My narrative if you have not experienced it you will have to believe me as I re-count my latest snorkeling adventure. The summer solstice has recently passed and the sun lazily traverses the sky, the days of norther Wisconsin seem to never want to end and the short daylight hours and cold of December never to return. The long daylight hours warm the many lakes and this brings all types of life into to the shallows of the lakes to do what the kids might say “getting busy” reproducing to continue the cycle of life.
The first thing I came across is a bass taking cover in the branches of a sunken downed tree perhaps taking a break from the obligations of being a bass?
Working my way south down the shore I find a bass aggressively defending its nest of just recently hatched fry
from being eaten by a horde of ravenous minnows.
If the bass is somewhat successful and some of its fry grow into bass-hood those same bass will have the advantage in the game of eat or be eaten taking exception to the song lyrics “summer time and the living is easy”
Pan fish excavate fields of craters in sand, gravel or just about any material in clusters of 5 to 25 or more in a group on the bottom of the lake bed that they use as nests to lay their eggs.
A male pan fish (the smaller one) bumps the belly of the female as she circles their recently dug nest so that she will lay her eggs and he can fertilize them.
Like the bass the pan fish will protect their nest of recently laid eggs
from all comers charging at them opening out its fins to look bigger and more menacing even trying to intimidate a lone photographing snorkeler who just wants to chronical there life’s struggles.
To be a witness of the things going on around us that familiarity can breed contempt for I am given the chance to show existence is not easy for anyone.
