Row, Row, Row Your Boat

The heat of summer reduces the chores in the garden.  Basically the only thing growing right now are peanuts, sweet potatoes, basil, green onions and lima beans and I already weeded them.  So there wasn’t much to do in the sun-baked garden.  Russ came in from college and it was a nice time to visit with him.  Saturday just seemed like a perfect, albeit hot, day to put “The Garfish,” our canoe, in the water.  Tricia did not want to participate in our excursion as she’s not fond of the alligators that lurk in the muddy waters.  She likes clear water where you can see the bottom.  There’s not much of that around here.

We pulled the seaworthy vessel from its resting place in the garage, loaded it in Russ’ pickup and drove a couple of miles to the end of a dirt road.  It dead-ends right in the bayou.  We dodged numerous cypress knees and a water moccasin to put her in the water.  When it rains Bayou Nezpique overflows her banks and fills sloughs with water.  When the water level subsides, it traps water in these sloughs.  We have to put the canoe in the slough paddling for a short bit until we hit dry land and then we carry the Garfish and put her into the Bayou.  Here is a picture of that slough, filled with tupelo gum trees.  It is truly a beautiful place, I think.

You can see the water level is low based on the water marks on the trees.  Russ and I had a hard time getting the Garfish to the other side as we hit numerous logs on the way.  Finally we made it to the bank of the Nezpique.  Wild muscadines littered the forest floor and crows could be heard in the treetops.  It was a very hot and humid day, but under the canopy of huge cypress trees, it was cool and shady.

Bayou Nezpique makes its slow, lazy journey and empties into the Mermentau River, which empties into Lake Arthur.  Rice farmers are letting the water off of their rice fields for harvest now and much of that water makes its way into the bayou, slow-moving and the color of chocolate milk.

We set our noodle fishing lines out and then threw our fishing lines baited with earthworms into the water.  It didn’t look promising for the fishing due to the muddy water, but we patiently threw our lines out there.

No bites.  None.  As we paddled to try different spots, we noticed huge wasp nests filled with angry red wasps hanging in the cypress limbs.  We tried to steer clear.  Russ had been stung recently and is not a fan of wasps.

We gave up on the fishing and decided to just explore, looking at the different types of trees that lined the bank.  We did see some garfish and buffalo carp jumping, but no success getting anything to bite.  We found a muddy area that had wild hog tracks running through it right off the main channel of the bayou and saw that it opened up to a larger tributary and decided to try to paddle through it.  Paddling through the rotten, muddy area caused bubbles to filter up, bringing with it the stench of decaying leaves or other nasty stuff to the surface.  

We paddled on and found ourselves in a lonely, dark area and as we continued paddling we saw that we were circling back.  There was an island in there.  I had never noticed that.  We heard the rumbling of thunder and decided to turn the Garfish back toward the main channel, pick up our noodle lines and head home.  We paddled quickly out and successfully beat the rain.

No fish were caught, but it was a nice afternoon experience not far from home, getting to experience the beauty of nature on a steamy, sultry, Saturday afternoon.