Cedar River

I went to the south end of the big lake today. I found a place to launch in a park on the SE corner and head out towards the mouth of the Cedar River. The lake is warm, the air humid and calm, the sky is cloudy and it is a comfortable temperature for a summer day. The mouth of the river is littered with large trees that have been washed down in the spring floods. The water is shallow with the rivers deposits for quite a ways into the lake. Geese, ducks and herons are making good use of the drift logs, I even spot a female merganser, a bird that is not seen on the lake too often at this time of year. The bottom 1/4 mile of the Cedar is an easy go, the water is deep and much colder than the lake, it's source the mountains some 30 miles distant. I spook a coyote on the west bank, and it trots ahead of me for awhile, very wary of my presence. The next 1/4 mile is increasingly difficult as the river gets shallower and faster. I get out and wade for a couple hundred yards, the water never rising above mid-shin. The only way up the river at this point is to wade or pole, and I do not have a pole with me. As I descend the river, my coyote friend comes back out and flits ahead of me in the high brush.