I have been trying to keep in shape, so I have been taking my bicycle with me wherever I go. Last week, I also had a kayak with me most of the week, and I did get out paddling twice last week. The kayak on the roof of the car is an instant conversation starter. People want to tell me about their kayaking experiences. Sometimes they want to hear a bit about mine. On of the big questions we paddlers always ask each other is, “Where do you paddle?” My usual answer to the question is Sheridan Lake. It is close, convenient, and a beautiful place to paddle.

People who have been around the area sometimes make a face or turn their noses up at Sheridan Lake. I’ve heard about how it is too crowded, too noisy, too filled with powerboats. I guess that is true part of the time, but I never have any trouble when I want to paddle on the lake. Yesterday morning was a good example.

I do have the advantage of having Monday as my day off. It is still too early in the season for there to be many campers in the campground, so my companions on the lake will be mostly retired folks. I’m not retired, so instead of lingering over the newspaper with my second cup of coffee, I put my first cup of coffee into an insulated mug and head for the lake. I was on the water by 7 a.m., and I had the lake to myself.

Even if there had been fishermen on the lake, I know how to get some alone time, so I headed for the inlet. I usually launch at the north campground. From there it is 400 paddle strokes to the inlet. I counted them yesterday for some reason. As I pulled into the inlet, I paused for a moment to warm my hands. I had used my paddling gloves when riding my bicycle last week, and they weren’t in the pocket of my paddling jacket. With frost on the ground, it was cool and my hands were chilly. My toes, however, were toasty warm inside the kayak. With a spray skirt, a kayak is a warm place to sit despite being right on the surface of all of that cold water.

The sun was adding its warmth and as I blew on my fingers, I could listen to the twitter of the Red Wing Black Birds. They love to nest in the cattails and there were a lot of them chattering to each other. Even in the busy days of summer, I can have the inlet to myself. It is to narrow for the motorboats, and the fishing may not be too good up there anyway. I’m not sure about that.

I paddled by a beaver lodge that had been abandoned. I don’t know if the conditions are enough different from last year when it was so wet that the beaver decided on a new location. Perhaps his family circumstances changed. Perhaps he got caught in the mortgage bust. It is hard telling. I didn’t see much fresh beaver evidence. It is possible that the beaver has moved along for now.

My wooden kayak is very quiet in the water. When I go slowly and am careful about how I put the paddle into the water, I am nearly silent. That gives me a good platform for listening to the sounds of nature. I can, of course, hear vehicles on the highway as they pass. They, however, probably don’t notice me. I have the entire inlet to myself and am enjoying looking around and thinking about the various critters that call it home. I kept my eyes pealed for otters, but they are hard to glimpse and I didn’t see any yesterday.

The geese are noisy, as usual. I think that these honkers are tourists. I haven’t noticed geese nesting on Sheridan Lake in the past. There are plenty of ducks and I know of at least three pairs of great blue herons, but I don’t remember ever seeing goslings paddling around the lake. Like most tourists, they probably aren’t even aware how noisy they are. A couple of geese can sound like twenty when their cries echo off of the rock faces that surround the lake. As I paddle back across the lake, I encounter a pair. One is on a rock at the edge of the lake. The other is in the lake. They seem to have quite a bit of chatter going on between them. I imagine that they are a couple arguing, though about what I can’t figure. They seem to be practiced at honking at each other, but they are less practiced at listening. The cries of the mate seem to have no impact on either of them except that they honk loudly in response.

I swing by a place where I am pretty sure I can find a great blue heron and I am not disappointed. The birds look awkward standing in the water, but they are graceful flyers and it always amazes me how quickly they can take to the air. Ducks are like that, too. They don’t’ seem to need a runway at all. They just launch from wherever they are. The ducks often fly when they think that I have come too close. These days, however, they don’t fly very far, just enough to keep their distance.

I watched the trout rising to capture the bugs – a sign that things are warming a bit so that the bugs are out and about, flying close to the surface of the water.

By the time I got back to the launch point, there was a fishing boat being backed down the boat ramp. It was a beautiful new Lund with a Mercury outboard, on a trailer behind a new Silverado pickup. There are quite a few things required to launch such a boat and I had my kayak secured to the roof of my car before he had his pickup parked.

I was sipping my second cup of coffee from the thermos by the time he got his boat started. A second boat was on its way down the ramp.

I have no envy for those with the fancy fishing boats. I’m quite happy with my little kayak. But neither do I have any problems sharing the lake with them. They weren’t in my way and I’m sure I wasn’t in theirs.

Despite what some other paddlers think, there’s plenty of room on the lake for us all, especially early on a chilly Monday morning.

Copyright © 2012 by Ted Huffman. I wrote this. If you want to copy it, please ask for permission. There is a contact me button at the bottom of this page. If you want to share my blog a friend, please direct your friend to my web site.