With The Bicycle Diaries in the hands of the binder, I was able, at last, to get back on the river, setting out early in the morning of August 17. Attempts at catching fish were futile, but while working my way up the river I began to notice large fish floating down the river. I discovered that six of them were paddlefish: each about three feet long. I had seen one before, alive, but only briefly as it leaped from the water next to my boat. In an attempt to take full advantage of this opportunity to examine a paddlefish more closely, I tried to lift the tail of one, but when I lifted I could hear the gurgling of air bubbles moving through the tail toward it’s bloated belly–not a pleasant sound. I left the fish in the water.
The paddlefish gill is covered by a long, thin, pointed flap that is peppered with a pattern of black spots that continue across the snout of the fish’s paddle. The skin appears scaleless, and leathery.
Back in the studio, besides dealing with an array of last minute binding decisions, and attending to various other Bicycle Diaries production details, I’ve been preparing the color blocks for the river image Moxostoma macrolepidotum, the shorthead redhorse.
The Bicycle Diaries: the final press run.