Burn ban hinders campsite fires at county lake
By TOOTSIE SNELLING
Marion County Park & Lake Reporter
Just heard on the scanner that the fire ban has been lifted. Thank goodness, that will make our campers happy, as Dale was busy Friday and Saturday nights with his little bucket of water making campers put out their fires, and making for some unhappy people. Can't say I blame them, it's no fun trying to roast hot dogs and marshmallows over charcoal, but we realized it was necessary with the water situation and am glad it's all resolved now.
We had a Salina bass club here Saturday morning. There were about 14 fishermen in two-man fishing boats. They started around 6 a.m. and fished until 2 p.m. They reported having a good day, catching lots of fish, but not too many big ones. They are a catch and release club, but they measure all fish 12" and above. Wipers was the number one fish caught.
A fisherman from Newton tells us he has been catching several nice wipers, fishing late in the evening using top water. He waits until he sees a school of wipers hitting the top of the water, then he motors over into them and throws his top water lure that looks like a shad, and he has been catching several nice ones.
We've had more reports of crappie being taken around the lake and they still have eggs in them. But, they only seem to catch three or four at a time. I guess four nice crappie will make a nice mess.
The channel cat fishing has slowed a little, Dale is thinking they are getting ready to spawn. The drum still are biting good on worms.
The Hillsboro Leo Club sponsored a group of youngsters that picked up trash around the lake Saturday afternoon. They met at the beach area and finished with a picnic supper. There were about a dozen of them coming from the Scranton and Hillsboro areas, ages were from 12 to 17. LEO stands for leadership, experience, and opportunity. I believe it is a youth service organization of the Lions Club. We appreciate their work. They gathered about eight small bags of trash and commented that this was a clean lake and they had to look hard for trash to pick up.
Speaking of trash, someone continues to put trash, grass clippings and limbs into lake hoppers and the trash men won't pick them up. I know the weekenders don't read this news, but if you know of anyone putting trash into the hoppers, PLEASE let us know so we can inform them not to do it.
We had two family reunions over the weekend. One, the Bozones, drew several campers. The Palmer reunion had several campers from Oklahoma and other areas of Kansas. They have been coming here since before us, 40 plus years!
The wheat harvest is getting into full swing. Coming back from Salina last week we saw several fields being cut. Watch out for the big, full trucks, they don't go as fast as a car, so give them room.
