A couple of months ago Nathaniel and I moved his johnboat from the banks of the beaver pond where it normally resides to another pond on the same property. Rain had been a bit scarce and the beaver pond was really low. Already shallow and loaded with stumps, it was really too low to get the boat in and out very well or to fish effectively. The other pond is man-made and deeper, so while it too was down, it remained fine to access and fish.
It has rained a lot here lately. In fact, our rivers have surged near flood stage a couple of times, and they remain well above normal levels, and the other pond is actually a little above normal full pool now. With that in mind, Nathaniel wanted to return his boat to the beaver pond, which is more remote and prettier than the other pond and our preferred place to fish and to keep the boat. And once we moved it, we figured we could make a quick lap to see if the fish were biting.
So we rode over there on Wednesday, loaded the boat in the back of my truck, drove to the beaver pond and slid the boat into the water. As we looked at all the cover out of the water, though, we realized that it hadn't come up at all. We also realized that it would be seriously tough to get across a couple of flats with both of us in the boat and that the wind would blow us against a lot of stumps, were we to try to fish. After studying things a bit, we re-loaded the boat in my truck and toted right back to where we'd gotten it a half hour earlier.
I was a little disappointed to not get to fish a bit. More significantly, though, I'm concerned that our little engineer friends might have abandoned the dam they built or done some remodeling and that our beaver pond might have changed permanently. I hope it's a more complex watershed issue than I can wrap my little brain around and that some day soon the water will just be back where it was. However, it being so low when we've had so much rain doesn't make me very optimistic.
I sure would miss fishing in that beaver pond.
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