My big catch...

On Friday night we decided to go for a picnic, swim and fishing in the boat after work with B & P. We also had a co-worker from out of town up for a few days, so it was the perfect opportunity to show him around town a bit. It had been a stuffy day at work all day, and we all felt like a swim would be the perfect way to cool off. After waiting out a power outage so that we could get gas for the boat (don't get me started on the almost daily power outages we've been having!), we headed out to Water Creek, which is the local swimming spot. There, the water is apparently good for swimming, however, the beach is only a few feet long. There are plenty of other more substantial beaches in the area, so I'm not sure what the draw is with this particular one.

When we arrived, we made a fire, so that we had something to warm up with after our swim, and so that we could make dinner. Deon was the first one in (of course), jumping in from the shore. He didn't make much noise, and said the water was a bit cool. I got undressed down to my bathing suit and decided to go in my typical way- slowly. As I put my legs into the water, I could feel that the water was cold, I'd say no more than 50 degrees. I'm sure that Deon must have refrained from commenting on the temperature to ensure that we all came in and discovered that it was FREEZING on our own. This fact, combined with the literal thousands of mosquitoes chasing me made for a very very short swim. I quickly dunked in to my shoulders and then ran out of the water, screaming. With sandy feet (yuck!), I got back into my jeans, sweatshirt, jacket and bug jacket. I then proceeded to work on the fire, while Deon and B swam around in the water. P went in a bit, but enjoyed it just about as much as I did I think.





When the boys got out of the water, we used B's new hamburger grill from Ebay to make burgers. All the while, the bugs continued to get worse and our patience was wearing thin. Also, between the five of us we had used up almost a whole can of "bug dope" (as they call it up here)... so it was time to go.



We decided to head over to The Hangar to do some fishing instead, and the wind was perfect in that area to keep the bugs away. It must have been perfect fishing conditions (after days of bad fishing this week), because between the four of us who were fishing, we caught 11 fish to keep within about 1/2 an hour. We also threw quite a few small ones back. I caught the biggest one of the night, weighing in at over 13 lbs. My new fishing rod and reel arrived earlier this week, and this was the first time I've caught some fish with it, it works great, and doesn't get "bird nests" with the fishing line. It also isn't broken, which is a big plus compared to the old one.



On the way back to town after fishing we were all in agreement that a night out was just what we needed, and we were all nice and tired for bed.