The 15th day of the 6th month of the year of Emergence

FLY SEASON!

Yesterday we went out to the lake, Lake Murray that is, and sat on the beach fully intending to swim and take in the sun.  I did manage to take the fly rod and educate some brim and one white perch with a woolly bugger.  This is not any kind of angling feat, but does pass the time and the occasional large mouth bass or striper might just swim by.  Furthermore, it does tend to sharpen my casting skills. 

This time of year in South Carolina, as elsewhere I am sure, the flies seem to swarm to any uncovered skin.  And these suckers bite!  Now I know there is a reason why God put those things on earth, but it does make it hard to fathom why.  At any rate the experience brought to mind the saga of "Lucky Duck".

I spent the summers of my youth on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, in fact on the shore.  It was a great place for a fourteen year old kid to grow up.  Water, fishing, swimming, wildlife and boating.  Ended up spending fifty plus years there.  There was, of course,  and still is a huge congregation of waterfowl including ducks, geese and swan.  But back to the flies.

As my father and mother, rest their souls, aged they became more intrigued with their immediate surroundings.  That included watching the birds and ducks and feeding the same.  They had a pair of resident mallards that hung out around the dock looking for handouts.  Remember to double click for full screen images.

They made a rather handsome pair.  But as life would have it, things got naughty or at least reproductive and a family was soon created.

Pops was proud and told everyone about his expanding family.

Mom, on the other hand, yearned for quieter times without the old man and the kids.

But this is nature kiddies, and mother nature does not show any favorites.  The brood ran into the usual predators.  Turtles are the most threatening of all.  And soon the brood swimming around the mother duck dwindled to one.  The "Lucky Duck"!

Dad took after the last duck with a dip net after watching all of it's sibling succumb to the turtle monsters that lived on the bottom of the bay.  Angry and intent on beating mother nature at her own game he caught the little thing.  For two or three years they took that duck everywhere.  Travelling from Maryland to New Jersey and Florida.  Ahhh, what we do in our senior years for fun.

Now the fly part.  That little duck could walk across a porch floor or outside deck and catch flies quicker than a snake strike.  It was absolutely amazing the accuracy of that little thing.  Long story short, he grew up to become quite the country gentleman.  Hanging out at their dock until it became his turn to raise a family.  Sorta like myself.