Any body kayak?

A few pics from our trip Saturday at Rock Island State Park. In the third picture, it's hard to see, but we are parked under a bluff behind a line of small waterfalls trickling off the bluff above keeping the temperature about twenty degrees cooler than the surrounding areas. We stopped there for a snack and a beer or two. I could kick myself for not packing a few cigars for this trip. I'll do better next time.

There is obviously something wrong with me. It's a good thing I sold two kayaks a few weeks ago because it freed up almost enough space for the three more I just got.


The last one I haven't taken any photos of so here's something off the internet,...

This is the first fish I ever caught from a kayak. I had a blast catching six of these little predators. I saw some minnows schooling and getting pursued by something bigger so I casted across that and it worked and they kept biting.

So kayaks are like cigars, the new ones are better than last year releases.

So, my girlfriend, Debbie has some hiking buddies, and they also want to be Kayak buddies. So, a few of them and I picked an adventure to go on this past Saturday, to the largest waterfall that I have ever been this close to before. Burgess Falls. I’ve been here twice before and it was flowing heavy the first time We kayaked to it, and flowing much lighter on my second trip, but this time, due to recent rain, it was roaring, and you could not get within 100yards of this thing without feeling like you were in a thunderstorm downpour. we got soaked within 30 seconds of us trying to take a picture or two. Plus, the water was flowing, rather swiftly near the base of the falls, and I was concerned about our safety, especially for our less experienced paddlers who were getting their **** kicked by the current, and I got a bit bossy about telling them where not to go and where to go instead and how hard to paddle to get there. But I didn’t care what they thought that as long as nobody drowned. And nobody did. So good trip for the first trip of the season and first trip in my new kayak. After Debbie and I got back, we were discussing our outing, and she laughed about how I should feel about going on a trip with a bunch of women and asked if I’d rather have gone with a bunch of men and I didn’t hesitate. Yes.

The highlight of the trip for me was a little moment I shall not deny made me feel like I was king of the lake. On the way back from the falls and after we had rafted up and ate our lunch, I paddled out ahead of the gals while they were piddling around with their fishing rods. I decided to stop and wait for them. I found a partially submerged log in the shade of a bend in the channel. I ran up on it to hold myself there with my back to the bank and my nose pointed across the channel. I went in my drybag, fired up an AJ Last Call, leaned the backrest way back and propped my bare feet up over the cockpit. A parade of kayakers paddled by in each direction about fifteen feet out ahead of me and before long a young pretty girl in her mid-twenties paddling upstream was half smiling at me as she approached. I was certain she was going to tell me she liked the smell, but she floored me with "You've got this figured out". My reply: "It's evolving". Made my day.