2004-04-21 Exploring Bass Lake with Downriver Dave

Dave and I put in next to the empty fishing dock and paddled along the shore heading to the north into what little wind there was left in the day.  The water was clean for a city lake and I could see the paddle blades clearly underwater. The lake was almost completely ringed by sandy beaches, boulders, docks, huge expensive houses with large windows.  We came across a paved concrete boat landing with a sign warning you to clean off your boats.  When I ran up the paved road, I found that it was a private boat landing for the home owners on the lake so the portage was the only public access.  Pairs of ducks and geese glided away from us or honked warnings to each other.  Around the southwest side of the lake, there were forests of dry parchment-colored cattails from last year with dozens of redwing blackbirds perched on them guarding their territories.

We circumnavigated the small lake and paddled down a dead-end channel and back out.  There was a small island with 5 uninhabited cabins in the middle of the lake and as we paddled around it, we discovered that each was guarded by a pair of geese.  The sun was going down as we got back to the canoe launch next to the fishing pier and almost dark when we put the canoe back on top of the van.  The urban paddlers have explored yet another lake in the cities.  Our goal was to check out every lake in the twin cities in the coming years.