Fishing

10-16-2021
I go running on a trail at Lake Lewisville pretty often. The trailhead is at a park that is 5 miles from my house, and the trail runs along the edge of the lake. I decided one day, after my run, to go to the closest access point to the lake, which is a short walk from the trailhead, and go fishing. 

From the looks of the water color, close to the shore was really shallow, and then a little ways out it looked to get deeper, as the water was darker green. I waded out a little ways to where I could cast to the deeper water. 

I caught one keeper size sand bass, and couple of other small fish, one being another sand bass, and another was a largemouth. All were caught on a white Roostertail inline spinner.

It was really fun. The weather was awesome, and water was not too cold for wading.

10-17-2021
The next day, I tried again. This time it was the late afternoon and the sun was setting. It was beautiful, but I didn't catch any fish. I tried a few different lures. I tried a couple of different color Roostertails, a Beetle spin, and another one that I can't remember.

10-23-2021
I went back the following week. This time, I had in mind to keep a few fish if I caught enough for a meal. I fished again with Roostertails.

I caught a 10+ inch sand bass, two really small largemouth bass, and another largemouth bass that was really close to being legal size, which is 14 inches. My intention was to only keep sand bass, or maybe if I caught some crappie or catfish, but I would have kept the largemouth if I were sure it was legal, as the catching slowed, and the other fish I caught were way too small to keep.

It was another awesome afternoon of fishing. The weather again was perfect.

and the battle begins

and

I win

Duolingo day 57

Well, I'm not sure how to judge my progress. I am more confident in the content I've learned, but I'm still so far away from having a conversation in Spanish. I have a decent grasp on what I've learned so far. I say it that way, as you could just memorize words and phrases, and that is great, and hard to do, but to know "why" you use certain words is another thing.

Estoy aprender pero muy lento. Esta muy dificil. Estoy no comodo hablar con personas. Estoy muy nervioso hablando español.

I typed the sentences above from memory. I completely understand the words and phrases. The problem is that if some else said those things at the speed most people speak, I would really have to think about it to figure out what they are saying. It wouldn't take me long, but it wouldn't just click that I heard this...

"I am learning, but very slow. It's very difficult. I am not comfortable talking to people. I am very nervous speaking Spanish."

Again, I'm not sure how to judge my progress. I hear horror stories of people studying for years and still can't follow conversations, and then I hear others say they worked around a lot of Spanish speaking people and just picked it up. I know it would be easier to be around people speaking Spanish, and there are a lot of people around here that speak Spanish, but they are not all people I'm comfortable asking to help me learn, or be patient with me while I try to hear and speak a few things. 

I do have some friends that are helping, but I don't want to abuse that generosity, so I don't beat them down with it every time I see them. 

I've tried a couple of times to speak to people, and it was OK. They understood me, and one person even said my pronunciation was very good. But those were just a few sentences, and when they replied, I didn't fully understand what they were saying. 

I'm sticking with it, but it's hard to picture myself "getting it". We'll see.

Spanish, what's up with that?

I am on my 30th day in a row using the Duolingo app to learn Spanish. I have the app set to where my daily goal is 20 minutes a day (50  XP), and I have reached that everyday, and most days have spent probably 30-45 minutes a day. I have no way of knowing if I'm on the right track and that my progress is where it should be. I cannot hold conversation in Spanish to any real degree. I know a lot of words and phrases now, but the few times I have attempted to have a simple conversation with someone in Spanish, I quickly hit a road block. 

Everyone says it's about immersion, and getting the language familiar by lots of exposure. That all makes sense, but I'm not sure how to go about that. I've listened to some Spanish radio, podcasts, etc, and even watched a couple of movies in Spanish. I have no way of knowing if that's helping. The Duolingo lessons are teaching me a lot, I think, but there's a certain level of comfort and familiarity with the app, and how it presents lessons, that has me doing really well in the app, but when I go outside of that, I'm a bit lost.

I'll keep at it and see where it takes me.