After a crazy day at work, my friend and I decided to go fishing. We decided to use the only boat available even though it was not in the greatest shape. It was held together with a lot of gorilla tape, flex seal, and JB weld. But we were determined, so we headed for the beaver ponds with the boat in tow.
We arrived, tested the boat to make sure it was not going to take on water, then we loaded our gear, climbed in and headed out. The boat was small and shaky at first and we had to use paddles. But it was floating and that’s all that mattered.
The beaver ponds were full of wind falls, brush and other obstacles. We had to slowly pick our way around, up and over and through them. We were doing good when we hit one, and with a crack, and a thump we were dead in the water. We both pushed, shoved, shook, and finally the boat came out of the tangled mess.
We were paddling deeper into the dark debris tangled water. The only two things standing between us and the fishing hole, was a group of cypress knees and the dam. We would have to get out of the boat, pull it up the side of the dam, and place it back in the water.
It was at this point, my friend decided to stand up in the back of the boat, while I stayed seated in the front. The plan was for her to get out and push, and for me to pull. Moving the front over first the then rocking the back over the debris. She was standing on her left foot, right foot in the air, holding on to a tree, swinging back and forth, saying “I got it, no I do not” as I pulled the boat up, hearing a splash, I looked to see her standing in waist deep water with lily pads floating around her.
She stood there, not saying a word with her eyes the size of saucers, mouth dropped open, covered in smelly swamp water as it dripped down her face and arms. The only thing I could do without laughing, was climb back and hold out my hand to help her. It took a kick or two, but she finally freed herself from the mud and lily pads. Then she flipped back into the boat, and we just sit there looking at each other laughing.
By the time we made it to the fishing hole, it was really too dark to fish. But we had fought too hard to get there so we were determined to fish at least a couple minutes. We used a flashlight and dropped our hooks in the water a few times. We only caught one. It was getting late and the moon was coming up and the bugs were starting to bite. It started to get chilly, and we were wet from the waist down, so we headed back.
We made our way back the way we had come. Paddling back to the dam, using a small beam from a flashlight to shine the way, we pushed the boat over the dam into the lower pond. We managed to find our way around even though it was now dark, avoiding most of the debris. As I paddled, the beam from the light was revealed eyes in the darkness. We realized the eyes were something good, big fat Bullfrogs! So we went from fishing to frog gigging! We pulled frogs from everywhere. We pulled them from the trees, tuffs of grass, tiny pieces of land, and the water. In our excitement we forgot to take pictures of the frogs to share. But we had a nice catch, and we called it quits.
We paddled our way back to the launch site. Pulled the beat up old boat, and our gear from the water, and headed for home with another story to tell. We drove along talking about our adventure. We were surprised at how well the old boat had held up through al the bumps and bangs. And how lucky we were it didn’t sink, and that’s when we decided that next time we weren’t going to chance that old boat, we were just going to walk.
