This is Booke, our family dog. (Technically, Brooke belongs to my daughter Angie.) After four summers of cottage visits she has finally discovered fishing, doggey style.
Brooke is a mix of pit bull and American Boxer. She’s a dog-of-all-trades, so to speak. She hunts down and chases rabbits, squirels, chipmunks and the occasional stray cat. She’s also been known to chase flocks of crows out of our yard. Brooke loves the water and fetching sticks thrown into the lake. Doesn’t like baths but throughly enjoys wading in lakes and rivers. And we have pictures of Brooke laying in my three-year-old granddaughter’s plastic pool, just chllin’ in the hot sun.
This year, Brooke has discovered the fish in Gray Lake. Why it took her four sumer’s to take any kind of interest, I’m not sure. But this year, she’s taking her new “hobby” seriously. I believe Brooke has a strategy or is it just a game between canine and fish?
Brooke scours the waterfront searching for a place to fish. Any fisherman knows, a good fishing hole is key to catching fish. Once she’s found the perfect spot, she stands perfectly still, head down looking in the water. This draws the curiousity of the various size bluegills. I’ve see 12 bluegills, all positioned directly in front of Brooke, in a stare down with her. She stands with statue-like stillness, only her eyes roving the water in front of her. They float effortlessly, their almost-neon green tails waving back and forth, staring at her dark honey colored legs, probably wondering if she’s food or foe. I can tell when she’s really excited, her legs twitch enough to cause ripples in the the water around her. Then, whoosh, Brooke strikes by jumping into the waiting school of fish! Of course, the fish scatter like dead leaves in a summer tornado. And she comes up mouth empty, but the fish always return a few minutes later and the game begins again.
She’s having about a much luck fishing today, as I am.
