Not a care in the world!

I looked at the clock and it was 4:15 am....great it would be just right to get up and go to the pier.  Ah, now the clock says 5:45 am and it is too late to go to the pier.  What, now it is 7:15 am and I've slept in again.  I wanted to get up early!

After a light breakfast; cereal with fresh peaches, I decided to get the drift boat out and do another float.  I have never been south of High Bridge  I wanted to kayak it first to see the water and identify any obstacles but that never happened this summer and it is beginning fall!

So off I go and my adventure for today.  It was easy to launch the boat by myself.  I just angle the trailer slightly downstream and push it off holding the dock line.  I have never launched here before but I liked the ramp and deeper water at the launch.  There were about 8 cars and trailer in the parking lot.  They all got out early.  This is only 10 minutes from my house so no excuses for being so late to get here.

The water was nice and running smoothly.  Not too fast or too slow.  I drifted down and stood up using the oars to keep me in the middle and to move away from stumps and a few logs.  It is still a little hard to see over the bow. It was a pretty easy drift. 

 Occasionally, I would drop the anchor and fish.  The water is mostly sand and a little hard to fly fish.  I see why they mainly use plugs or spawn sacs here.  I beached the boat on a sand bar around a couple of corners.

As I was casting from shore I hear a huge splash in in the corner.  I walked over and saw a small, shallow creek inlet.  A large dark salmon was thrasing on it's side.  I moved the boat over and was able to net it.

You can see how dark the salmon is after entering the river from Lake Michigan.  I took his picture and released him out in the main river.  Hope he makes it to the spawning beds.

As I drifted down river and other drift boat was motoring up towards me.  A man and two young girls had been fishing downstream.  He said it was the last day for the girls as they start school tomorrow.

I think this river is so pretty.  It was quiet and peaceful.  No one was around and  I had 'not a care in the world'. It was an hour float and it only took 15 minutes to slowly motor back upstream to the launch site.

I saw several fish jump and splash.  Several salmon were spooked when I drifted over them.  The main bunch of salmon are still in the lake and a bunch are downstream of where I was at.  Maybe tomorrow I'll explore a little further down this beautiful river.