Pachaug With Deb & The Canoe
10/11: Told Deb (My Wife) I would take her out in the canoe so, today is the day. But first, had to wait for daughter to get home to keep an eye on the granddaughter, so I went to Friendly's for a little breakfast. Came home and loaded the canoe on the Jeep by myself. Wasn't sure I could, but it worked out OK. Loaded all the gear and headed out for Pachaug Pond. Had to stop at a small shop first to see about rental for Deb's cake shop. Then up RT 12 to Pachaug with a short stop at McD's for a pee break. Not for me! There is no way she would use the port-o-potty at the boat ramp. Finally got to the ramp off of RT 138 at around 10:30. Headed south, had originally planned on going all the way to the south end, but was not to be. After an hour or so she-who-must-be-obeyed had to pee again, and of course it can't wait!
She had to take the Jeep in to get the brakes checked at Goodyear at 3:00 anyway, so she left me to fish and practice handling the canoe by myself and she would come back to pick me up at around 5:00.
That turned out to be the big issue of the day. After drifting south most of the way along the west edge to the mid-point of the pond, the wind picked up and shifted from the west to the northwest. I tried to turn the canoe around and head back to the west side, but the wind would hear none of it. I ended up about as far to the east as I could have been and still be in the water. I ended up paddling backwards, using the wind to keep the canoe straight. After what seemed like days I finally made it back to the west side and into some shelter. No SEA-TOW required. I was able to paddle back north again where I did end up catching 1 small yellow perch. That was it for the day. No bass, no white perch, no pickerel, no pike, no sun fish, nothing! Except one hell of a work out and a new respect of the low free-board/sail-area of a kayak!