crew and the side dishes, brought by everyone else overflowed the tables. The music was by the Mighty Orc and it made for a truly great evening. Thanks to Jerry and Patty for opening their home and venue to our community. 

If you don't know The Mighty Orc you should give him a listen. We saw him open for Fantastic Negrito in Houston and he did play the local brewery blues fest here in town but we missed that because of travel so we were glad to see him again. He's a great electric blues player but our favorite part is his resonator and cigar box guitar playing where he uses ambient sounds and delay to blend songs into places you might not suspect them to go. He's also has a great set of pipes and an excellent band that makes this a really great show. I'll go out on a limb here and say that his version of the much recorded traditional tune "John the Revelator" is my favorite of all time.  

His youtube shows him to be very generous with lessons and tips which I'm going to give a listen. Looking at his tour schedule it looks like if you are within the area of Houston, Tx it would be pretty easy to enjoy a show. 

  

 

Surprised by a Swimmer...

I stood waist deep on a sandbar in a calm morning surf facing West fishing with the wind and current. I was casting dead shrimp under a popping cork and had scored a keeper trout and a few big bull whiting. Scanning back to the East making sure there was no fish activity I spotted a guy about 50 yards away swimming up out of no where from roughly the direction of Cedar Key, Florida. .

He staggered up on the sand bar and I asked, "where did you come from?"

Panting from the swim he said, "flipped my kayak."

I asked, "you ok?"

He said, "all good now."

I said, " how long you been swimming?"

He said, "I'll probably need a good nap."

He continued ashore where there were a couple of buddies parked on the sand near the waterline. I'm not sure he had launched from that spot since I had been out early and not noticed them but the sheriff and police soon appeared and checked the swimmer out. I'd guess the buddies reported him missing

After a bit I'm still fishing and the buddies set out in their kayak mounted up on it in a way that brought to mind riding double horseback. Like the swimmer, who was stretched out in the back of the truck for his much needed nap there was not a life jacket in sight.

The swimmer did apologize if he messed up my fishing but I told him it was ok.

Beach Camping on the Gulf of Mexico...

 I always keep an eye on fishing reports and our recent travels have kept us from good beachfront conditions but we managed to make it to Surfside beach this weekend for clear water, calm winds, cloud cover to keep it a bit cooler and biting fish. 

Here's 7 whiting and one speckled trout that I caught on dead shrimp under a popping cork. Those big ones are about as large as they get. They are like a panfish with no restriction. We ate them and then I caught another little bunch of whiting which we cleaned and froze to bring home for another day.   

All I ever really wanted to do was play tuba and camp on the beach with a girl and that's pretty much where we are at these days. The Brazoria County part of the beach is free camping. There are no hook ups but with our solar and a generator to run the AC at night we get by. There was one day when it was a bit cloudy and we had to turn on the generator earlier in the evening but that's ok. One propane tank runs the AC 12 hours. I'm up fishing long before that but the afore mentioned girl usually sleeps 12 hours. 

Here's the catch of the trip. It's a 25 inch Spanish Mackerel. Spanish macks usually like a flashy lure and because of the teeth you better have a short steel leader. This one hit a dead shrimp under a popping cork. It made several runs stripping line from my reel but I landed it, filleted it and we had it for supper. 

I think last trip the fish wanted all baits fished on the bottom but this trip the popping cork was the ticket as everything was swimming high in the water column and wanted the bait suspended. 

I think that mack makes the 13th species I have caught this year. I hung several ladyfish which is a member of the tarpon family and not good eating but with their twisting and jumping never added them to the catch list.  

Friends from church Peter and Sherry joined us for a day. Sherry grew up on south Padre and Peter is a long time surf fisherman. They are beach people like us and after talking up the beach while we stood around in the church foyer we finally made a day and piled up the whiting and they shared our mack supper. 

Late summer is clear water time. River flows are down and so far tropical activity is non existent for the middle of the Texas peak season so the water was swimming pool clear. Photos don't do it justice. 

We never had much rain but thunderstorms rolled all around us and we saw a double rainbow and clouds were like paintings. 

We have a big trip planned the end of September but hopefully we can make one more beach trip before this. Maybe the pleasant conditions and fishing will hold. 

 

How Things I Saw Work or Some Will Hate This for Reasons I Don't Know...

Alterative energy production has always interested me. Wind power, sun power these things are free last I looked. I'm always looking at improving solar performance on our camper which has a factory set up that meets our current needs and with a trip planned this week I checked the battery levels and this is what the solar does with just the bit of western sun that shines in the garage each evening. I have not used the camper since late June and 13.6 means fully charged and ready to go. 

These solar panels operate the lake camp in Canada where we recently visited certainty kept my phone charged and you can read more about that on this blog. Certainty not an economy set up but it's an island and this is all that is available.   

I heard a piece on public radio  about a new electric truck that Ford has in the works. Of course there will be some extensive retooling for the project and there are many unanswered questions but with prices predicted at $30,000 (see a theme here) I'm interested. Of course this truck probably won't pull a camper or a boat but it would be a handy daily driver to do the chores such as the furniture deliveries I did for St. Vincent de Paul this past Friday or haul all my cooking gear up to the Swim Club Blood Drive yesterday in a more economical manner saving my big truck for the big jobs it was made for.    

 

I made this photo somewhere in the Texas panhandle on a trip a couple of months ago. You have heard the old saying "nothing between here and the north pole but a barbed wire fence" so I would guess that has has something to do with the fact I saw acres and acres of windmills. There is wind. I will admit that I saw what appeared to be out of commission windmills so these things are not forever but neither is my big truck. Things move along. I'm actually old enough to have known people who thought the tractor was the work of the devil. 

With all this evidence that solar power and wind power works and the late stage capitalism of the big auto maker is betting on battery powered cars why are there barriers to these developments?   China (still the bad guys last I heard) has the largest electric vehicle market in the world. 

Flying cars would be ok but electric cars, solar power and wind power, yes. What's stopping us?       

Peterson Brothers at Summer in the City...

Thanks to Visit Lufkin for hosting the Summer in the City series of downtown events in Cotton Square. We managed to make two of the events this summer and this finale by the Peterson Brothers was fitting to a fine schedule and I hope they bring more good music next summer.  

We have seen the Peterson Brothers three times now. First time was At the Conroe Americana Festival in 2017 and again at the Live Oak Listening Room. Word on the street last night was "we got to have them back to the Live Oak." 
 

The Peterson's hail from Austin, Tx and mix up soul, funk and blues into a great mix of rocking, happy music and look like they are having fun doing it. Their mom and dad drive the van and sell merch. 

It was a very nice evening of music downtown and Cotton Square Park is a good venue to enjoy a summer evening letting the grandkids run and play, food trucks and socializing with friends. 

A Canadian Fishing Report...

My home lake, Sam Rayburn Reservoir is great fishing. It's so good that I am often not concerned with fishing anywhere else and I travel with a been there done that kind of attitude in regards to other water bodies. On our recent trip to Canada visiting Lake of the Woods and staying with my daughter and family at their cabin produced some good fishing for a first visit to the area and had us enjoying several tasty fish dinners. 

Seems that the lake is home to 70 species of fish with most anglers chasing muskie, walleye, smallmouth and largemouth bass, northern pike, lake trout and even crappie in spring. I won't get into the ice fishing side of things but I saw many anglers using familiar tactics and lures and once when passing close to a guide boat I saw paddle tail plastics nearly a foot long tied on their rods. I don't know what they were after but we caught smallmouth, Walleye and northern pike. 

Cathy caught this walleye on a Chartreuse curly tail jig with a 1/4 head. I had one walleye break my line at the dock and another that spit the hook back at me. If you heard walleye is tasty you heard right. 

I managed to catch 5 smallmouth and one throw back, all on a yellow curly tail jig. All fish caught from the dock except one caught from a paddle boat. We had a motor boat as well as canoes and kayaks available but fishing was good enough from the dock and paddling is work. Later a couple of guys came by in a bass boat casting the shoreline just like in East Texas and they said they always hit our dock for a few fish. 

That's a northern Pike on the right and I caught him on the yellow curly tail when I cast it behind a family of half grown mallard ducks swimming along the shore. Later I visited a store called Canadian Tire which is kind of like our Tractor Supply but with an extensive fishing section and saw duck lures for $30. I had visions of grandchildren whipping the water to a froth and catching big bass but to buy each a duck lure would have set me back $270 Canadian which really would have been $196 USA but I decided against it. The curly tails worked too well and I got plenty of them. 

Hamish tries his luck from the dock. The kids caught lots of crawfish on hot dogs and in traps and I could see that Cathy wanted to use them for bait but the kids crawfish raced and when I cleaned the smallmouth their bellies were full of crawfish. Probably smuggle in one of my dad's old crawfish pattern Bomber crankbaits next trip. 

 

If you visit Lake of the Woods take a pole. 
   

  

 

          

A Vacation to Canada...

We are back from Lake of the Woods in Ontario Province near the the town of Kenora in Canada. Katie and Peter and many members of his family have lake houses (I was told by a guy I met in town these are called camps) on Thompson Island or nearby. We flew into Chicago and then drove about 14 hours to Kenora where we launched the boat for about a 20 minute ride to the house. Lake of the Woods is the 6th largest lake in North America after the great lakes and while there are many homes you see doting the shore it's a place to enjoy nature, privacy and good fishing.   

Katie and Peter's cabin on the lake. Temperatures ranged from the mid 60s to mid 80s. The Canadians apologized for it being so hot.   

 This photo made of the PK and grandkids on a hike to what they call the bone yard. 

Blow this up and you can see John and Bernice, Peter's parents waving from their cabin as we boat past. They hosted us for two great dinners at their home. John is from New Zealand and Bernice is a native Canadian so have been here for a while and have completed cabins for their four children around the island.  

From the water you can see Peter and Katie's cabin on the right, a glimpse of  brother Rob's in the center above the canoes and paddle boat and brother Ian's on the left. Behind Ian's is sister Claire and husband Kyle's cabin. All homes solar powered with composting toilets and you drink filtered lake water.   

Ya'll tell me again how solar does not work. These panels worked lights and hot water with fridge and stove operating off propane. Air conditioning not required and I don't know how the heaters would do when the lake freezes in December. These panels certainly kept my phone charged. 

The water is cold. I would guess low 70s, maybe a bit colder but I swam and I don't hardly like the cold Texas Hill Country rivers on a 100 degree day. 

It was a good trip and I enjoyed traveling and experiencing the new parts of the world where I had not been with my favorite traveling companion my wife Cathy. I have lots of photos and will post a fishing report later.