What a week

It was a crazy fun week.  The girls were out of school for the week of Thanksgiving so I wasn't able to fish much.  Instead, I took them to the "Refuge" a few times in the canoe.

I started the trip explaining to them if they saw something that can fly, swim, run, or magically disappear and they wanted to see it for more than 1 second.  The best strategy was to whisper and point it out slowly.  I further mentioned that the creatures in the "Refuge" are terribly afraid of children...aren't we all!

Play time in the swamp. I checked the area before I let them out of the canoe.

 As we're paddling?  Not really, what we were doing was slapping the water and banging the sides of the canoe with our paddles.   But were covering water and sure enough, I see a beaver sitting on top of its floating fortress.  Surprised to see anything, I didn't react quickly enough.  Just as I was about to whisper and point it out.  The silence was broken by the excited voices of my 2 little girls, "dad, it's a beaver."  The beaver, startled and confused, freaked at the sight of a 17' canoe that was bearing down on it and went away real fast.

Astonishingly, we didn't have any more close encounters as we explored the backwaters.  From a distance we saw lots water fowl, turtles, and whatever else brave enough to not run for cover as the kids screamed in delight at every natural wonder that spotted.  It really was fun.

In the middle of the week I got the invite to fish the Little Red and travel to Grand Isle, LA.  The Grand Isle trip got dismissed really quickly as my wife said something like, if you don't understand why you can't be in Grand Isle on Thanksgiving day, then we don't have anything to talk about.  I lost my decoder ring (wedding ring) like 3 years ago, so I wasn't exactly sure what she meant.  What I heard was..."I'll cut you if you're not home on Thanksgiving."

I thought about it for a few days (seriously-I'm not that bright) and eventually decided fishing the LRR during a flash flood warning was a safer alternative.  In spite of the constant rain and cool temperatures it was a stellar day...perfect streamer weather!  Not many pictures taken b/c I was busy throwing streamers to hungry trees and a few browns.  Of course my cousin sends me this picture on Friday with the caption, "Sunny and 80."

It wasn't sunny and 80 in Heber Springs but I wouldn't have traded the day.  I was with good friends and the fishing didn't suck.  I even enjoyed the weather but that's just me.  

I ended my last post mentioning some good news I wanted to share.  I'm excited to announce I teamed up with FROSCH Outdoor Travel (FOT) to develop a network of kayak related travel destinations.  Being on the water (canoes, boats, kayaks, the Navy, etc) has been a passion since I was a boy and I'm thrilled to be part of the FROSCH team.

FOT, “FROSCH sees kayak fishing and competitive tournaments in the kayak area growing rapidly, and we wanted to address the interest of our travelers and fan base. Drew was the perfect choice to help us design a program that would tick all of the boxes in the kayak world. We couldn’t do it without Ross organizing and assisting with logistics. He has been instrumental in picking the right waters, destinations and seasons for our 2016 launch calendar”.