Labor Day River Trip

Not more than a hundred yards from where we launched, the water runs swiftly under a sycamore tree tilting out from the bank only a few feet above the water. SY in the bow yells and leans hard to the right. C, in the middle, having been in a canoe many times, drops down. I catch the tree and hold the boat still. SY’s hat is caught in the tree. Reaching out, she knocks it in the water and fishes it out with her hand. Eeww, she whines. The trip isn’t starting out well.

“Don’t lean to the side,” I instruct before we leave the tree. SY has never been in a canoe. “If we’re going under brush, lean forward with the canoe.” SY practices. The survival instinct is strong across cultures; whenever we were within 50 feet of a limb, she ducks into the front of the canoe.

It’s a risky proposition, talking my daughter C and SY, our exchange student on a river trip. SY has been here less than a week. But it’s a beautiful day and this will be an experience she’ll remember. I give her some basic instructions on paddling and we push off into the Thornapple, leaving the town behind. Mostly the trip is uneventful. The near mishap with the sycamore is the closest we come to swimming. There’s a large maple across the river, requiring us to get out of the boat, balancing ourselves on the log, while hauling the boat over it. Although we’re in no danger, she’s a bit nervous. I suppose standing out in the middle of the river on a log isn’t a trait that comes naturally.

The river is low, normal for this late in the season. Over many gravel bars, we find ourselves walking, pulling the canoe. In other areas, long green weeds grow in the water, hiding rocks just below surface. The weeds, stretching down river, wave with the current.

When we tire of paddling, I pull out a small rod and cast a spinner into any shaded hole along the bank. On my third cast, I get a strike. The fish comes to the surface; jumps clear out of the water and dives. SY yells, “What is it?” I loosen the drag and play him for a few minutes, tiring him out before reeling him in. It’s by no means the largest bass I caught this summer, but he’s a nice one. Holding him up for SY to see, I tell her that we now have dinner. “But I don’t eat fish,” she says.

“What,” I think to myself. “A Korean that doesn’t eat fish, that’d be like an American kid that doesn’t eat hot dogs and hamburgers. My daughter doesn’t eat hot dogs or hamburgers. She’ll eat a cheeseburger, as long as you hold the burger.

“You don’t eat fish,” I ask?

“No, I don’t like it,” she says.

“I ate all kinds of fish in Korea, broiled fish, fried fish, stewed fish and even raw fish,” I confess, hoping she’ll admit to liking one kind of fish.

“But I don’t like any of them,” she insists.

I catch a few more bass, but they’re all too small to keep.

A bit later, we stop on a sandbar for lunch. C. has bagels and cream cheese. SY and I have sandwiches. She also offers me a square of seaweed. I take it, crumble it into my mouth, much as if I was taking a chew of tobacco, and watch my daughter make a disgusting face.

After lunch, the water slows as we enter the backwaters of Irvin Dam. We see many herons and ducks and in the mill pond at Irvin is the home of several swans. I hook a Great Northern Pike. SY gets all excited as struggle to reel him up to the boat. Excited, she jumps around, tipping the boat back and forth. “It’s so big,” she shouts when she spots him in the water. The fish has no intention to getting too close to the boat and runs back out. I let him have line, before bringing him back to the boat. He may be 18 inches, well short of the 24 inch limit for ‘northerns. I let him go. A few minutes later we arrive at the take out just above the dam. Both SY and C are ready to get off the river.

Thinking back on yesterday, it was a good trip. There are hints that autumn isn’t far away. A few isolated branches of Maples have a tinge of color. The air is cool enough that we didn’t have to worry about sweating profusely, yet the water is still warm enough to walk in. That’ll soon change. School has begun. Before long the leaves will change and ice will begin to appear around the banks of the river, slowly working its way out into the middle of the channel. Until then, I’ll have to make the best of it.