"I'm Paddling in the Rain" (Don't worry, I'm using a camera and not singing)

I had planned to get away yesterday even though the weather wasn’t the best. But, according to forecast, the heavy rain was suppose to stay south of us and even then was suppose to end around noon. So a friend and I took off north, to a section of the Rogue River neither of us had run. The weather forecasters were wrong. It rained. At times it rained hard. It did slow down a bit later in the afternoon, but it never stayed gone. It kept raining. And the temperature was somewhere between 48 and 50 degrees (That’s a little under 10 degrees C for my readers outside the US).

But what a beautiful day to be on the water! And we didn't have to worry about navigating around other boaters. Wearing full rain gear, we set off down steam. The rain drowned the sounds of civilization (that was never far from us). The fall colors are almost at peak. The silver maples were bright yellow and gorgeous. We were joined by flocks of ducks—wood ducks that screamed as they took off in front of us and mallards that appeared more tame. There were a number of great blue herons, a few kingfishers.

And the trout! We did some fishing and did catch a few fish, some trout and a chub. There is nothing like seeing the flash of a trout as it goes for the spinner. I was using Panther Martins and my friend, who caught more fish than me, used a large Mepps spinner. I took along a fly rod but didn’t use it as it’s hard to use when someone else is in the boat. We should have brought waders. Of the fish we caught, we let go. Most were small except for one brown trout caught by my friend—and the season for Browns ended on September 30^th.