7-9-01 M 9:42 PM

I typed about the steep bank of unstable boulders I was fishing from at Butte Lake. I had already taken a header off a slippery log. At least the water wasn't cold. That's probably why the trout weren't biting. I was relieved once I had stepped onto flat land again. I worked out to a point along the south end of the lake where the ranger recommended trying; the other side of the lava beds from where I had been fishing in the morning. It was a lot of work with no results. I should be used to that by now. I kept a wary on the sun's progress toward the horizon, having come over the rocks, I didn't want to take the trail back above the cliff for the first time in the dark.  The trail was a steep puffer of switchbacks. My Achilles tendons screamed, and the last beer banged against me knee from my shorts pocket with every step. I was glad to sit in the car. It was still light enough when I got back to camp at Summit Lake to try my luck there. I got my fire going and took my gear and beer down to the water. Some kind of hatch was underway, caddis flies or mayflies, maybe, but in an hour, I heard only three splashes that might have been small trout. I worked my lines in the vicinity of the ripples, but I grilled pork for dinner, glazed with apple jelly and Lawry's, wrapped in foil over my fire. I tried to pen my bottle of red wine, but the corkscrew in my pocketknife ended up ripping through the cork. Eventually, I pushed it through with a wooden-handled steak knife, but when I tipped the bottle to my lips, the cork blocked the neck. I figured out if I left the knife blade in the neck and clenched the handle in my teeth, the wine would flow. My pork was delicious. I had also corn and a can of soup and a couple tortillas. I packed all the grub-fixings in the trunk so as not to attract bears and retired to my tent. I put a flashlight in the pocket that hangs from the roof and read and wrote. I had stopped at the ranger station and showered and charged my computer in the general store whiel I read about the "September Water Conditions in July" that I figure were the reason the fish weren't biting.

A boy was attacked by a bull shark at Pensacola Beach. The shark bit off the boy's arm. The boy's uncle wrestled the seven-foot-long shark from the water, and doctors were able to reattach the boy's arm!