Spring Crawdads

Whether you prefer the eastern crayfish, western crawdad, or the more southern crawfish  or mudbugs– you know summer is just around the corner when these little brown miniature lobsters are sharing toe space in the streams!

The boys spent the greater part of the fall with a morning routine of checking their traps to find two or three in the pot.  The last one that they found was a female crawdad with over 77 crawdad eggs tucked up underneath her tail in February.  CLICK HERE for Crayfish Egg Pictures

Since then the trap has come up empty.  We were told it was due to hibernation. This past Saturday we had company and the kids got the idea to reset the crawfish trap – our favorite crawfish bait is an open can of sardines.  The boys throw the trap off the dock into the freshwater of Devils Lake.  There are two streams that feed into the water near us, both to the north and to the south – which seems to be a habitat that the crawdads enjoy.

Today, just before our snake study, Nate came running up the dock screaming that crawdads had returned!  This was a huge one, with three inch claws and over 7 inches of body claw to tail. 

Wonder how many they will trap this year?

   
The claws and tail were very full of thick tasty meat.  Yum. :)

Lazy Days of Summer?

It almost feels like the lazy days of summer here at the lake – the temperatures are rising, the wind is calm and it hasn’t rained in quite some time!  We have really gotten used to this laid back vacation like living! A little school work in the morning,  a whole lot of reading and rest in the afternoon.  Lots of fun yard work to pitter around playing with – always a welcome visitor to the yard each morning. Today was the mamma duck, her three boyfriends and the kiddos. :)

Reading a great Terri Blackstock book – I found out it is called an “up all night” novel. Oh Ya.  Very Suspensful- Its called Intervention. Brought our few books for Jon to read with me, and a cookie to lure him out. . . . . Bad Kitty is Really funny.  It has an alphabet theme to the various things Bad Kitty does.  Really fun to read. I lay down on a twin sized temperpedic mattress and bake in the sun, while

Being thankful I do not have toddlers any more. . . . . . Oh Ya.

Fish! FINALLY! On Devils Lake, Oregon

We finally have a YES answer to the countless requests of - “Have you caught any fish at Devil’s Lake?”  We live on a very shallow part of the lake – the drop off is out 3-400 feet from our house.  Darren works 10-9pm every day – so evening fishing is sort of out with him.  So – I can’t with full heart say we’ve tried fishing for 6 months – we’ve played at it.  I like to take photos in the boat more than fish in the boat. I like to sit and read out in the water, not bait hooks. . . .

We have caught fish from the docks at Regatta Park.  There are quite a few fishermen on the dock – and out in the water just out front.

Thursday evening Hubby got a HUGE bite on his pole, bent it down, went under the boat and snapped his line. Well – that turned a Sorta-Fisher into a FisherMan.

Last night we went out and trolled back and forth where we have seen the fishing boats out in our part of the lake and landed 3 trophy size trout, about every other pass of the lake. Nathan caught two clams – that ate his worm . . . .  He got one big trout on, but reeled in to fast and lost the fish right at the boat. :)

So – YES!!!! We have caught Fish! Yeah!

Our house is the one next to the blue boat house.
We fished from 6-7:30pm.

 
We took a syringe and injected the smelly gunk into the earthworms. This is the “trophy” worm. He was HUGE!

My view of the boys. :)

 
Clam and fish. :) Yeah!

New Visitors! Blue Heron and Mallard Ducklings!

Oh the joy!

We have seen the Blue Heron return, he flies back and forth, seeming to have a sense of when my camera is in the other room.  He finally decided to stick around in the middle today – and landed in our sandbox!  I went to get another cup of coffee and there he was!

I followed him through the railing -

 

And when I opened the door he few off.  I kept this pic because the Sibley book talks about the highlight on the wing, and you can see it there on the top wing.

 

Then – We heard a dog bark, which is rare, and the vacation rental’s dog was barking at Baby Mallard Ducklings! I have been waiting for these for weeks.  Mama just sort of disappeared but the males still swim around, not too far, back and forth. The barking poodle got the ducklings to hide in the lilly pads – so they were safe on the other side of the inlet, but it made the photography session hard.  Here is at 40x zoom – a couple from the neighbor’s yard, I’ll wait til he puts up a no trespassing sign, until then, maybe muffins on Saturday morning in payment of a good photo

          

Pretty Mamma. :)

Oh and the Swallows. They Taunt Me. So close. Yet too far. . .  .

 

A couple of fun shots of the Heron on the bout house.

The slightest breeze takes away the mirror effect of the water. I am patient tough. I’m looking to get a clear, close, flight photo, with  mirror underneath.

And one last mama pic with her hidden babies.  Look all around the leaves for babies, there are 12 of them in there. :) Clever mama.

I think we’ll keep the dog in for a couple of more weeks. We’re only letting her out front to potty, and walking her at the beach, no lake swimming for the past few weeks of baby duckling hatching time. :) She’s getting pretty spoiled, and restless all at the same time. :)