So, Sunday was nine hours spent here:

Just exactly here, and nowhere else. With these two gentlemen.

The day's tallies through our fisheries check station?

216 vehicles
73 watercraft
129 anglers
127 trout
147 walleye
14 violations

Oh, yeah. And one raccoon.

Thoughts from the day?

It's a nice place for a check station. You can see traffic coming over two miles away.

Some people have lots of toys.

Yeah, that trailer was full of gasoline consuming, noise and smog generating toys.

Some people have nice dogs.

All of whom were friendly. All of whom were surprised, but pleased, at my attention. And all of whom were hot (except those still dripping wet from the river or lake).

Some people had lots of fish.

And some had none.

The day was hot, but nowhere near as hot as it could have been. The smoky haze helped some.

There are mountains beyond that haze that normally you could see. And by late afternoon, the clouds had rolled in, with just a touch of rain as we closed up shop.

As did the wind, which was with us for all but an hour or so. 'Course, that led to my other totals for the day:

2 large coffees
2 bottles flavored tea
2 large gatoraides
1 bottle water

And only one pee break.

Yeah, it was kinda dehydrating.

The most common violation of the day?

Cutting the heads or tails off trout (you gotta be able to prove how long each one was).

The bad news of the day?

They put one of our lightning-caused forest fires out. And were actively working on the second, as evidenced by all the fire crews heading out...

And the helicopter making repeated runs to fill up its water bucket and dump it on the blaze.

Oh. You were wondering about the raccoon?

Well, she had been raiding grain bins in the horse corrals south of town. And got caught in the act.

And received a free, all expense paid trip to the river.

It's only ten miles. My bet is that she's back already.