February 11, 2018 - Fishing Derby

There was a big crowd out on Meredith Bay again this weekend, this time for the fishing derby. 

The weather was perfect on Saturday, though like last weekend Sunday left a little to be desired.  The showers didn't deter the fishermen who a) mostly have shelter, and b) are tough even if they don't, but most of the spectators were out on Saturday.  People arrive on all modes of transportation;  here's a sampling of what was to be found on the bay on Saturday afternoon.

OK, no people on this one.  Yet.

But the action wasn't limited to Meredith Bay, or even Lake Winnipesaukee, as fish caught on any New Hampshire lake can be entered in the derby.  And Lake Wicwas was well represented, as the largest pickerel on the board as of Saturday afternoon was caught at Wicwas!

The leader board with a Wicwas pickerel in the number one spot

I had been out on Wicwas Saturday morning for a ski and there were certainly a lot of anglers out in search of a prize lunker. 

I wonder which one of these folks caught the beauty on the leader board.

Earlier in the week we had a nice dump of snow which made for great conditions on the ice as well as for some awesome skiing.

At the peak the storm was depositing over one inch of snow per hour, making for some vertigo due to white-out conditions on the lake.

Did you notice the fox tracks beside my ski track in the earlier picture?  You can see that it took advantage of snow packed down by my previous ski trip;  it will undoubtedly follow my new track now.  I saw where it had sought out a squirrel, but once again it didn't appear that it caught anything.

A co-occurrence of squirrel and fox trails

On another excursion earlier in the week - on a nice sunny day - I followed some fox tracks along and saw a spot where it had clearly marked its territory.

This tuft of grass is his boundary

Even though we've had some rain this winter, we've been getting enough snow to keep things in good shape.  Let's hope conditions hold up enough to make the sled dog races next weekend as successful as the last two events.