This was a rough one. And unfortunately I didn’t log this like I usually do, and I’m writing this all based upon memory.
My father and I had pre-planned this trip prior to the Covid-19 outbreak. We had been delaying it for quite some time because we couldn’t cross the border without having a negative test, quarantine and just a whole lot of extra stuff. Someone like me, who was deemed essential…
I just had an ALTERCATION with a snapper turtle while fishing
I don’t know if crazy fishing stories are the kind of thing to post on here but it’s just too good not to tell
So my mom and my sister and me were fishing off of the yellow permanent swim raft just off our dock (it's really good fishing there, just drop your line down and the sunnies will bite so easy) and we saw a snapper turtle swimming around our raft -A big old guy, moss on his shell and everything. And at first he wasn't doing anything, just diving under the raft and swimming around, but then he got closer.
We had our fish strung on a line in the water, And he was swimming around that area, just underneath them, not really biting, just hanging out; and we all thought it was nothing to worry about, that a snapper wouldn’t try to eat our fish. Then all of a sudden we look down and he has his mouth latched onto one of our fish!!
Now keep in mind snappers are infamous for their vise grip bite force. They don't let go once they've chomped down. And what do I do? I grab the other end of that line and I tug that line of 20 fish right out of his mouth! I played tug of war with a snapper and won!
So we pulled the fish up out of the water and let them just sit on the raft. He kept swimming around after that, waiting for us to put the line back in. My mom actually did, just so we could get some pictures and video of him:
(Image id in alt)
The trip back was harrowing, especially for my mom, who was on a paddle board, But luckily we lost neither fish nor limb to the snapper. In the end we came away with quite the haul, more than enough fish for a fish fry.
These little fuckers are round gobies. They are a freshwater goby that's invasive in Michigan, and they're in the nearby lake. They're distinct from the four native species due to their fused pelvic fins (middle pic) and a big black dot at the rear of their front dorsal fin. Though some other gobies have spots on their fins, NO Michigan-native species has a fused pelvic fin. These guys are very aggressive feeders and are very good at outcompeting native gobies.
They're also extremely good at stealing bait off big hooks as people on the docks reel in their lines. In particular, the bastard in the bottom photo stole my bait two days ago, so I caught him and filleted him for Bug.
Today, after acquiring smaller hooks, I went back and got 16 more, and educated several other fishers about their invasive nature. I got two turned over to me by others, and caught 14 more myself.
One man wandered over and asked why I was catching them on purpose. It was too much trouble to explain my feelings about invasive species, so I just told him, one of them stole my bait two days ago. He stopped watching my bobber and boggled at me and goes:
"You're doing this for revenge?"
So now there's some guy in town that thinks I am exacting revenge upon fish kind for a single stolen worm.
It’s so hard being the sort of fan that likes to think about the worldbuilding and nature of the creatures and plants and magic and history and whatever there exists in a piece of media, with pieces of media that do not absolutely have that as the focus at all and whose fans do not focus on these things at all either. I roll down into the tags and have to traverse miles and miles for even a tiny crumb of pondering of the same sort I do! Like what do you mean you guys don’t even think about the phylogenetic tree of the sapient species of the Moomin series. Or that the tumultuous history of Vinyl City from No Straight Roads has never crossed your mind. You’ve never pondered the nature of the Inns or Monsters in Miitopia? Night at the Museum’s magic implications? What do you even do??
Theres something falling from the sky and its falling fast.
So, what does Jon do? He catches it. Only it is not an it that he caught but a she. And she is dripping green all over. And boy does the green sure looks like its blood with all the gashes it was oosing out of.
Jon panics and does the only thing he can think of.
"DAD!"
Superman appears beside him near insantly.
"Jon, what's-"
He stops mid question as he spots the girl in his arms.
this was drawn a little over 2 weeks ago as i was in the middle of act 2! it's kind of funny in retrospect hahaha i put the star shaped light on sif as a nod to my vague theory that sif had a star for a heart/soul but lost it. Well it wasn't quite right but there was one line of dialogue going towards that direction? a win is a win
I started going to Garden Island Lodge on Lady Evelyn Lake in 1999 when I was 10 years old, these are odds and ends stories of my time up there.—In 2008, at Grandpa’s Island aka Eagle Island, Dad did the ultimate hold my beer moment of “Hey look watch this” as he casted in front of a Pike and caught it.
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At Mowats landing, twice Al would be standing talking to people, and all of a sudden a dog…
this chapter has been so absolutely nuts that I actually low-key forgot that I had a couple of new UM posters to do! wild! anyway, I gotta think about Lilia's some more, so here is my beautiful electric crocodile son in the meantime. god I hope this reads properly
(I went with Volt to go with his name, but there's a Bolt version too in the print-size folder!)