Gone Fishin'

When I was a kid, my dad would take us fishing.

We lived near Lake Jacomo, built in the 50's, probably by damming up some prime farmland, and damning it to sit under a lake from then on.

We loved the lake, it had shelter houses and docks and rented out pontoon boats for fishing out away from the edge from time to time.

The lake has a great deal of land around it that was made into a park. There are no private houses on the lake, and speed boats or wave runners are allowed. This lake is an old fashioned, slow paced walk back in time.

Over the years, I've spent a lot of time out there. We went to picnics in the shelters in addition to fishing. As a teenager, I used to sneak around out there, trying not to get in trouble. I remember one time we were right next to the lake in the winter, and the lake was frozen. I was with 3 friends and we started throwing rocks on the lake ice. It made these weird eerie sounds like some demon playing the violin. I understand now that the thin ice was vibrating near some resonance frequency, but at the time, it was just an unexpected and unexplained delight.

Later, I discovered the "Hooved Animal Enclosure" where they keep Elk & Bison. Although you are not supposed to feed these animals, that's exactly what everyone does. They bring bags of carrots to stick through the chain link fence. There is something deliciously dangerous feeling about sticking a carrot into the mouth of an enormous bull elk with a rack of antlers that looks like it could shred you like cabbage.

There are great paths around the lake, complete with mud, mosquitos, and chiggers, but uncluttered with manmade things and empty of other people. One year, I discovered an old road that was blocked off with a single pole swing gate, and I decided to walk it. I found white and pink wild roses that had gone nuts, climbing up and into trees, sometimes 10 or 12 feet high. The road bed was cracked and full of weeds, but still had faint centerlines painted on it. It ran into the lake. This was a road left over from before the lake was made! How cool! Going back up the hill, I found myself about 8 feet away from a doe with 2 spotted fawns behind it. I froze, not wanting to scare it away. You never get to see deer up that close. The doe started bucking up on its hind legs, pawing at the air and stamping its hooves at me. Finally, the fawns darted away and the doe dropped down and followed, but not before I had time to wonder if the doe would actually attack me to protect the fawns. That same road yielded another find in the spring. Iris and peony beds made me stop and explore a spot beside the road. This must have been someone's yard at one time. Close inspection brought me to a pile of overgrown rubble with a bedspring still visible. So they must have bulldozed the house some time around the time the land was purchased and turned into a park. It was probably the house of someone that came here and homesteaded in the area after the Civil War.

More recently, I've taken to running the hilly roads around the lake in the park. There are plenty of droppings on the roads, showing that in an area where no humans can build, the creatures will thrive. There used to be a spot on one little gravel road where people would stop on their way to or from a day's fishing and a racoon would come out of the woods and beg at their carside. That was a few years back, and I don't know if that racoon taught her offspring the trade or not.

Last weekend while running around the lake, I saw a blue heron on the waterside across a narrow cove. I was running along a road at the water's edge and hoped the heron wouldn't notice me or care, but he finally decided that I was not someone he wanted to hang around and look at. He took off, with his 6 foot wingspan, flying just inches above the mirror smooth water. That was beautiful, but the sound he started making was less than mellifluous. Maybe it was a distress call, but it sounded discordant and alien. Not disturbing, just unexpected from a bird as graceful as that.

This fall, we plan on hiking some of the areas that are not accessible by roads. With all the development going on around here, having a wild park so near is a rare and precious thing.