Had been watching the winter flows stabilizing on the gauge and noticed the unseasonably warm temps in the forecast, so I alerted ARonthefly to fake an illness or something so we could get the yaks out on some
warm water before actual winter decided to show up and shut the brown fish down for the next few months. In truth, I fully expected it to be slow, but hoped we might dredge the deep pools and get lucky with a big walleye.
We'd been planning on running this section for a while. Neither of us are what you'd call real whitewater kayakers, but the American Whitewater website characterized this float as "Class 2-3" and advised paddlers to have "some skill at maneuvering and avoiding obstacles" before attempting this run, so we decided to take our chances despite the frigid water and lack of actual whitewater boats.
Always great to start a day heading down a dirt road.
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Dropped the Taco off at the takeout and headed back upstream to get in the river.
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When we put in, the air temp was about 43. Drysuits probably would've been a good idea. Instead we just cranked down our wading belts and PFDs. If one of us flipped, we'd get wet, but we had extra clothes in dry bags. AR also brought along one of those fire logs just in case things got urgent, but like Billy Joel, we'd end up not need it.
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We hit a few little riffles right off the bat. They were no problem, and we both started thinking this was going to be a piece of cake. We weren't having much luck with the fish, but the scenery was nice.
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After a couple miles and a big flatwater stretch, we heard a low rumble off in the distance. As we came up to, we figured we'd better get out and have a look.
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Hmm....
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Hell, might as well run it.
http://youtu.be/xIOJ8tp5jr8 (http://youtu.be/xIOJ8tp5jr8)
No idea why the quality of that video is so bad. Looks great on my phone.
Anyway, it turns out that section was a little more difficult to maneuver than it looked like. And it also turned out that the rest of our paddle would be through similar type rapids all the way down. Some a little worse. While the fishing was slow, it really wasn't a problem because just making it down the river took plenty of time, energy and attention.
Along the way, we also passed this crazy looking rock in the river that resembled some sort of ancient and mysterious grain storage structure.
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Yours truly.
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So anyway, it was a hell of a time. And the majesty of an undeveloped river never disappoints. AR managed to catch two smallies, I got the skunk. And wouldnt you know it, the one picture I got of a fish was totally out of focus.
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Thanks for looking. Keep fishing. Mahalo.