My grandfather, John Westerfield, had a lake cottage on Goose Lake in Whitley County. It was a smaller lake that had great fishing. We used to fly fish off this pier, and I'd tie my boat to the side of the pier. I don't have many photographs of him, because he didn't like being photographed like my other grandpa did. I wish I had done so anyway.
One morning, I woke up to hear Grandpa yelling at something outside. I looked out toward the lake to see a Great Blue Heron flying away from the pier. Grandpa told me what happened: "Goddamned bird was stealing our fish!" We had a floating fish basket tied to the end of the pier. It had a spring-loaded lid that let us drop live fish into it, but kept them from getting out.
The Heron, a bird that normally wades in shallow water and catches fish to eat, had discovered a ready-packaged meal in our fish basket, full of fish from the previous evening's fishing! It had stolen and swallowed a number of large bluegills before Grandpa chased it away!
This photograph was made right after Grandpa had died from lung cancer. I went up to the lake house to get our fishing gear and my boat because my grandma was planning to sell the cottage. She never liked going there, and had thought that Grandpa had wasted the money to buy it years earlier.
Spring of 1999
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