My Yard

I had the pleasure of working with a man who had season tickets to the San Francisco Giants. I bought a couple of games off him. Here's Ethan and I at "Pac Bell" Park. We beat the Phillies. The Giants were in the playoff mix till nearly the last week of this season. It was a fun game and a fun year to be a Giants fan. Next year we're going to win it all. Go Giants!

Holing Through

Yahoo! A hole through! Cheese.

My boys at the River

The river is a joyous place for me. Ethan and Bru like it to. Instead of street races Ethan decided the river would be better. Here at the confluence of the Yuba and the Downie, it was a little to cold for me to enjoy. I'm too old for a cold river. My boys splashed around for awhile.

Leaving town, we headed downriver to a more temperate swim for old dad. This early summer, I've been attracted to Jackson's Hole at Indian Valley - My first splashing "grounds." There, we broke out Ethan's new mask so that he could look underwater. Neat! Fish!

The warm heated me up to a mild sweat. Dive. The cool plunge was truly refreshing. Ahh.. Yuba!

E tu, Brutus?

Bru

Goading dog to show teeth (it's fun).

Digging Earth

Whether of earth, air, or water, one can have a connection with who they are. For I, it is the earth, as illustrated.

Mostly it is work or son. This is my life. Aesthtics say I should say more..

More Rocks! More Rocks!

Fish On

It was a warm spring day. Time for fishing. We gathered our rods, packed some snacks and drinks and drove up the mountain to the Gold Lake Basin. We stopped at Bassett Station for water and worms. I haven't fished in some 2o years, so the notion of Power Bait and Ugly Stiks are new fangled, but I'll give them a shot. My boy wanted to fish! The man at the counter in Bassett's recomended Sardine Lake. Lower Sardine it is!

I invited a buddy of mine who is an avid fisherman. Why he brought binoculars fishing, I wasn't sure, but I was curious.

We casted our loures and salmon egg bated hooks into the water. We worked our piece of shore line for some time without as much as a nibble. There were boats on the lake, some row boats, electric motor boats, kayaks.. most all of them blissfully floating along without much fish catching action. There was this one boat in the middle pulling brook trout consistenetly. My buddy, Jeff, pulled his binoculars and took a closer look. "Power Bait!" he exclaimed. Okay.. Power Bait.. "They're using power bait with heavy weights." The trout were at the bottom where it was cooler.
First cast.. fish! A few nibbles followed. A man and boy adjacent to us got a fish. Same method. Could it be a fish caching bonanza!? Not exactly. We caught one more. Both by Jeffie, the fisherman. Ethan and I tried, but we soon became bored - the snacks were eaten and we tried a few worms.. No luck. Time for a new lake.

We headed up the road for higher water - Gold Lake. There was still quite a bit of snow on the ground. The melt was intense. There were few fisherman. We searched for a deep spot, since it seemed to be where the fish were. Gold Lake to me looked shallow. We didn't find any deep holes and there were no fish jumping on the lake like Sardine, so we didn't stay long.

Heading down the road towards home, we stopped at Salmon Lake. There was still ice on the lake but no bugs. Fish activity low, but I did catch some good pictures.

We packed the fish in snow in an old tool box for dinner. We weren't prepared for traditional means for fish storage, but it worked.

We foil wrapped the trout in butter and herbs and threw them on the grill. Yum! We were hungry after our long day of adventure on the lakes. Ethan would not taste the trout. More for me.

Tank Room C