Flashbacks

I get a late start on a fine day, setting out from under the highway bridge and heading upstream, which was a snap decision driven by the last bit of flood current, which would be in my favor, and a northwest wind that I could hide from on the way out, and make use of on the return by paddling opposite sides of the river. The boat launch was near full and so the fishing must be particularly good right now.

Peacock Island to the left, and Carting Island to the right. This is intuitively obvious.

I cross the river, weaving through the bridge abutments, and head up the outer channel until turning into the gap between Peacock and Carting Islands. I take a photo and amuse myself, "Carting is on the right, but that is intuitively obvious." This is an oddball flashback to the weed-out calculus courses that everyone had to endure in the first year of engineering school. Some calculus freak with a personality defect would be lecturing at the board, writing out an equation that included logarithms, PI, some variables raised to various powers, and some weird trigonometric function. The freak would then go through a dozen mathematical gymnastic contortions supposedly simplifying the gobbledeegook while solving for the integral until, with several steps left to complete, he would announce, as if it was a death sentence, "...and it is intuitively obvious that the answer is 6." Nothing was ever intuitively obvious and the last few steps would forever be a mystery. Sometimes, this is what goes through my head when I am canoeing.

I spot a Hawk far off. It moves to a perch in the trees where I cannot identify it. Then, by total chance, I catch it with the camera in mid flight. It could be a Red-Shouldered, but I think it more likely to be a Red-Tailed Hawk. I flush 29 Black Ducks from Carting Island. I spot a pair of Teal and a flush a pair of Wood Ducks near the top of the island.

From the four islands, I follow the west shore. I pass Peck's Mill, or at least where Peck's Mill was. I did some research on it this week and found pretty much nothing, except for a early 20th century newspaper article about a street car accident where several people were killed when the street car derailed off of a thirty foot tall trestle. 

I make good time to the dragonfly factory and head in to look over a creek that enters the river. 

With the late start, it is now time to head back. I cross the river, picking up a light tailwind as well as a slight ebb current. I flush four Woodies (Wood Ducks). There are still quite a few fishermen out.