16x20
Oil on Linen
SOLD
Lately it has been too hot to set up an easel and try some marsh scenes. Having just returned from Emerald Isle with the easel never leaving the truck and having to postpone a couple of day trips to Beaufort and Morehead this week to paint, I decided to look at some pictures I had taken a while back in John's Ditch - the shortcut from Pirates Cove Marina to the North end of Wanchese that snakes through the marsh on Roanoke Sound. On a crisp early morning, the sun can really light this place up with brilliant warm colors.
Following my self-imposed rule to never leave the house without my camera, I hopped in the truck with a buddy before sunrise late last summer to put his boat over in Manteo and throw the cast net for some live bait to take to Oregon Inlet and drift for flounder. To me this exercise is as much fun as hooking a flounder - especially when kids are in the boat all grabbing at the glittering catch flopping in the net.
As the sun slowly crept up, I was driving while my friend stood on the bow and looked for the ripple of schooling minnows. The trick is to slowly drift towards the small fish until the "thrower" gives the signal to the "driver" to take the boat out of gear so it will either stop or barely drift towards the target. The signal is usually just the uttered word "alright" for those without an Eastern North Carolina twang. In our case it is better understood as "AH-ITE" and that is when the propeller stops and shortly afterwards the folded cast net is thrown into a circular lasso to hopefully trap the minnows as it hits the water fully stretched.
After I would get us in position to throw the net, I would try to get a pic of the net in mid-air with my camera. This interrupted the synchronicity of the team effort to land this bait as my timing was thrown off trying to steer, control the throttle, and take pictures all at the same time. Finally, my friend said that we had come to fish - not to paint and to put the damn camera down. Luckily, I had already snapped a shot of what I thought really captured both the art of throwing a net for live bait and the beauty of the marshes in and around Roanoke Island in the early morning.
After I would get us in position to throw the net, I would try to get a pic of the net in mid-air with my camera. This interrupted the synchronicity of the team effort to land this bait as my timing was thrown off trying to steer, control the throttle, and take pictures all at the same time. Finally, my friend said that we had come to fish - not to paint and to put the damn camera down. Luckily, I had already snapped a shot of what I thought really captured both the art of throwing a net for live bait and the beauty of the marshes in and around Roanoke Island in the early morning.
