April Wamhoff

Yeah!! Soft water for fishing opener! And lots of it! Now don’t get me wrong here, and let me make a statement for the record, I am not complaining. I am not complaining! But holy smokes, we got lotsa water!
As I sit here with my hand on the tiller of my small fishing boat and reflect on last summer and fall when I watched planes and helicopters draft water from Lady V to douse forest fires, I am grateful for the water. I am inconvenienced by it, and some are in worse shape than I am, but I prefer it to the drought.
Did I say with my hand on the tiller? I have a lovely run-about boat with a substantial motor on it. Gets me from mainland to my home with the 3 boys (220 pounds of 4-leggeds) in minutes. But I can’t get it in my boathouse. As a matter of fact, I can’t get the run-about into either my shore boathouse or my island boathouse. Too much water. With the boys in the boat, I can just get the fishing boat in. Without the boys, I scrape the door. Some folks in Stuntz Bay can’t get in to, or maybe better said, get their boats out of, their boathouses. Even if they can, the docks have water on them, or they must don their hip waders to get inside at all. I’m lucky to have a second boat to use that does get in and out. Beats a semi-deflated rubber raft!
Other docks are affected, too. I have only one modified dock in the water. We had to raise the legs and not push it in so far into the water, but that seems just fine. At least I have something to tie the boat up to. The beach I had last year is long gone. As reported by my coffee klatch informant, one dock owner has almost two tons, two TONS, of water in 55 gallon drums sitting on his dock to keep it from floating away!
And speaking of docks floating away, between mainland and the island, I gain dock parts and other miscellaneous debris, and of course treasures, almost every night. One night last week, on a particularly windy night, I acquired four boat bumpers and two minnow buckets! I get some campfire wood, but I think I will still have to cut wood for next year. And as a public service message to all you boaters, that floating stuff, big and little, is in the big water, too. Be careful out there.
I’ve heard beaches, picnic areas and playgrounds are under water. I certainly have less feet of shoreline and will be expecting my tax break next year. I have lotsa water in lowland areas, too. I can’t get from my home to the dock without donning the rubber knee boots. My boots are camo and pink and lovely, and, I believe, making a new fashion statement in town, but really? I am not talking about just a little water. I walk slowly and hope the dogs don’t run by me to create a wave. Some areas to the other side of the dock have even more water. If it weren’t for one or two large rocks, I could float the boat right into the channel. Gondola rides anyone?
So all of this is not fun but certainly livable. I really do feel for people who are suffering even more damage due to the rising water. And in my rant about not complaining, I see I have certainly expressed some displeasure in all this water. But I’m surely very happy we are not still in the drought and worried about real holy smokes. Mother Nature is fickle!