Rainy days and Friday's

Friday before the Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial start of the summer season. The temp today never got above the mid 50's and was in the high 40's for most of the day with some pretty good rain showers. The rain was good. The cold... not so good if you ask me.

The average temps this time of year are in the low 70's. I remember one year I was out at the Frenchman Lake station on Memorial Day weekend and it snowed on us, so this isn't all that unusual, but certainly not welcome after having a taste of low 90's already. Oh well, I spent the day indoors and that really chaps my hide... but what can you do? I know, ya gotta love it!

Snakes, flowers and Bass

Had lots of stuff to do today so I got them all done and then decided to take a little ride up into the Susanville Ranch park. The Bitterbrush is blooming and it has such a sweet smell, I just love it. As I was riding along enjoying the warm weather that is about to change, I saw this little guy laying in the trail. This is the first rattler I have seen so far this year and this one was not even aware of me for a while. I have seen much larger ones up there and this one had 4 buttons. It just laid there while I took pictures of it from both directions and then I got a little too close and it saw me and started warning me to stay away... which, of course, I did. The coloration of this snake was a little different than what I am used to seeing, maybe because it was a young one.

Big change from my fishing trip yesterday, which was awesome, I have to say. I caught 86 fish, many of them over a pound. They were slamming my rapala and I even got a couple of nice slabs that will be guests of honor at my dinner table. One of the best things about yesterday was that it was hot, and there were virtually no people. I had expected it to be busy as it sometimes is on Monday, but there were only 4 boat trailers in the parking lot when I got there. I got in the water to go swimming but the water is still a little nippy for me. Maybe after the weather warms up again.

Heat!!

I Love IT!! Yes, it's been quite warm for the last couple of days and I'm loving it. Since it's the weekend I didn't want to go up fishing with all the people at the lake so bike riding has been on tap.

Yesterday I rode out Wingfield road to Janesville and over to visit Tom and Helen. Along the way I noticed this creature in the ditch by the road and it didn't run away. I immediately identified the critter as a bobcat but it was acting funny. I have worked in the woods all of my adult life and have seen lots of these guys but they are always moving at a high rate of speed so this one was one to be wary of. It jumped up on the bank and sat there looking at me so I got my camera out and took this picture. This was the only one I got before he did what they usually do and ran away.

So today I decide to drive up into the forest and ride out in the Squaw Queen Creek area and over 15 Minute Hill. It was a wonderfully hot day and it wasn't bad due to a pretty stiff breeze most of the time. The meadows up there are so nice and lush this time of year and there were lots of pretty flowers. Some of the yellow ones growing in the road are dandelions. I was surprised that not only did an ATV come by on the trail I was following, but there were many vehicles out in Squaw Valley. At the top of 15 Minute Hill I stopped and talked to a couple of old guys who had lawn chairs and were just hanging out. They were a little surprised to see me and they didn't hear me coming.

So, way more people than I usually run into. My normal up there is to either not see anyone in a day of bike riding, or occasionally I'll see one vehicle. My ride yesterday was 35 miles and today only 16. Tomorrow I'm thinking fishing...

Ohhh baby!

Both of these pictures are of the same fish who just happened to see my rapala swimming by and decided to eat it. The wind today made it really tough to fish the spot where I caught this lady, so I felt very fortunate to have thrown my lure in the right spot. She weighed 5 lbs 13 oz.

This was my first fish of the day and I had been fishing for about 2 hours before I caught her. It was pretty slow until I finally found a crappie spot and started catching slabs one after another. All said, it turned out to be a pretty good day and I brought home some more nice crappie fillets. Ya gotta love that.

Scenery

That's one thing we have a lot of around here. You don't have to go far to get some pretty good views. Yesterday I rode my bike up to Susanville Peak and sat on the top rock. You can't ride all the way to the top and I had to guess at where to stop along the road to have the shortest hike up. As it turned out I didn't make a very good call and ended up walking much farther than I had to, but it's all good. This first picture is the highest rock pile.



On the way down the road there are some nice overlooks and that's what the second picture is.



But today was a fishing day. There were some really nice calm times today and this is one of them. I was running a rapala through those rocks and getting a few of the smaller fish to bite. I saw some really big ones in there among the rocks but they didn't want my lures. Oh well, maybe tomorrow they will like it better...

Sloat California.. Cheaper gas!

Chris has his own place over in Sloat so I drove over there and went bike riding with him up into Poplar Valley. It was cool to be in some new country from most of my normal bike riding areas. The ridge in the background of this picture is Eureka Ridge. There is still a bit of snow in the high country and we had to traverse one snow patch on our bike ride. From his house our ride gained over 2000 ft of elevation and we had some great downhill runs.

One of the sidelights to this trip was when I went through Quincy I was shocked to see that the gas was 10-15 cents a gallon cheaper over there than it is here in Susanville. Quincy is more remote than Susanville and I have been going through that town regularly for the last 30 years since the Plumas National Forest Supervisor's Office is there and I regularly had to travel there. Gas has almost always been more expensive there than Susanville so when I see that it isn't so now, I can also deduce that we are being screwed once again by the local gas stations who have obviously banded together to control the local price of gas. It's bad enough that it costs so much to fill up your tank these days and it doesn't sit well with me to know that the local gas stations are gouging us even more. Maybe we need a billboard outside of town warning travellers not to buy any more gas here than they need to get to almost any other town in the area so they can save some money. Needless to say I filled my tank while I was over there for the very first time in my life, buying gas in Quincy. Fuck buying local when the locals want to rip you off!

Ahhh... Spring!

Bike riding in the spring... what could be better? Well, I guess even I could come up with some better things to be doing so maybe it's not the absolute best thing to do, but it certainly is when I am doing it. Had a 16 mile bike ride up Squaw Canyon and down Rogers Canyon. It was supposed to be windy and it was a little bit, but not enough to keep the clouds from building up to thunderstorms. Since we could actually use some rain I was hoping for that but it didn't happen where I was although I did pass through a few wet areas on the way home later in the day. No matter what, it was a nice day to be out and I took full advantage of it.

This picture should be familiar territory for a few of my friends... especially Tom.