A Walk Through the Doll's Head

Emma and I went for a walk through the Doll's Head cover yesterday. The crown of this maple showed me fall was coming.There's always a good crop of hawthorn here and this year is no exception.

Some of the crabapple trees were loaded too.

Emma taking a short break in her questing.

The Doll's Head is now cut in half. Owned by a coal company,

I'm always wondering how many years this cover has left. This new road runs down to the powerline that parallels the cover on the backside. The thin strip of cover across the road is now a deep pit. If there's coal under the Doll's Head it's fate is sealed and it will be a sad day for me.

The resident woodcock were no where to be found. I had two grouse flushes, one I only heard and one that I saw. The sound of the flush on the bird I saw brought Emma in and she flash pointed the scent of the departed bird.

Being a damp place, I always see some mushrooms that need photographed.

So ended our first preseason run. Emma hunted nicely staying within hearing range of my old ears most of the time. Hopefully I'll be able to find her some woodcock before the season starts to get her some much needed bird contacts.

Catchin' Up

I've been out on 3 fishing trips without a blog entry so I guess its time to catch up.
Headed to a stream southeast of home for a morning fish. This was a new to me stretch of stream so I was anxious to explore the nice looking water.

Caught several bass in the 8-10 inch class but nothing bigger.

After a couple of hours I had to think about turning back toward the truck. I came to a long slow stretch of water and I wanted to see what was around the far bend of the stream, so I put on a jointed Rapala that I could fish the water faster with than a plastic worm. I soon had a hard strike with alot of thrashing on the surface. When I reeling it in this is what was on it, two Fallfish on one lure.

Paw Paw thickets lined the bank along this stream. Here are a couple of bruiser Paw Paws.

Spotted a box turtle on the walk back and noticed something wrong.

It's shell was cracked in several places. I was far from the road or any farm fields. Perhaps a bear had tried for a turtle meal and gave up just in time for the turtles sake. Don't know if it would make it or not but that's the way of Mother Nature.

My next trip was to the river for a Saturday late morning fish. The sun was shining brightly and the temps were getting hot, but the fish were pretty cooperative.

The Sunnies were hungry for anything that they could fit in their mouths.

A purple grub proved to be irresistible to several nice bass.

Caught a good number of Rock Bass also. This one fell to a green Carrot, one of the new baits I've been trying out.

The purple grub, also a new bait, fooled this Rocky.

As I waded through some riffles I noticed this Stone Cat that must have just died wedged between two rocks. It's the first time that I've had a close look at one. their an odd little fish.

























Looks like a place where someone spends some time relaxing along the river.

Sunday morning I headed downriver to a point only a mile or so from Lake Raystown. Couldn't catch a thing for the first hour or so until I tried the backside of a small island. That's were they were. Caught several this size.

After being unhooked this one returns to its lair.

The best one of the day, a 14 incher with an oddly misshaped top jaw. It must not have been a handicap because it was a nice solid fish that put up a great fight.

Here's a nice bright red Dragonfly that posed for me.




































My best pic to date of the elusive Great Blue Heron.

The cardinal flower is easy to spot along the riverbank.

A Green Heron that wouldn't let me get any closer.

Have one more day to fish before returning to work but the forecast doesn't look to promising.