Tim & Nancy's Kayaking Adventures: Another great day of kayaking

Today we headed to Round Lake. We hadn't been there yet this year. We wanted to get there in May to listen to the Carp spawning, but my knee surgery didn't allow us to go. If you haven't heard Carp spawning, it's quite interesting. The first time we heard it we were at Round Lake. We kept hearing loud thrashing in the weeds, but never saw anything. It was kind of creepy.

Last year Tim was traveling for work, so he didn't get to kayak very much. My son Jason went with me to Round Lake when he was home for Megan's 21st birthday. I showed him the Heron nests and the beaver lodges. We had a good time as we paddled around.

Beaver lodge last year

Today when we were at the lake we took our usual trip down the outlet at the eastern end of the Lake(Anthony Kill) It is in here where we usually see many beaver lodges and Heron (Cormorant) Nests. I was quite surprised today. We were unable to see many of the beaver lodges that are farther back in the wet areas. The cattails and grasses were quite tall. The one beaver lodge that is right along the outlet was quite overgrown with weeds & flowers. I told Tim that the beavers were using Feng Shui! The lodges looked like they had possibly been abandoned. I've never seen one with this kind of growth on it. This lead us to wonder if beavers had been trapped and re-located. Farther down the outlet we were able to kayak over a beaver dam that totally crossed the outlet last year. This time it was under water and we didn't have to ram our boats over it. We paddled as far as we could go, ending at a beaver dam that has about a 12" drop to the other side. With wetlands on each side of the dam, there is no way around it.

We headed out and paddled to Little Round Lake at the other end before heading for home.