Reel In Bob's Beer & Bait - It Delivers!

by Elmer Prather, guest blogger

My latest puzzle is a 1000-piece titled Bob’s Beer & Bait by Bigelow Illustrations. Before I spend the time putting a puzzle together, I must have a connection to it. My connection to this puzzle is a fishing trip two of my friends and I took on the Saint John’s River in Florida.

Pictures tell a story and the story I read as I looked at the puzzle picture was of a tranquil, quaint store where customers who lived on or near the river could purchase beer, bait, and all types of food. The sign on the back of the boat docked in front of the store reads they even “Deliver on the River.”

The colors in the picture are amazing. There are several shades of red on the buildings and the boat and the striking blue water is shimmering as it reflects part of the front of the store. There are five Canadian Geese flying over the building and an eastern brown pelican sitting on a support beam in front of the store.

 As I mentioned earlier, we were fishing on the Saint Johns River in Florida.  The Saint Johns River is one of the few rivers that flows north in North America. We launched our sixteen-foot boat in Lake George which is located seventy-five miles south of Jacksonville, Florida. We motored out of Lake George on the Saint Johns River and drove the boat to where the Saint Johns River empties into the Atlantic Ocean in Jacksonville.

 As we started up the river, we would drive the boat for a while, and we would stop and fish for a while. As we traversed the river, we came upon several abandoned orange groves that had trees still producing oranges, so we helped ourselves to all we wanted. Late in the afternoon we saw a massive storm rolling up the river so we pulled over to the shore where we saw a dock with a table where we could cook our fish and have dinner. The dock also had a boat shelter attached. We determined that the home where the dock was located was a vacation home, so we made ourselves at home on the dock. We used a Coleman stove to cook some of the fish we had caught. By the time the storm had found its way to the dock we had finished dinner and had parked the boat under the boat shelter so that we were out of the weather. We made the best of sleeping accommodations on the boat that night. 

The next morning, we got up early, made coffee then headed for Jacksonville. As time went by, we noticed that we were running low on gas. There were very few places to purchase gas on the river but when we finally found one, we pulled the boat over and had the attendant fill the gas tanks. This service station/grocery store was used by many of the locals that lived on the river and visitors like us. When I saw Bob’s Beer & Bait shop in the puzzle picture, I was amazed at how much it looked like the place we purchased gas for the boat. These similarities drew me to this puzzle, and I just had to put it together. I was extremely pleased with how the puzzle looked when it was completed.

Elmer Prather
Canton, Georgia
U S A