fishin with my girls

My girls asked me to take them fishing tonight after dinner and I obliged. We had a blast.

The lake we live near now is old, tired and close to bein a super fund site. Back in the 60s, a local guy made his fortune running a landfill near the main feeder stream (we call em Kills round here) to the lake for two local companies; Schenectady Chemical and General Electric. Apparently the contents of the landfill (PCBs and other assorted toxic wastes) found their way into the Valatie Kill (Creek) and ran into the lake. There are yellow signs all along the shore of Nassau lake that say ‘Don’t Eat the Fish."


The girls decided that they were going to have their very own fishin derby. Neither one will bait their own hook and my youngest usually has me cast for her. I wasn’t clear on the rules but oldest announced that every fish she caught counted as two because she was casting her own bobber. My youngest still won.


They were each catchin blue gills as fast as I could keep their hooks baited when we noticed the wake of a large, submerged "somethin" out past the weed lines.

I remember when we lived on another lake (Snyder's Lake), there was the legend of the famed Snyder's Lake Monster named "Snydie." Snydie was rumored to be a 6- foot northern pike that ate labrador retrievers and snapped anglers' fishin poles with one swish of his tail. Now, I never spotted snydie myself but, one hot summer night when I was skinny dippin with my girlfriend in Snyder's Lake, something really big brushed up against us. (I left this part out in the story I told my kids as it would have scared them to death). It kinda scared me.

Back to evening of fishin with my daughters:
As we watched the strange waves out on the lake, I figured it was as good a time as any to tell them the story of Nassie, the mysterious creature of Nassau Lake. Here it is:
Click here:
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-qqBL4s0yc6NgfmLcR1kRugL1tw--?cq=1