Catching and caching

We did a little bit of one and none of the other. Here's the story...


Sunday evening we were watching Pennsylvania Outdoor Life on WNEP; Jake was fishing on the Susquehanna using twister-tail grubs. He and the guide with whom he was fishing caught just about everything under the sun - including a HUGE muskellunge. I turned to Chris and said, "We need to go fishing!" We bought our 2012 fishing licenses on New Year's Day so we had no excuses for the year...and yet, we hadn't used them. So yesterday at lunch, I ran to Dick's Sporting Goods to pick up a packet of plastic grubs with twister tails, a packet of plastic shiners, and two spinner baits. Last evening, we realized we also needed jig heads, so after Chris' birthday dinner, we stopped by Dick's again to get jig heads.


This morning we decided that we would have dinner as soon as I got home from work (approximately 4:30 PM) and then spend the evening fishing out at Black Moshannon State Park. We arrived at the park around 5:40 PM, but not before spotting our first wildlife of the evening - a raccoon crossing the road just outside of the park. 


We fished for an hour. I had one nibble and managed to catch some grass. Oh, and I managed to get snagged and lost my first jig head and grub, so I switched to a spinner bait. Chris had no luck. 

Chris tries to land a lunker.

Our fishing competition.

It was a beautiful, albeit breezy and chilly evening on the water.

Fortunately, Chris thought to bring our GPS unit and the information about the Legacy of Conservation Geocaching Trail cache that was located at Black Moshannon State Park. After an hour of fishing, we decided to abandon the attempt at catching and go caching. 

The starting point for the cache was the trail head for the Bog Trail. We had to walk the Bog Trail to collect the answers to a crossword puzzle to determine the final coordinates for the cache.

Views from along the Bog Trail...

This flower is called spatterdock.

Our completed crossword puzzle.

We had to convert the letters to numbers to determine the final coordinates.

Another view from the Bog Trail.

After we finished the Bog Trail, we hiked along Moss-Hanne Trails and Indian Trails in search of the cache. Unfortunately, I made a small error in converting the letters to numbers for the final coordinates. It should have been 40 54.251, not .201. Once we made the correction, we found the cache easily. But before that, we spent several minutes bushwhacking close to the bog and came across wild blueberries! We had a little "Man Woman Wild" moment where I channeled Ruth and in my best British accent said, "This is extraordinary! These blueberries are just bursting with sugary goodness. They will give us the little boost of energy and morale we need to keep looking for the cache." Chris laughed! 

I wonder what critter lives in this hole?

Our first blueberry!

Returning to the trail with a cone of blueberries.

Yummy! We're going to try planting a few to see if we can get plants to sprout.

  

Huzzuh!!!

Cache #2 from the Legacy of Conservation Geocache Trail = found!

Chris snagged our two conservation cards.

I logged our find in the little notebook.

We left the LOTR button and took the dancing lemur.

Info about the bog natural area at Black Moshannon.

The reason why I was wearing my Pens cap...gotta rock the fishing license!

We wound up walking/hiking for about 90 minutes. We were a little slower than usual since I'm still nursing a "hurt" foot thanks to plantar fasciitis, but we still had a good time and a nice jaunt on such a lovely evening!