In my post last Saturday titled House of Sand and Fog, I described how I lost a bunch of images I had shot on our Wednesday afternoon at the coast. Well, I wasn’t the only one dealing with serious disappointment that day. The Big Guy, fishing with a brand new heavy surf rod and coping with pain from a torn rotator […]
The theme for Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge this week is Needs to have the letters O and U in the word. Let’s see how creative you can we can be on this challenge. Have fun with this week’s challenge.
Sonoma Coast, December 2004 I spent most of this Christmas holiday trip playing with my Nikon Coolpix 5700 — exploring the depths of color in stones and shells sprinkled with sea water and experimenting with the varied settings while shooting a gorgeous view of the sunset. I still can’t decide which version I like better.
Sacramento Delta adventures — 1998, 1999, and 2001 The Big Guy grew up fishing with his family, so it was only natural that some of our most enjoyable family vacations in recent years have been spent near (or sometimes on) local California waters. Even though his parents relocated to Texas several years ago, we try to make time at least […]
Fort Ross, March 2003 — After I posted pictures last Monday of our trip to the coast in January 2003, I found more images already on my hard drive that I’d forgotten about, from a visit two months later. We had cool but sunny weather in March — and there was time to see the inside of historic Fort Ross […]
Fort Ross Lodge, January 2003 — The Big Guy likes to visit the California coast during the winter because there are fewer people around and, as a general rule, the ocean tends to be calmer. That means it’s much easier (and more productive) to fish for perch and rockfish from the beach or from a rocky point. In the “old […]
What do you do when you get to your favorite fishing spot and find there’s somebody already there? First of all, stay calm, and don’t give away any of your secrets! Maybe you find you’ve suddenly got spectators to the battle with your big fish. Play it cool, and pretend there’s actually nothing much going on. Before long, your audience […]
One great thing about where we live is the proximity to Lake Natoma and its attached ponds. The Big Guy grew up in the area and has been hiking and fishing around Lake Natoma nearly all his life. His most enthusiastic fishing companion for more than ten years was our Doberman-Rottweiler, Buster. All the Big Guy had to do was pick up his fishing rod and Buster was at the front door, whining, impatient to go. The ponds have been formed partially by the remnants left by large gold dredges that operated on the American River at Mississippi Bar from about 1900 until 1962. Most connect to what is now Lake Natoma, allowing bass and other sunfish shelter in which to build their spawning beds and guard their young. Patience pays off: Sometimes instead of fishing from the shore, we’d use a small aluminum boat. Instead of an outboard motor on the back, the Big Guy would attach an electric trolling motor to the bow of the boat. Since there is a 5-mph speed limit on the entire lake, the trolling motor is a great way to get around. Buster was right at home in the boat, mostly because he’d been spending time there since he was a tiny pup. In his younger days he would play for awhile on the shore and then climb into the rear of the boat, curl up on a blanket and go to sleep. But […]
Salmon season is an annual event in my life, since we live relatively close to the American River, and The Big Guy is basically obsessed with catching and eating salmon rather than buying it at the supermarket. So every year — usually from late August through October — our normal schedule begins to revolve heavily around salmon fishing. I was […]