Monday, August 27, 2012

Backyard Pond Exploration

What started yesterday as a leisure trip to the family pond to paddle, swim, and fly fish a bit quickly turned into a full on adventure when Hadley said that she wanted to see where the pond started.  This long slender pond which flows through my wife's family property is the result of damming a creek some fifty or sixty years ago.  The forest that lined the creek has been underwater for decades and provides structure for the bass and bluegill that live there.



 I've done a bit of exploring in the upper pond over the years but never as far as we did yesterday.  We followed the winding cut of the creek deep into the woods and found a beaver pond.  All three of us continued on in the Versa Board and left the Ultimate behind since I figured at some point the water was going to get so skinny (which it did) that taking two kayaks would make for a tough go (which it was).



The creek continued past the first beaver dam and deeper into the creek we found a second beaver dam which we pulled the Versa Board over.  After the second beaver pond we found the creek trough to be just about as wide as the paddle board and getting skinner and skinner as well as the forest getting thicker and thicker. 

We'd finally gone as far as was possible and needed to turn around which took a bit of maneuvering to get turned around.  Hadley was a bit disappointed since she was hoping we could go all the way to the next pond which the creek flows out of.  Finn was happy to turn around as his sense of exploration was waning. 




Of course no day on the family pond is complete without catching a few bluegill to get a fix while the children swam and played with Otis.

Good times and Hadley (maybe Finn too) is already plotting our return.

1 comment:

Bjornorama said...

I need a backyard pond.