A NEAT FISH

I've posted shots of this place a few times on the blog and here it is again.  Is this some kind of message to me from the beyond?  I even called my real estate agent this afternoon and asked him if I'd at least break even if I sold this place I have now.  I hate neighbors anywhere close.  He said I'd be alright with a sale.  Something to think about.

 red tail hawk

And here are those darned florescent yellow tags on all the telephone poles I spoke of the other day.  What an eyesore.

Anglers had a fairly successful day fishing on the lake today and there were a lot of smiling faces to prove it.   Douglas Lake offers two really fine eating fish that are much sought after by many fishermen and they are the walleye and the sauger.  I'll just highlight the sauger for this entry and if there is any interest I'll throw a different species on the blog from time to time. 

Sauger are a beautiful fish but one must use care when handling them near their mouths.

Note the teeth

These shots were all taken from my boat to the angler's boat with the 400 mm lens and I wasn't sure how the shots would turn out.  The 400 mm isn't the lens I'd choose for this work.   As I mentioned earlier, the sauger is a fish with very pretty markings all over it.  Note the bands wrapping around its body and the spots on the dorsal fin.  Walleyes are similar except they have a white splotch on their caudel fin (underside rear) and the sauger doesn't.

Sauger are found in our Tennessee reservoirs and do well in turbid water, not to deter from walleye that also do very well but walleye prefer less turbid water.  Sauger can be found in depressions on the bottom and behind raised mud hills in calm water.  They spawn upriver in March for Tennessee and April for most northern states and all seek out textured bottoms for purposes of egg laying.  The many dams offer serious restrictions to the sauger's travels upstream during spawning periods and high death rates are the result.  Sauger feed on fish, usually shiners, shad, minnows and sunfish.

There you have it.  

I'll be back on the tail water tomorrow and am excited to check on the bald eagles at their nest.  We should have a baby or two soon and they probably have already been born.

I just wanted to put a small entry up here tonight to let folks know I'm still alive after the flue or whatever it was that tried to kill me off.  Well, it failed, but I get very tired quickly lately and that's what's happening right this moment.  So, I'll sign off now and hope to see you back here tomorrow.