Here come the ducks...

One thing about being camped here at Flamingo Lake in Jax is the large spring fed pond and the ducks it attracts.  This might not mean much to any of you, but observing wild duck behavior on this little lake has been fascinating and a real treat for this ex-duck hunter.  Back in the day I was a decent shotgunner and I always bagged my fair share of game be it ducks, doves or quail.  I still enjoy the occasional trip to the sporting clays range to pretend hunt.  I can still swing a shotgun ok.  Sorry.  The point of the story isn't my prowess with a shotgun, but rather how exciting it is to watch ducks come and go from a lake.  There isn't anything comparable to being on a lake and watching the massive rafts of ducks get off the water just after sunrise.  In some areas of the country those flocks can black out the morning sky as if to delay sunrise.  There are few kinds of hunting that have the adrenelin thrill of ducks diving from high altitude down into your decoys.  This late afternoon I sat up front in the driver's seat of my motor home and watched large flocks of bluebills dive into our pond to roost for the night.  It's a real sight to see a whole flock make one unanimous move to set their wings and lose altitude at an alarming rate.  The wings set rigid in scemitar shapes ending in sharp pointed wing tips bent in arcs like sections of an umbrella.  When they get below the tree tops they level out and start veering this way and that looking for the perfect place to set down on the water.  I watched wishing they'd come closer to me to within shotgun range.  It was just an instinctive thought on my part.  I don't shoot ducks any more, but I still have an excited reaction to this kind of organized chaos with ducks diving this way and that.  Some of the ducks swam up close to the motor home and I was able to watch them at 20 feet.  Using my 8x binoculars I was able to view the tiniest details of their little bodies.  With bluebills and most other species the drakes get all the bright feathering.  With bluebills the contrast is mostly in black and white.  Drake bluebills also have bright golden eyes, blue hued bills and a distinctive bright white ring around the bill about 1/3 the way back.  From a long distance you can recognize bluebills by the drake's stark white belly.  There is no mistaking the drake.  The hen, on the other hand is much more subtle in her earth tones.  I would assume they are her camouflage for nesting on shorelines in northern Canada.  There was one hen that came within 20 feet of where I was sitting.  She'd dive in one quick motion and disappear for up to about 20 seconds all the while leaving a bubble trail up on the surface.  I never thought about it before, but it makes sense that a duck that naturally floats might need some help sinking and exhaling would be the solution.  Anyway, it was by watching the bubbles that I could keep track of a particular individual duck.  The markings on the hens are similar to blue wing teal and at one point I thought I might have a few teal mixed in with my bluebills.  I hope to see other species on the lake as the season progresses. 

 

On the same subject of ducks I did see something the other day I'd never seen before.  I saw a bald eagle trying to catch ducks that were sitting on the water.  The scene was reminiscent of dolphins attacking a pod of baitfish.  Every time the eagle swooped low the ducks would disperse in all directions flying or diving.  I suspect this game has a low rate of success for the eagles as the ducks seemed very adept at getting away.  I guess that's why duck populations are so strong today.  It was still a pretty dramatic scene, though, and with every dive the eagle made I didn't really know who to cheer on.  Initially, I found myself siding with the smaller, seeming underdog ducks.  But, as much as I love watching ducks I enjoy watching eagles and ospreys even more.  Both raptors have made a very strong come back in Florida.  Last winter it seemed that most everywhere I turned I was seeing both birds in significant numbers.  The most shocking eagle sighting was in Leesburg, Florida on a high traffic week day near downtown.  There is an eagle nesting on top of a light pole over the sidewalk on Hwy 441 and it seems oblivious to the people, trucks and cars.  Talk about adaptive.  While visiting a good friend in Tarpon Springs I walked Romeo one morning only to look up and see a bald eagle sitting on top of the house eye'ing my little 4 lb. maltese.  I wouldn't be surprised to learn of neighbors losing pets to that big fella.  If you've never been up close to a mature bald eagle they are magnificently large creatures with large talons and beaks to match their appetites.  When I mentioned eagles to a friend recently on the phone he told me of an eagle sighted eating a dead skunk on the side of the road.  While I've never seen anything like that I don't doubt his word.  I didn't really know if they scavenged, but now I do.

 

Changing the subject completely it's time to get estimates to fix the deer damage to the motor home.  I think I'll start the search for a suitable repair facility in Orlando and span out from there.  I've got an offer to stay with a fellow Viking, Ray B., in Orlando.  I've mentioned his name before as I stayed with good 'ole Ray last winter for several weeks.  We used a row boat and went out and caught lots of bass in the lake near his house.  Ray is a true fishing authority and I really enjoy fishing with him.  He's like having a free guide and I must say I'm always learning something from Ray.  I hope to get him out surf fishing at Canaveral towards the end of February.  It's past time to hit the rack, so I'll sign off now.

 

mb/jd

Where are the fish?

I've been in Jacksonville for nearly two weeks and have yet to catch a fish.  Well, that's not totally true.  What I should have said is I've not caught a fish on hook and line.  I did catch four mullet and four pinfish in a cast net the other day, but that's only bait.  What I've been doing with my time is trying to find the best places a man can fish from shore or from a kayak.  So far the most promising places are under bridges where tidal currents regulate fish habits.  Right now it looks like those bridges on Heckscher Drive look the most promising.  There is a little bait shop at Brown's Creek that is now near the top of my list.  For $2 you can fish from their little fishing dock.

Just got off the phone with good friend Ray down in Orlando and he's saying I should give an inlet a try before fishing the back country creeks.  For those of you who salt water fish you know there is a tremendous difference between the two kinds of habitat.  I'm going to heed Ray's advice and give Fort Clinch State Park a try tomorrow.  The tide/solunar tables are basically saying that tomorrow and the next day will be two of the five best fishing days in January.  We'll see what's what with Fort Clinch.  Their north shore where the fort overlooks the inlet looks to be a pretty perfect spot to fish from shore.  Having the fort within sight makes for some interesting scenery and might be considered a bonus.  I scouted the area last week and know the basic lay of the land.  The state has stabilized the shoreline with jetty rocks and they are piled parallel with the shoreline.  Between jetty rock segments are sand beaches where I can setup with my new beach cart.  I really should take a picture of it for show and tell here.  It will carry everything I need for a day of beach fishing.  I wish I could take Romeo with me, but Florida has placed a ban on dogs on their beaches no matter how small or cute.  So, there it is, then.  I'm fishing the Ft. Clinch inlet tomorrow on the falling tide using live shrimp and cut mullet for baits.  I can only hope to catch some live mullet, but if I do then they will be on all my hooks.  If there are fish there I'll find out starting at about 10 AM in the morning.  The tables are saying the lower the tide the better for tomorrow.  I never really knew how complicated fishing could be before I started salt water fishing last year.  Ray is a real wealth of fishing information about all kinds of species and habitats.  There was a time when all Ray wanted to do was fish.  While he's slowed down a bit since those prime years of the 80's he's still forgotten more about salt water fishing than most will ever learn.  I think when I get onto a good bite then Ray will be tempted to come on up from Orlando and wet a line.  But, it's up to me to figure out the lay of the land, so to speak.  I think I've scouted enough to state with confidence that I know most of the prime shoreline fishing locations along a 20 mile stretch starting from Amelia Island and working south.  The further south you go the more people you see fishing from old bridges and creek sides.  Ray's of the opinion that those folks really don't know what they are doing.  Yet, they seem to be ever present where ever fishing is allowed from bridges or piers.  They appear to be poor folks, mostly of color.  After living in the mountains of Arkansas for the last eight years seeing someone of a minority race became a rarity.  Down here in Jacksonville there much more diversity and I find myself welcoming the change.  It's fun to engage people in conversation and learn that our differences only make us more interesting.  

Today, at a public boat ramp I spoke with an interesting older couple about their travels.  They don't RV, but prefer to fly to their destinations and then rent cars for getting around.  We agreed that touring the West will be a spectacular thing to do.  They want to see Glacier and then work their way over to the Pacific coast pausing at Yosemite and Sequoia and then driving up the coast highway north to Olympic National Park and Seattle.  It didn't take much prodding from me to get them talking about their wonderful and less than wonderful experiences.  They did take a few minutes to enlighten me about reservation Indians, though.  They had a bad experience with groups of Indians in cars who were being confrontational.  I had heard that reservation Indians, especially the Navajo, were prone to confronting tourists in very unpleasant ways and here were two people who had been frightened.  If you frequent the RV discussion forums as much as I do you know there are always nightmare stories for the reading.  Personally, I really prefer to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, but I'm also aware enough to sense the potential for confrontation and avoid it.  If push came to shove I'm always packin', so I'm not one to stand idly by and let some punk kids rob me when I can defend myself.  I only have .22 pistols, but they make a loud bang, just not as loud as larger calibers.  If circumstances have degenerated to that extent then firing past someone's ear would, I imagine, get a positive reaction.  Anyway, the idea of hostile Indians does not bother me in the least and I'm not certain why I mentioned them here, except that in their case bad things did happen to good people.

I'll try to get back on tomorrow after my fishing expedition.  Hopefully, I'll have caught a few fish or maybe even a lot of fish.  See you soon.

mb/jd    

Departed Arkansas on Christmas eve...

I'm finally in Florida...

The days were getting colder and colder in Arkansas as December rolled in and the holidays approached.  It wasn't anything unusual for this time of the year, except that I was already supposed to be long gone and living the dream in the warmth of lower latitudes.  My first estimated departure date of July 1st was long behind me and the thought of predicting when I'd finally be road ready had become something of a self deprecating joke to me and my friends.  Turns out it is a lot easier planning on leaving one's life behind than to actually do it.  There is great comfort in falling asleep in a familiar bed and knowing where everything is in your own kitchen.  Even the view out the back of the house was compelling me to stay ever longer.  The bald eagles had already  arrived from their Canadian summer nesting grounds and they could be seen fishing below the house on Table Rock Lake.  Even the squirrels were fattened from the recent acorn crop and were already in their thick winter coats.  They were ready for the harsh winter to come.  December is a time of transition for the animals of NW Arkansas and it was time for me to make my own transition, south.

The days leading up to my departure were not without their own drama.  I managed to back the Dutch Star into a 3 foot deep ditch in front of the house, but managed to emerge without a scratch.  The incident required calling the emergency road service I had signed up for last April and it more than paid for itself with just this one incident.  All I can say is thank goodness for my Good Sam membership.  I won't bore you with the details, except to say that I am now a better judge of the coach's 250 inch wheel base.  The ditch incident did confirm the good decision to buy a Newmar Dutch Star as its heavy duty chassis and coach frame were now paying dividends.  One of the worst things you can subject a motor home to is a twisting motion.  I'm told they can't ever be straightened and they are never the same again.  There was no twisting in evidence during and after the episode.  I might have avoided some of my travails had I found a mentor early on, but that wasn't the case.  To this point I've made some mistakes some of which could have had much worse than they turned out.  I've been lucky.  These are very complex machines and there is no question that I was ill prepared for full-time motor homing, but the lure of the open road and starting a new life was just too much to resist.  I had the motor home and the retirement income to support the full-timer lifestyle, so I had run out of excuses for not getting on the road.  It was simply time.

The day I left NW Arkansas was clear and cold, but with the promise of a snow and ice on the northern horizon.  The front was sweeping across the mid-west as fronts always did that time of the year.  This was the weather I wanted to avoid and the few flurries of the previous weeks were mild compared to what was promised for Christmas day.  I left by crossing over into Missouri and cutting west over to I-540 S.  It would  have been a shorter routing to head due south down Hwy 65 through the heart of the Ozark Mountains, but being relatively inexperienced driving my over 17 ton behemoth I figured the fewer "steep and twisting" roads the better.  The interstate would afford me faster average cruising speeds, which would hopefully make up for the 100 mile longer route.  My first planned stop was supposed to be an Indian casino in Lula, MS and then on to my first cousin's place in the Delta of Mississippi, a town called Rosedale.  I didn't make it, but rather stopped at a rest stop on I-40 100 miles west of Little Rock and spent the night.  So, my first leg was shortened by half and I slept to the droning of tractor trailer diesels filling the air.  It wasn't all that bad and after deploying my satellite dish and watching a few episodes of Two and a Half Men on my DVR I could have slept through a tornado.  

Day two on the road consisted of driving straight through to cousin Vivia's house to deliver some of my mother's water color paintings.  Vivia is all about family and she and the males of my family are the end of the line for mother's, Lorance, side of the family.  It's interesting to me that a family name can come to such an abrupt end, but it has.  None of the four of us has had children, so that is that.  In retrospect I now wish I had accepted her invitation to stay and celebrate Christmas, but I didn't.  Instead, I took off south in pursuit of keeping a reservation date at an RV park in Jacksonville, Florida.  I was tired, but wanted to put some more miles behind me before stopping.  I had a standing invitation to stay with a friend in Ocean Springs, but I wouldn't make it that far.  I should have exercised more good sense and caution.  The first bad thing that happened was when my new GPS diverted onto a two lane back country highway with narrower than usual lanes and no painted lines marking the edge of the asphalt.  It was raining a bit when I dropped my front-right wheel off the hard surface and in a split second the mud was dragging me further into the roadside ditch.  I knew if my right rear wheels left the pavement my trip would be over.  Even with the obscured vision of rain on that moonless night I could see that the ditch was a very bad option.  I turned the wheel sharply to the left and when the right steer tire once again grabbed the asphalt it caused the motor home to dart into the oncoming lane.  With one giant sway and a slight fish tail I got the beast back under control.  I'm not normally one to dwell on the obvious, but in this instance I couldn't shake the feeling that had someone been coming from the other direction there would have been a head-on collision.  I doubt there are many accidents with small cars where the motor home is the biggest loser, so I'm just grateful the road was empty that night and that no one got hurt or killed.  The entire incident took no more than five seconds, but in those five seconds I developed a new respect for my motor home's destructive potential.  This is no gentle giant, but rather an accident looking for a place to happen should I drop my guard.  I'm reminded of a visit I made to Carthage, MO where I visited a motor home salvage yard.  I didn't think much of it at the time, but today I can't help but wonder just how many good people got hurt in those crushed and burned out hulks.  It was the motor home equivalent of an African elephant graveyard.  I have since vowed to take every reasonable precaution short of hiring a professional driver.  I drive 5-10 mph slower than the speed limit no matter the traffic and I don't hesitate to sound my dual air horns when someone isn't paying attention while merging into my lane.  I've surprised several drivers on their cell phones already and I guarantee they will pay closer attention in the future.  

 

The trip had smoothed out considerably after getting on the divided four lane US 98 south of Jackson, MS.  I've always enjoyed driving at night and while others had warned me about night driving I didn't really see any particularly wrong this time.  The traffic was very light mostly with commercial trucks heading home, I expect.  There was a misting drizzle in the air and my wipers were set to a slow intermittent speed.  At almost precisely 2:30 AM I saw the flash of a deer a split second before it impacted my front left quarter.  All I saw was a head, an outstretched neck and "her" front quarters.  The sound was very loud and a violent shudder could be felt through my seat.  I was only going 50 mph at the time, so slowing was easy and without incident.  The most interesting part of the experience was that I felt extreme calm in the aftermath.  I knew I had hit a deer, but I just instinctively knew everything was going to be OK.  I hadn't felt the deer go under the motor home and I could clearly see the Nissan had escaped unscathed in my rear view camera.  So, I didn't stop.  I felt sorry for the deer, but was glad to know she had not felt any pain.  One second she was alive and the next she was gone.  We should all be so lucky when it's our turn.  I kept going slowly feeling for anything in the steering wheel that was the least bit unusual.  It was only a few more miles before I limped into a truck stop and parked.  The damage to the front left of the motor home was moderate.  The doe took out the lights on that side and crushed quite a bit of fiberglass.  Had the deer traveled another two feet she would have taken out my generator and if she had fallen under the chassis she would have taken out my towed Nissan Pathfinder attached to the tow bar.  Yep, it could have been "2-fers" for the deer, so as unlucky as it was to hit the deer I was extremely lucky to have suffered only moderate coach damage.  I would still be able to keep my date in Jacksonville, albeit driving the next day with only one light.  I would be able to wait for repairs.  I was on a fishing mission and the fish weren't going to delay their southern migration for my motor home repairs.  As a practical matter the damage is nothing but an insurance claim and a $500 deductible.  It might be fixable without replacing the whole end cap, but I doubt it.  A good friend and fellow Viking down in Orlando is willing to put me up in his spare bedroom while the repairs are being done sometime in February.  He loves fishing as much as I do, so we'll be good roomies.  

 

I arrived at Flamingo Lake RV Resort late in the evening of December 26th.  I had kept my appointment and was happy to be here.  When I arrived they escorted me to my reserved spot in the back of the park.  I spent one night there and then asked to be upgraded to lake front where I am now.  My windshield now faces the fountain in the middle of what appears to be about a 10 acre lake.  I've not yet fished the lake, but I've seen large mouth bass in the five pound range.  The lake is spring fed and the water is gin clear, so the fish are easily spooked.  I'm going to wait for a perfect day and do some trolling behind my kayak.  The RV park surrounds the lake and it has a feel of community with about 80% of the residents being long timers.  I'll be here a month.

 

I've driven the 35 minutes to Amelia Island three times to reconnoiter fishing spots.  The water temps are falling with each cold night, so the bait fish are becoming more and more scarce.  The shrimp have ceased to run and are now hibernating in the mud along with the blue crabs.  At least that's what I "think" the shrimp do, but they may just head off shore to deeper, warmer water.  I'm not sure.  What I do know is that fishing is a totally different activity from catching.  I've been fishing once so far and got skunked.  There is a cafe across the lake and it has nightly entertainment from karaoke to Bingo.  I walked in on Bingo night and the smoke was so thick I couldn't stay.  I'm always amazed that older adults still smoke cigarettes, but they choked me out that night.  The cafe' makes a mean burger and fries and they have free delivery.  I tip well, so they like delivering to space E-62.  I met one of the cooks after hours sitting around a neighbor's camp fire.  Thomas is an affable 22 year old whose father is a good fisherman.  He's agreed to show me where his father fishes for reds and trout.  We just need a good day for the outing.  We're talking about prized family glory holes that are normally secretly guarded and not shared with other locals much less out of state tourists passing through the area.  We'll see how it pans out, but Thomas did give me a hint of the best location, "Hexter" road.  Tonight we've got a cold front moving through from the north and when it is once again warmish I'll go find Hexter Rd.  

 

I bought a rubberized wire crab trap the other day at an Amelia Island Walmart, but I think crab season might already be over this far north.  I baited it the other day with chicken necks and put it on the bottom by a roadside spillway where I was trout fishing.  I was told that location was thick with blue crabs, but after 3 hours I hadn't caught a single one.  I'll try again in another location and if I don't catch anything I'll put it up until March when the water gets warmer and the crabs emerge from their cubby holes in the mud.  I have found several other promising fishing locations at opposite ends of Amelia Island.  Both are within the confines of Florida state parks.  I'll report on my results at another posting.

 

Sorry I've neglected updating the Road Hog Blog to this point, but there wasn't really much to report prior to leaving Arkansas.  I'll do better from now on and I'll even start posting some videos and pics, bandwidth permitting.  The WiFi connection here in the park is intermittent at best and not reliable enough for long uploads.  I'll try.

 

Happy New Year,

 

John