Valen and Atti spend time at the lake

Day 1:

The 10 hr drive was relatively quiet. A little sleepy after lunch and 5 pounds of cherries.

 Plenty of discussion about fishing, boating and catching squirrels.

Day 2:

The morning fog lifted and we were on the water most of the day.

Valen took the wheel and showed us that he hadn't forgotten how to drive the boat.

Atti had fun finding waves and plowing through them.

Back to shore to pick up Tito's big tube.

Both boys at the fun-end of the rope.

Valen's request for faster-faster-faster ended in getting wet and finally sitting 

on top of the flipped-over tube. Atti was happy that he had taken a break.

Yvonne and the boys gathering cat tails

Valen in the rowboat, trying to snag the big one. 

Atti stayed home with Grandma, not too keen with the small tippy boat.

Valen with his first catch. "It's a jackfish, we can't keep it"

Meanwhile, Atti and Grandma make the best banana cream pie in the world.

Day 3: 

7PM: Stan and Cathy pick us up at our dock with their pontoon boat. 

The big pontoon boat is ideal for kid-fishing. Already on board is 6 yr. old Ethan, 

little sister Morgan and mom Tracy. We chart a course to Stan & Grandpa

Robert's secret fishing hole. The boys take up their positions. 

Ethan is the first to catch a fish. His first ever! 

A couple minutes later Valen hauls in a Pike, a twin to yesterday's catch.
Stan coaches and provides commentary. 

and finally.....

Atti lands a nice Pickerel. Atti cranked it to the boat and Grandpa lifted it up for a closer look.

Day 4: 

Swimming in the narrows. 

We found a shallow spot, less than 3 feet deep,  where the boys could touch bottom

 and jump from the boat.

Squirrels are smarter than they look. 

We need some way to make the the box drop automatically says Valen.

We'll have to work on that.

Day 5: 

What on earth are they watching? 

A huge pelican is resting in shallow water near our beach. We soon realize that the big bird has caught a fish too large to swallow. It kept trying to rearrange the fish in it's gullet to swallow it.

Valen managed to get close with his camera. "You can see the fish in it's mouth".

Eventually it got nervous and swam away to finish his lunch.

Later we saw it sleeping on our neighbour's dock. 

Carefully taking a clock apart and re-using the pieces to construct a special 

trip system for an automatic trap.

Who knows where this will lead?  Maybe some kind of spy trap.

No Atti, that's not how a hammock works!

One last time. On our last outing Atti was the only lucky one. He hooked and reeled 

in a 2 lb. jackfish without any help. When asked about it he said "the 

fishing rod just started bending so I started turning the handle"

We released it and watched it swim away.