Black Crappie

another type of sunfish

this regular, young fisherman has caught a number of the fish pictured in this blog

Whirligig beetle

Took these pictures almost a year ago. There were many dozens of them stirring the water together.

crayfish

I started to try to identify what type of crayfish I have pictured, but when I realized there are 150 species of crayfish in North America, I gave up rather quickly. Maybe when I get some more detailed pictures, I'll attempt the identification process again.

taking cover among rock and snails

 

Green Sunfish

this one appears to be a cross between a Bluegill and a Green Sunfish. It looked stuck in some shallow, receding water on the lake edge so I stepped in and picked it up with my hands, took some pictures, and put it back in deeper water. 

 

channel cat

also known as a catfish

scent mound

one of our regular fishermen pointed these out to me and explained their purpose.

Beaver create a pile of mud and grass/sticks/leaves and deposit a castor smelling secretion on the pile to mark their territory. The smell is rather distinctive.

Pumpkinseed sunfish

7-8 inch Pumpkinseed

Perch

an approximately 6 inch perch caught in mid-June

Columbine

 

baby oak

...I think. While planting flowers, I found this guy growing among roots of another tree and in shallow ground on top of a large rock. I decided to uproot it and put it in a planter until I figure out to where it should be relocated.

the acorn from which it was born

opening day rescue

run off stream

with the season unofficially at its mid-point, I need to get up some pictures from earlier this year. On our first day open to the public, I had a little adventure in rescuing a large-mouth bass. Because of a whole lot of rain, water ran profusely over the spill-way. Apparently, some fish got carried over in the flow into a small stream that is definitely not conducive to long-term survival for such fish.

spillway

 A couple of our regular fisherman had spotted this bass and tried to fish it out of the stream, but it wouldn't bite. So I put on my boots, grabbed my net, and went walking through the stream until the bass was found trying to hide amongst some sticks. After a couple pictures, I put the roughly 19 inch bass back into the more accommodating lake environment.

                                                                                                

Large-mouth Bass