Two of my sons, Sean and Ian, and my good friend Clark, took me to paddle at Hovey Lake for Fathers’ Day. It is a beautiful place. Last I heard it’s still the northernmost stand of cypress trees known in the US.
I hadn’t been there in forty years. We had a great time. There’s just something about paddling around amongst the trees.
And it’s shady and cool on a hot summer day. We were paddling and joking and laughing and listening to my little JBL Charge 3 waterproof speaker system having a grand time. (Sean helped me verify that the first one I had was indeed waterproof by dumping me out of my old Mohawk into Loon Pit last summer and sinking my boat. The JBL kept right on playing.) The boys and I were in canoes: I in the sixteen foot purple Columba solo that Benjamin at Nighthawk Canoes was kind enough to loan me until he gets my new Cygnus finished, Sean in his fourteen foot Mohawk Jensen solo like the one I used to have until recently, which I bought for him when he was around six or seven, Ian in Clark’s little thirteen foot white boat he gave to Sean because he wanted something more stable, and Clark was perched on top of his highly modified blue sit-on-top kayak. Clark likes to be comfortable these days, and he likes to tinker. He really comes up with some good ideas.
Clark was telling Ian how stable his kayak is, and how far he can lean in it without it capsizing. Drum-roll and accompaniment, please!
A gust of wind caught him broadside just as he demonstrated.
He will never hear the end of it. We were out in the middle of the lake with no place for him to get out and get back on, so we helped stabilize his boat so he could crawl back up on it. We all shouted at him, “Makin’ memories, Clark! Makin’ memories!” The rest of the day went flawlessly, aside from the fact we found out Hovey is now home to the infamous Asian Flying Carp. They are a lot of fun to watch, but they can take your head right off. They are big fish. Fortunately we didn’t stir them up with our boats, but as we were headed back to the ramp we watched a pontoon boat headed in, and they were everywhere. They literally jumped over a fairly large craft. You’ve probably seen videos. At any rate, with them in there the fishing at Hovey has certainly declined. None of us had a strike all day. We didn’t really care. Mostly, we just like to goof off and paddle. And it is a beautiful place.
Some days life doesn’t suck.
It was damn fun.
Yes it was!