Fishing

I have a red eared slider turtle, Archimedes, who likes to eat little fishes. For a little while I was buying them at the pet store, but then we moved into this house where we are now, and there is a drainage ditch that runs right behind our house. It occured to me one day that there were probably little minnows in the living the in the ditch water.
The water level goes up and down, depending on if it's rained recently or not. In this picture it had been raining off and on for a couple of days, so the water level was kind of high. During a break in the storms, I walked up and snapped a picture. (Our house is the last gray one, right before the green one on the end.)

One day, I decided to try my luck at "fishing." So, with my butterfly net (purchased for this specific purpose), and my handy pickle jar (also used for catching frogs) I headed on down. I caught a whole bunch of little fishes and ghost shrimp! Archimedes loved the ghost shrimp!

I carefully crouch on the concrete sides and scoop with my net in the water. I say carefully 'cause it's actually fairly steep, I think to discourage people from playing on it, and I don't want to fall in! It looks slimy and gross!

A little while later, after a few more big storms, I went to go down a fish again, 'cause Archimedes was getting low on fishes. Everything was going so well! I had caught lots of fishes, I was having fun, and contemplating maybe puddling in the water to scare up a frog or two... When I happened to notice that there was a brown dead puppy floating in the water coming towards me! So, I went home. And didn't go back again for quite some time... Ewwww!

I like the fish that live in the water. And the turtles. And the frogs (lots and lots of frogs!).
I can deal with the funky smells that come from the ditch. And the moss. And the mosquitoes.
But I draw the line at dead animals!
The sad thing is the puppy looked just like some puppies that my neighbor had and was trying to get rid of... I'm not suggesting anything, just mentioning... It's either a tragic accident or a cruel person... It makes me sad just thinking of it...