We left my house at 5:25 p.m. .  Sunlight was burning and we had a full float to do.  Dave and Jonathan followed us down to Riverside and dropped off their vehicle.  We all piled into my truck and headed down to Linden and 125 hwy bridge.  Met Del and his family there.  Hit the water just before 6 pm.  Del had his hands full with the 3 youngins in the canoe and David, Jonathan and I in Kayaks stayed pretty close.  Sam and Marshall in Kayaks ran scout and we never saw them after put in.  They got back to the truck 30 minutes before us. 

The river had changed quite a bit since 2  years ago.  New trees and fallen and it was a bit more navigation to get through all the trees.  Yet it was fun.  I think we only had to get out 3 times to portage around these log jams. 

It was a perfect evening hi of 72 and no wind.  Sunny and we saw a doe standing along the river just looking at us 30 feet away.  We saw 5 geese and 2 goslings swiming along the bank as we passed by.  We saw turkey buzzards.  Hawks. Fish, Turtles.   I and David had a fish strike each and that was it for the evening.  We didn't fish all that much. 

We all did real well with a few close calls until we got into eye site of the Riverside bridge and David and Jonathan just had to show off and fill their kayaks with water at a tricky log bank.  I saw it all happen and it was refreshing for all us us to say the least!  GRIN!  All fun and it was a good float.  Missed my buddy Rob on this trip he was out selling tickets for Sight and Sound down in Oklahoma. 

We were loading up at 8:15 pm after a nice 2 and a quarter hour float. It was getting close to being dark.  The Finely from Linden to Riverside is a neat evening float.  I think the lowest water level would be right at 1.0 at Riverdale scale and there would be some dragging the bottom.  This trip at 1.46 only made me get out up by Linden at the first set of rapids but it's always shallow there because the river is so wide there.

Thank you Jesus for a nice relaxing evening.

Mark Jones 04-30.2015