Man's (or Woman's) best friend

Today my father and I got a chance to enjoy the great outdoors once again. We set off for Big Lake in Grand Lake Stream. At the last minute I decided to take my Labrador Retriever Scout.

Scout is 5 months old and a beloved family member and future hunting dog. Scout loves children and like her breed, loves the water as well. As we were launching the Rangely Laker into the water Andrew was throwing a stick in the lake for Scout and she faithfully retrieved it each time and dropped it at his feet for more.

Next came the moment of truth. As I expected, Scout got in the boat and sat there like a hunting pro. Alert and attentive for the first 30 minutes she eventually decided to soak up the sun at the bottom of the boat where she spent most of the afternoon sleeping and occassionally waking up to check out the bass and yellow perch we were catching. I was quite happy to confirm my original thoughts that she would be a great dog in the boat. Scout is a great dog anyways!

We continue to work on several different commands. Next I will be purchasing a book to teach her (and myself) the various commands and techniques of hunting with a Champion pooch like our Scout.

Fishing at Big Lake

After a very busy Independence Day weekend it's sort of nice to be back in 'the swing of things' so to speak. The weather hasn't changed; still overcast with a tease of sun now and then. When will the good weather start rolling in? A very popular question right now. On Saturday July 4th my dad and I took the boat out and went fishing in Big Lake. Amazingly, the rain held off the whole day. We stopped in Princeton and bought two dozen night crawlers 'just in case.' Once the boat was loaded with our gear we set out to catch some live bait. Chubs! First spot was a dud. We spend about 20 minutes at our first location casting and not even a nibble. So we pulled up the anchor and motored over to another location near Dinner Island. BINGO! We were catching Chubs left, right and center. Just over a dozen were caught and we decided we had enough to keep us busy so we again pulled up the anchor and motored over to another location not far from Red Beach in Big Lake. First cast and both my dad and I had Bass on! All in all we caught nine Bass, one Cat Fish, numerous amounts of Yellow Perch and one Pickeral! Not too shabby at all!