Even though summer doesn’t really start for nearly three weeks, most folks accept Memorial Day as casting us right into summer.

My youngest granddaughter went with her mom and dad to the beach over the holiday weekend and came back brown. The rascal will not turn red at all, it just goes straight to a nice brown tan. She has a blond-haired cousin that will turn red and then after a few days goes right back to white. She got burned wearing a shirt that didn’t come down far enough to cover all her stomach and back. She is like me except I will tan after several times in the sun, she won’t.

David and Steven traded in the big catfish tackle for some trout tackle and did what I thought was OK. They each boated two keepers, but threw back a ton of fish that were either too big or too little to keep. Not a lot to eat, but they had a great time and that is what it is all about on these holiday fishing trips anyway.

When I was a lot younger, I did my share of foolish things and fishing with the way the weather has been these last few weeks was one of them. Nowadays I don’t get in the boat if the sky is sending down streaks of fire and rumbling.

I nearly got hit by lightning one time, and since then I have had a greater respect for what mother nature can do. Not going to go off and chase tornados either. I will leave that to some one else. Just ask yourself, “If I catch a tornado, what am I going to do with it?” Same way with lightning: What will you do with it when you find it in your hands?

The full moon is on the first weekend in June and that means that the panfish should be going at it and you should be also. Most years we have temperatures in May that reach or nearly reach 100 degrees. We haven’t had that during the month because of all the rain and cloud cover that has kept down the temperatures.

I have especially liked these milder temperatures and look forward to more of them during the usually hotter part of the summer. We had enough rainfall last week to keep the creek colored up and almost muddy.

Remember the bream and shellcracker bed a little different when the water is muddy. They may not even bed. If they lay eggs and a layer of mud or silt covers them up, they usually won’t hatch out. We need for it to clear up some and give the fish a chance to try and raise some little fellows for the next few years to come.

Back during the middle of May, my wife and I saw some willow flies that were as big as they grow. I would have liked to have had a few of them to put on a hook and fish for a bream or two. I couldn’t though. We were having dinner and if I had mentioned going fishing right then, I could have gone and she would have said nothing.

Of course when I got home all the locks would have been changed and a note telling me to sleep in the bed, the bream bed and see just how comfortable it was. I am sure a lot wetter than where I am used to sleeping. Fishing is fun and a challenge most of the time, but I had lots rather sleep at home and visit the fish when it doesn’t upset the other parts of my life.

I don’t think I mentioned that my wife got scratched by a bat at work and had to take all those shots. The CDC in Atlanta said she should just to be safe as they had sent the bat on his or her way. Nope, not 21 shots in the stomach like we have heard all of our lives. I believe it was 10 total shots and put everywhere else except in the stomach.

Some of the medicine in the shots was so thick it would hardly go into her. I know she was sore after every shot and they were given over a month period. I don’t think she will be getting close to bats anytime soon.

The only reason she got scratched was some kids saw it on the floor of the store and told her about it. She was getting it so the kids wouldn’t try to get it and get bitten. They were running bats from the attic and this particular one got away and into the store proper.

Several folks have asked me how she was doing with the shots. She is going quite well though some nights she will fly around the neighborhood. The flying is pretty easy so she says, but she has wrecked several times on the landing.