Rescuing Roscoe

"See, Roscoe. That's why we want you to stay in the boat," Nathaniel said in a parent-like tone to the lizard that had opted to join us on the water as I unhooked a bass and showed its big mouth to our new friend.

Nathaniel had noticed the lizard about 15 minutes into our beaver pond outing, so we assume he was on the boat when Nathaniel pushed the johnbaot into the water. At first he just hung out on the back corner, next to Nathaniel, but eventually he began moving about the boat and acting more nervous, seemingly realizing there was nowhere to go. On a few occasions, Roscoe jumped out or fell. We couldn't tell which, but on each occasion we rescued Rescue from the drink and issued a warning. I believe it was on one such occasion when Nathaniel dubbed the lizard Roscoe.

Toward the end our short outing, keeping Roscoe in the boat till we got him safely to shore became more of an effort. The water was exceptionally low, and Nathaniel had to push pole us across an inches-deep backwater to reach land. The only path to shore was surrounded by high emergent grass that Roscoe really wanted to jump out onto. That grass wasn't connected to shore, though, and we were pretty certain Roscoe would drown or become bass candy if we let him escape short of the bank, so we kept sliding him back down to the bottom of the boat until we got all the way to shore, at which point Nathaniel gave Roscoe a rod tip ride to dry ground.

The bite was slow on the beaver pond yesterday. In fact, that fish I showed Roscoe represented our lone hit. Therefore discovering a lizard aboard and keeping him in the boat really was the highlight of the beaver pond outing.