It's only about ten minutes from Ron's house to the river. We arrived and put the boats down on the launch and before loading I wanted to take mine for a quick spin (just to make sure).
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Handles like a dream, stable and responsive. Ok Lets go. There used to be an old bridge at the location that the State blew up and left in the river to control erosion. There is a lot of concrete and rebar to impale yourself and/or boat on. We pick our way through without any problems and head on upstream. Both boats performed exceptionally well going into the current. We paddled several miles to a sandbar that we like to fish and seined some bait put our poles out and got to relaxing. We caught a few fish and had numerous bites.
Both boats were slimed on their maiden voyages, Matt's must include a little Mojo in each boat.
It was gettin on towards dusk and some Thunderheads were in the area and the wind picked and started lightening so we decided we had better head on back to the take-out. Even with the current the wind was blowing hard enough that we had to paddle just a little to keep heading in the right direction. We had paddled a half mile or so and I told Ron, 'Hey there is a group of wild hogs at the water drinking". Without even saying anything to each other we started easing toward them. We got to within about 15 yards from them and all ten panicked and bailed off in the water. Ohh, it's on now.
We got to chasing them, and were having a ball laughing our butts off. They would get close to the opposite bank and we would cut them off and they would turn around and head for the other side of the river. The biggest Sow (probably 175# or so) decided she had enough of this and headed to the shore, I was on her butt, but she was determined to get to the sand bar. I was a little leary about getting too close because she was big enough to do some damage (Darrell, what happened to your new boat? Ohh, a pig bite it.) Two piglets made it to the other side and I don't know how they did it, but the ran up a sheer dirt cliff and stopped at the top. Once they realized that the rest of the group was on the other side of the river they bailed back off into the water. i took one and Ron took one and we were on them. Now, for those of you have never seen a pig swim, they can swim circles and the best Labrador Retriever. So I am chasing this piglet and it's zigging and zagging but I am staying right with it. Suddenly it does a 180 and heads the other way. Well with the wind and the current I couldn't get turned around so i just threw it in reverse and in just a few yards I had caught up to it. Well it did another 180 and I dug that werner in deep and caught back up in just a couple of strokes and pulled alongside. The only handle presenting itself was a little curly tail so I grabbed hold of it. So the wind is trying push me and the current is trying to me and I have the Tiger by the tail so to speak. I am thinking to myself what are you going to do now genius. Well it did a little flop maneuver and I lost my grip and it swam to the sandbar. Once it got to the bank it lit it's afterburner and headed for the Border. By this time Ron has finished with his piglet and we pull up and just kick back in the boats and laugh till our sides hurt. Once we caught our breath from laughing it's dark so we head on in. The first obstacle coming down stream is the jumping jacks. Big steel that were put in the river upstream of said concrete and rebar to help control erosion on a bend. Usually we can paddle on the off channel side and avoid them, but the river is so low that we had to pick our way through them. We made it without any problem to the concrete and slowly picked our way through that also. We were still laughing after loading the boats and getting back to Ron's.The Northwinds performed flawlessly and I am perfectly happy with this boat. It must be pretty stable because i was reaching out and slapping the water with my paddle and reaching around catching pigs and laughing and still ended up dry. I'm sure Ron will chime in about his pig chasing experience on the other side of the River.
