Outdoor Adventures with Gary Lee - Vol. 285

We got a little rain but not much more than wet the leaves. It looks like some more rain or snow may be coming later this week. The firefighters in Southern New York could surely use some rain to stop the spread of the fires there. The fire by Glenwood Lake in Orange County is now over 5,000 acres and some evacuations have been made by residents. Many Helicopter water drops have been done as well as backfiring to try and stop the spread, but winds and dry conditions have kept the fire moving. 

My sister Patti has sent pictures of the Snow Geese that have moved into the area of Point au Roche State Park. She lives just south of there, and they land to eat in the corn fields opposite her home. Ellie George has also been in that area photographing thousands of them. She also found three Tundra Swans seen from Ausable Point Road and later from Route 9 just north of there. It does not look like I will be getting over there to photograph them this year, got to keep the home fires burning. 

I did get up to the Adirondack Center for Writers Howl Contest at the Brewery in Tupper Lake last week and tell my tale of close calls. On the way up I had to herd a deer across the bridge in Long Lake with my car, luckily that was the only deer I saw going and coming home from there. The Brewery Parking area was full with many cars parking on the street. The Brewery was nearly full also as many students from Plattsburgh College had come to tell their tales and three of them won the top three stories told. I got in the door just at seven and I was the last one to sign up to tell a story. I’ll put it in here as it was certainly a close call in my life. Howl Close Call-   

Born with a gun in one hand and fishing pole in the other, a trap on one toe and a bird band on another, I had lots of close calls in my 81 years. Growing up in West Milton near Ballston Spa I had the Glowegee Creek a half mile to the south and the Kayaderosseras Creek a half mile to the north of my house. My mom took me and my little steel pole down the Glowegee when I was five and I caught my first brown trout, and I was hooked. As a family we camped at many of the State Campsites in the Adirondacks, and they were usually on a body of water and in the water are fish of some kind, I found out. In 1953 my family rented a camp for a week on the eastern shore of Lake George with a big boathouse and lots of fish right off the docks, sunfish, rock bass and perch, not very big but catching is catching. The second morning there a cork World War two vintage raft appeared on our beach and that was just what I needed to get out in deeper water to fish for bigger fish. I found some old planks that fit just right across the 6x4 raft and a steel milk crate that I could use as a seat, and I was a float with a paddle in hand. My mom was watching from the shore with my year-old sister in hand. No life jacket or a float cushion that I remember. The water was as smooth as a baby’s bottom, and I got to about ten feet of water where the big ones loomed. I was catching fish every time I put my worm in the water and showed them to my mom. About that time the tour boat the Ticonderoga came up the lake and not far away. Not even thinking about the wake it put out, this four-foot wave hit my little raft and about tipped it over. What happened was that my plank floor, which was hooked to nothing, parted and I lost my pole, and worm can, and I went down through the middle of the raft still sitting on my milk crate into the water well over my head. I heard my mom, who could not swim, yelling at me as I went under the water. I went straight down, touched the bottom and came back up only to hit my head on the planks above me and I went down for the second time and touched bottom again. Saying to myself I have got to get some air this time or I will be down here with the fishes. I came up through the planks that time and got some air and my mom was still yelling from the shore. My raft was scuddled on shore for the rest of the week and I fished from the dock. I learned one lesson and that is to wear a life jacket when I go out on the water in my canoe. 

This was the week of the full beaver moon, and it was clear for once to get some camera shots. Ellie George got some shots the night before with a ring around the moon, which was pretty neat. 

The bucks are in rut so watch for them crossing the roads in their travels but that’s another story. See ya.

Photo above: Ring around the Moon by Ellie George