Sunday was a “Three Dog Night” at my house due to the storms. 

That saying comes from olden times when it was so cold you needed three dogs in bed with you to keep you warm.  Warmth was not the problem at my house.   

I have three dogs.  Ginger is a brindle pit bull, Cinnamon a sooner that is mostly hound, and Mika is a registered border collie.  Mika at 60 pounds is tall and lean and the other two weigh about 80 pounds. They fit their species, with Ginger built like a tank and Cinnamon with long legs a little taller.   

All were rescue dogs.  Ginger showed up at a rental house, flea infested, skin and bones and with heart worms. She had a broken choke collar on her neck.

Cinnamon showed up at the gun club, full of puppy energy the Monday after I had to put Rip to sleep. 

And Mika was from a renter that had to get rid of him due to allergies.   

Ginger is terrified of lightning. I swear she can hear it thunder in Birmingham, Alabama.  Several years ago Ginger and my lab Rip were in the back yard during a thunderstorm.  They dug out under the gate and disappeared. A couple of days later we got a call that Rip had been hit by a car on Highway 19.   

Linda took him to the vet and they hoped he would recover, but went into convulsions and had to be put down. Ginger wandered back home a couple of days later.

Cinnamon was never bothered by storms until lightning struck the house, burning out two TVs and a computer. She was in her wire kennel and I guess she got a shock. Now she will not go near her kennel when it thunders. 

Mika is not bothered by anything.   

With all the thunder Sunday night, we moved their beds to our bedroom. All went well until the thunder got loud about 1:00 AM and Ginger started whining.  I finally got her into the bed where she buried under the sheet at our feet and went to sleep. The other two slept happily on their beds.   

All three are pretty useless.  Mika lives to chase a tennis ball and would kill himself chasing it if we kept throwing it.  Ginger just waddles around unless chasing Mika and the ball. She will not bring it back, though.   

With Cinnamon’s nose, I thought I might teach her to trail deer.  She can sniff out a lost tennis ball in the weeds and loves to trail squirrels in the back yard.   

A few years ago, I shot a deer that left a little blood trail but I could not find it. I got Cinnamon and put her on the trail. She would sniff the blood, follow it a few feet, then get distracted by a squirrel or sound in the woods. I don’t have a clue how to train a trail dog and never found that deer.

Dogs are wonderful companions, most of the time!

I spent the week before Easter at my place at Clarks Hill “social distancing” myself and meeting DJ Hadden to get information for my May GON article.  When I called Linda on Wednesday and told her I caught a two-pounder in Broken Rod Cove and a four-pounder on Lost Hat bank, she knew exactly where I had fished.   

I think it’s a habit of fishermen and hunters to name places they frequent. Over the years Linda and I named most of the coves and points we fished. But some of the names went back a long way before that.   

When Clarks Hill was dammed it filled an old gulley that ran along a road going across the lake.  Alongside the old road, the gulley banks dropped off between five and ten feet to the water level.  We called that place The Cliffs and my church group camped there often.   

When my family first started camping we put up our tents between the old road and the gulley and spent many happy days and nights there. We swam during the day, trying to touch bottom in the “bottomless” gulley.  I found out later in life with my sonar it was about 15 feet deep but we never could go down that far.   

At night we built a fire on the edge of the cliff, put out our catfish baits and sat around the fire, often all night.  I can still smell the pine logs burning and the burn of the smoke blowing in my eyes, and hear the adults’ low voices as I tried to fight off sleep.    

The Corps of Engineers closed off the old road, denying access to the cliffs.  Then they dug out the banks of the cliffs for dirt for road construction.  The gulley is still there underwater but gone are the memory-making places on the bank.   

Lost Hat bank got its name from a windy March day Linda and I fished it.  She had bought a nice terry cloth hat with a bill and was wearing it for the first time. A gust of wind blew it off her head into the water. Unlike other caps that will float long enough to pick them up, hers sank before I could turn the boat to get it.   

A cove we fished often for crappie and bass got the name Broken Rod cove after I broke not one but two rods while fishing it one year.  We spent many happy hours dabbling minnows and jigs around button bushes when the crappie were up shallow and caught bass around its rockpiles and stumps year-round.   

Carp Cove was named after mom and I fished it one day and saw a huge carp dying on the surface.  Turtle Cove was full of willow trees in the back and there were always dozens of turtles sunning on the low limbs and trunks and keeping a wary eye on us as we fished in the spring. I could almost hear them say “please don’t get so close I have to get back in that cold water.”   

Duck Cove, Cathy’s Cove, Swallow Island and many more places were named over the years. Unfortunately, when I go to those places alone now the “ghosts” of the past haunt me.  I get too sad to really want to fish, remembering and realizing those times are gone and will never come again.

The COVID-19 virus has disrupted our world in many ways.  Fortunately, fishing is on the “essential” list and being out on the water is a good way to social distance yourself.

Pictures on “Fazebook” show that many folks are taking advantage of time off and cheap gas to go fishing.

The week before the full moon in April – last week – is considered by many to be the best week of the year to fish.  Catches on all area lakes seemed to back that up.  This week may be the second best of the year.

Although fishing is allowed, I worried about going to Alabama since I had to stay two nights in a motel. It did not help when I got to the Motel 6 where I had reservations and the door was locked. They did check-in through the night window only. And the opening was closed off, I could barely hear the proprietor asking me questions.  He did not even take my driver’s license to copy as is usual, he just copied down the number through the window. 

Since I prepaid, he did not have to touch my credit card.

I usually eat out, but this time I took prepared meals I could heat up in the microwave in my room.  And as soon as I got in the room I wiped everything down with sanitary wipes.

The Flint River Bass club canceled our tournament last weekend at Oconee.  Although we could have gone, keeping six feet apart is difficult when collecting and paying out money as well as weighing fish. And as tournament director I would have been the one handling all the money!

Safe is better than sorry. We can have a tournament later!

    I have pond scum growing in my yard where there should be grass. It looks nasty but at least I don’t have to cut it.  Part of my back and side yard has been underwater for months, killing the grass and allowing the scum to form on top.   

The water finally stopped flowing over my driveway coming from my back yard running out to the ditch at the road.  It stopped just in time for it to rain again. 

As with the virus crisis, this too will pass, and I would not be surprised if my yard dries out so much this summer the grass dies from lack of rain.   

That has happened three times since 1981 when  I moved into this house.  A very wet winter and spring followed by very dry summers.  Its not that unusual, regardless of the claims of the true believers in that “climate changie thingie.”

One of the perks of traveling around Georgia and Alabama doing research for my Map of the Month articles is exploring places to eat.  Many of the places I eat are memorable, most for the good food, some not so much. And a couple literally gave me a stomachache.  

  I love to cook and most food I cook at home is better than what I can get in restaurants.  I never look for a steak, pork chops, Italian, or any kind of country cooking since that is what I cook at home.  And my fried bass filets are good enough I won’t eat fried fish in a restaurant. But I don’t do fried seafood very well and I love fried scallops, so I seek them out. 

My second choice, usually easier to find, is fried shrimp.    I am seldom in a big city, so I eat in small towns and around the lake.  And after driving several hours to get there, I don’t want to go too far for food the first day. After spending the next day on the water getting information, I really do not want to drive far that night.

Often, small hole-in the-wall type places turn out surprisingly good. And some of them have interesting histories and backgrounds.  A few years ago, when at Logan Martin Lake near Pell City Alabama, I found “The Ark,” a little nothing looking place with a very rustic interior just off the Riverside exit on I-20.

When I walked in I was greeted by my kind of people, with accents like mine. The wood paneling was dark from years of food frying in the kitchen, and the walls were decorated with racing memorabilia. Riverside is not many miles for Talladega and many famous stock car drivers have eaten at The Ark, most loving the catfish if their autographs are any indication.

The back of the menu tells the story of “The Ark.”  Back in the early 1900s most of the counties in that area were “dry” meaning you could not buy alcohol legally. This was long before the lakes were built and the Coosa River itself was the county line of the two counties there, but they considered the edge of the rive the county line.  So, the river itself was not under the jurisdiction of either counties’ law enforcement.

E. O “Red” Thompson, being an enterprising young man, bought an old barge and anchored it in the river about 30 feet from the bank.  He made a four-foot wide walkway to it and provided tie-ups for locals with boats to access the bar onboard.

A salvaged sign from that old bar said “Beer 15 cents” and “All the catfish and hushpuppies you can eat, 60 cents.”  Apparently, many folks had “fun” there, eating catfish and drinking their favorite beverages that were illegal on the nearby bank, all during prohibition and the roaring 20s. The original Ark burned and by then laws were more liberal, so Red build a restaurant on the bank near the road.  It too burned a long time ago, but the current restaurant was built across the highway.  No dates were given, but I would guess sometime in the 1950s.

Catfish is the staple on the menu, but you can get everything from chicken livers to frog legs. The jumbo shrimp I got that first night were exceptional, very lightly battered and fried to perfection.  The cup of gumbo started the meal just right and I loved the hushpuppies served with it.

Every time I am at Logan Martin for an article, I stay at a motel about five minutes from The Ark and have eaten there several times. Last summer the Potato Creek Bass Masters fished our July tournament there and I camped about 15 minutes away for a week, driving up two nights to splurge at The Ark.

Monday I drove over to Childersburg on Lay Lake, the next lake downstream on the Coosa River.  I checked and my GPS said I was 30 miles and 45 minutes from The Ark. After the miserable three hours drive in the rain, I just could not make myself do that, so I went to “La Parrilla,” a Mexican restaurant across the street from my motel.

It was a nice surprise, with bright fresh paint, excellent service and even better food.  I thought it must be new but one of my waiters said they had been there 14 years. I had my favorite, chili rellenos, and they were as good as I have eaten.After a rainy day of fishing Tuesday, I just had to drive up to The Ark Tuesday night for dinner. As expected, it was well worth the drive and the cup of gumbo and dozen big butterflied shrimp stuffed me just right.