Didn't see many powerboats this trip. Strange for a weekend, but it must have been the weather. A family in a big boat idled by. Then he popped it up on plane and headed on up.
"That's a lot faster than I would go on this river."
"Maybe he spends a lot of time on this river and knows it better than I do."
A man and a boy came by in a sticksteer jonboat.
Fished until about 3:15 then stopped for a break and a ham sandwich.
"Hmm, we aint exactly tearin' 'em up today."
"Want to go home?"
"Nah, let's go on up and see what we can see."
"Let's go all the way to Natural Bridge."
"How far is that? I've never been much further up than this."
"I don't know. It's between here and Georgia."
"Okay, let's go."
The man and the boy in the sticksteer came back down towing the family in the big boat, and that was the last of the powerboats I saw until I got to the end of the river.
Paddling against the current. I made it to the first No Wake sign.
"Hey, a No Wake sign. I must be getting close to the houses."
Yeah, right.
Later: "Who the heck puts a No Wake Zone out in the middle of nowhere?"
Did finally reach the houses and one of the first I came to there was a gentleman out on his dock clearing away floating weeds, so I stopped to talk.
"Hey, how ya' doing today?"
"Good how 'bout yourself?"
"Good." "How far is it up to Natural Bridge?"
"Well, you can't get all the way to Natural Bridge in a boat, but the main boil is about another mile-and-a-half." "The river opens up after about another mile and gets wide, shallow and weedy. Then the main boil is about another half mile."
I also found out the guy that put in the No Wake sign out in the middle of nowhere was lost. The No Wake Zone doesn't start until you get almost to the houses.
Went on up to where the river widens. There was a powerboat way up ahead. Picked a channel through the hydrilla and pressed on. Loads of birds in this area. Probably not any more than I had been seeing, but being a big, open area made them easier to see.
"This must be where the cattle wade the river for the grass."
"There's a deer in that yard."
"One of those fake deer like the guy on the Wakulla River has."
"It moved."
The doe walked over and nibbled on something on the side of a tree, then turned and started wandering off.
Made it to the main boil and stopped to talk to the gentleman in the powerboat I had seen earlier. He was after catfish in the spring and catching some small ones. Found out he and his wife live in one of the houses right around there. The spring boil is 72' deep. There's enough ducks in that area to make it worth going, mostly woodies and teal, but he doesn't hunt them himself because his wife likes to watch them. Took me three hours to get up here, against the current, from the time I quit fishing and started paddling. Two and a half to get back, but I fished part of the way and just let the current carry me back down.
At dark the bugs didn't get nearly as bad as I thought they would be. Didn't really get any biting bugs. The fireflies were flickering out in the woods. Bats swooping over the river. Osprey was hunting later than I thought they did, maybe he had NVGs. Almost ran over a 'gator.
Forgot to ask anybody about a public ramp up in that area.
, but hey, I tried. I put them on fish.
sounds like a great trip 
